"Couple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... us with an account of his week's experience, which ended at church to-day in a funny way. A couple came forward to be married after church, as often happens, when Sarah from this place got up and remarked that was her husband! Whereupon Mr. Philbrick was called in from the yard and promised to investigate and report. Jack said he ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sevres china in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!' exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How safe you were to have ortolans ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... spoke to the leader[11], "What is thine own name?" said Cuchulain. "One that neither loves thee nor fears thee," Buide made answer; "Buide son of Ban Blai am I, from the country of Ailill and Medb." [1]"Wella-day, O Buide," cried Cuchulain; "haste to the ford below that we exchange a couple of throws with each other." They came to the ford and exchanged a couple of throws there.[1] "Lo, here for thee this short spear," said Cuchulain, and he casts the spear at him. It struck the shield over his belly, so that it shattered three ribs in his ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... during the last months of their residence, and though they were men quite unlike each other in their pursuits, circumstances had made them intimate. It was well that Gordon should take a stroll for a couple of hours before dinner, and therefore he started off for Little Alresford. Going into the parsonage gate he was overtaken by Blake, and of course introduced himself. "Don't you remember ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... girlie! I wish I could do something for you. But we have to go a couple of miles further yet. Can ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Rainer. It's likely that we shall be in Yarmouth in a couple of days, and you may depend upon my looking up the old woman as soon after ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... said; "I've had many harder jobs. You leave it with me for a couple of days, and we'll see what ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... porch, the two women within doors remained comparatively silent, till the storm rose almost to a hurricane. The gloominess of the night seemed to oppress them, and they sat before the hearth till the fire had nearly smouldered out, leaving only a couple of large pointed brands of what had been a back-log, protruding from a bed of ashes, that grew whiter and deeper with each coal that crumbled away ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... the other might—in the way of opportunities, I mean. And then we should be a novelty as married people. We're both rather unusually popular—why not be frank!—and it's such a blessing for dinner-givers to be able to count on a couple of whom neither one is a blank. Yes, I really believe we should be more than twice the success we are now; at least," she added with a smile, "if there's that amount of room for improvement. I don't know how you feel; a man's popularity is so much less precarious ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... he went on more lightly, "I may say you have had a good teacher. Now, Jack, you are very high up in mathematics. Far higher than I was at your age; and I have not the slightest doubt that you will in a couple of years be able to take the best open scholarship of the year at Cambridge, if you try for it. That would keep you at college, and you might hope confidently to come out at least as high as I did, ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... seems to take a delight in thwarting me today! I swore a few times, rose from the seat, and took a couple of turns up and down the path. It was very quiet all around me; down near the Queen's arbour two nursemaids were trundling their perambulators; otherwise, there was not a creature anywhere in sight. I was in a thoroughly embittered ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... with unusual magnificence to celebrate the entry of the newly-married couple into Vienna. The imperial cortege was to stop at the cathedral of St. Stephen, there to witness the bridals of twenty-five young couples, all of whom the empress had dowered in honor of her son's ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... true: a bride rarely conceives the first night, and certainly would not know that she had conceived. Moreover the number of courses furnished by the bridegroom would be against conception. It is popularly said that a young couple often undoes in the morning what it has done during ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... somethin' to eat, and then throw a saddle on Dex and I'll give you a couple of letters to take to The Junction. And, come to think, you might as well keep right on fannin' it for Stacey and home. They can use you over to the ranch. The missus and me'll take ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... lived honestly and decently, and increased and multiplied, they and their children would once in the course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on silver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones crept into their shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple governed in the forest, and had a numerous progeny, but they were never boiled, and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they concluded that the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the men in the world were extinct; and as no one contradicted ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... Confederacy and had been stanch cronies. We had also been in considerable mischief together; and his wife seemed to know me by reputation as well as I knew her husband. Before the wire edge wore off my visit I was as free with the couple as though they had been my own brother and sister. The fact was all too visible that they were struggling with poverty, though lightened by cheerfulness, and to remain long a guest would have been an imposition; accordingly I began to skirmish for something to do—anything, it ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... or whatever it may be called with Weisspriess, he lay all night out on the mountains. He managed to get the help of a couple of fellows, who led him at dusk into Meran, saw an Italian name over a shop, and—I will say for them that the rascals hold together. There he is, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down in a couple of comfortable easy-chairs while the Resident went around a large desk and sat down in a swivel chair behind it. He smiled a little and looked at McLeod. "Hm-m-m. Ah, yes. Very good." It was as though he had received information of some kind on an unknown subject ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... not perhaps wish to be seen in this room, which was for the present only lighted by a couple of candles; but HE was not at all abashed by the circumstance, and grasping them both warmly by the hands, he instantly made himself at home. "As friends of my dear and talented friend Mick," so he is pleased to call me, "I'm deloighted, madam, to be made known to ye. Don't consider me ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Timothy, hearken to me," said the Grandfer earnestly. "Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man if you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell 'ee lots about the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went up the country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen of 'em since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought 'em home again man and woman—wife, that is. Isn't it spoke like a man, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... wearing much longer, affording a better protection to the fingers, and not scraping the skin off the knuckles as the wicker-baskets too often do. The basket has a hole on either side; one close to the rim, and the other about a couple of inches from the edge. In putting your basket on, put your stick through the former first, as otherwise you will not be able to get a grip of your stick or any room for the ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... a couple of brief visits abroad, Browning spent the years, between his first appearance as a dramatic writer and his marriage, in London and the neighbourhood. Occasionally he took long walks into the country. One particular ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... dragging the boar after them, fastening it to the saddle-bow, and so carrying it back to the chateau; but Roland pointed out that it was simpler to send a couple of men for it with a barrow. Sir John being of the same opinion, Edouard—who never ceased pointing to the wound in the head, and saying, "That's my shot; that's where I aimed"—Edouard, we say, was forced to yield to the majority. The ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... hospital the rush of work did not usually allow the careful observation necessary to clear up this difference in the development of the symptoms. Nevertheless it is preferable to consider the cases in which transitory symptoms persist for a period of hours, or even a couple of days, as instances of pure concussion, unless the existence of this condition can be disproved ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... there was no drink stronger than tea at that merry-making, yet the revellers were wonderfully uproarious and very happy, and it was universally admitted that, exclusive of course of the bride and bridegroom, the happiest couple there were a wrinkled old woman of fabulous age and her ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sergeant of the Guards and a fairly wealthy landed proprietor, Alexyei Sergyeitch Telyegin, on his ancestral estate, Sukhodol. He never went anywhere himself, and therefore did not visit us; but I was sent to pay my respects to him a couple of times a year, at first with my governor, and later on alone. Alexyei Sergyeitch always received me very cordially, and I spent three or four days with him. He was already an old man when I made his acquaintance; I remember that I was twelve years old at ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... said "Yes" to a merchant's clerk, when she might have said it to a merchant's son. Aunt Pen watched and approved this stratagem, hoped for the best results, and believed the day won when Debby grew pale and silent, and followed with her eyes the young couple who were playing battledoor and shuttlecock with each other's hearts, as if she took some interest in the game. But Aunt Pen clashed her cymbals too soon; for Debby's trouble had a better source than jealousy, and in the silence of the sleepless nights that stole her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... shocked, neither was he quite surprised. He was accustomed to the thought that a woman's love was a thing to purchase. One man bought it from her father for a couple of oxen, another from herself for an establishment and a diamond tiara. It was the same principle in both cases. He had never considered Miriam Strange as being without a price; his difficulty had been in knowing what it was. The establishment and the diamond tiara having proved as indifferent ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... Sunday at mid-day, Nilushka passed into the other world. That day, after returning home from late Mass, and handing to his mother a couple of wafers which had been given him as a mark of ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... finds a rival in another house, wealthier, though of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of months of every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous tone and short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of fashion, though she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is always behind the mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected by her neighbors. Her ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... fishing boat glided slowly, its taut sails gleaming as the sunlight smote them, like the snowy pinions of some vast bird brooding over the quiet water; and high in the air, just beneath a strip of orange cloud as filmy as lace, a couple of happy pigeons circled round and round, each time nearing the sun, that was rapidly paving ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... we were not particularly sober either; and I was very green at that time, and made a fool of myself about Lalage: staring; clapping like a madman in the middle of her songs; getting into the way of everybody and everything, and so on. Then a couple of fellows we knew turned up, and we got chatting at the wing with some girls. At last a fellow came in with a bag of cherries; and we began trying that old trick—you know—taking the end of a stalk between your lips and drawing the cherry into the mouth without touching it with your hand, you know. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... said, 'These are very delightful functions, no doubt; but they are a little long, and somehow they always make me very hot and tired and headachy. What do you ladies say to taking a run out into the country for a couple of hours, and getting home just in time for dinner? You can't dress to-night, thank goodness, and so you can't expect ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... regarding nothing,—neither the ruts in the dirty lane, nor the young primroses which were fast showing themselves on the banks, nor the gathering clouds which might have told him of the coming rain. He went on for a couple of miles, till he had nearly reached the outskirts of the colony of Hoggle End, and then he sat himself down upon a gate. He had not been there a minute before a few slow drops began to fall, but he was altogether ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... who mentions the virtue of the sitz-bath in those cases, and as I am probably the first who ventured to use it, with one of my own children, in 1836, when all seemed to fail, I shall corroborate my advice by a couple of cases. ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."[39] Again in Matthew xix, 9, he makes the same exception. It is evident, therefore, that Jesus permitted divorce for one cause. If the wife was unfaithful the husband could divorce her, but otherwise no matter how unhappy the couple might be, they ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... undergoing such complete renovation, is situated about a couple of miles from Cannon Hall, and its owner at this date afforded endless food for discussion both in Yorkshire ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... is alone necessary to form the plant. The plant may be kept in nursery with advantage for nearly two years. Should they grow rapidly, and the interspaces become too small for them, every second plant had better be removed to a fresh nursery; and set out at a distance of a couple of feet from each other. When transplanted, either in this way or for their ultimate position in the plantation, care should be taken to remove them with a good ball of earth, secured by the skin of the plantain, which prevents ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... take it that way!" Crump remarked, not without gratification. "But it ain't so bad as that, Mr. Nicol." And he went on to explain, with a variety of nautical metaphors, that the couple, an elderly man and a young girl supposedly his grandchild, had appeared in Chepstow some weeks ago during fair-time; that the young woman "took observations," which I translated to mean that she told fortunes, supporting them ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... while. Then a loop was made on the centre lath; the wet kite was found to balance well; wings were made, and a long string with a marble tied in the thumb of a glove attached to the end for a tail; the ball of new string taken off the top of the drawers, and the happy couple went off in high glee ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... did go; and there she was with him for a couple of hours. He's the most unmeaning upstart of a puppy I ever met. He has not three ideas in the world. I shall tell Eva ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... and blue ink, and a seal with bits of make-believe gold speckled about in it like a ladybird's wings—I hate all make-believes, all shams; they're worse than poison;—and stinking of some outlandish scent, so that I'm forced to smoke a couple of pipes extra to get rid of the smell; and latterly, as if this folly was not enough, he has crammed these precious scrawls into a sort of paper-bag, pasted together just as if o' purpose to make us pay double postage. Jackanapes did I call ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... said Racksole quickly, 'I don't want any "I'm afraids." This is business. If you had been the ordinary hotel clerk I should have slipped you a couple of sovereigns into your hand, and the thing would ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... this they were interrupted by the arrival of Big Swinton, George Blazer, and Grummidge with another find, which afterwards cost them much trouble and regret—namely, a couple of young lads, natives, whom they led into camp with their wrists tightly bound ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... water right a fair price. Financing a farming operation depends more upon the man than upon the good land. There are men who would, by intensive cultivation of salable stuff and right use of water, pay off the full value of the land from its produce in a couple of years. Others will never pay off. Of course, the nearer you can come to paying for the land at the beginning, and the more money you have for improvements, the more satisfactory your situation should be in every ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... to be trusted. What savages really are, Gordon? Thanks, my lad," he said, as I dug up and placed a couple of fern-roots with their spreading fronds in the basket, so as to completely cover the fine gravel at the bottom, and the gold. "We must wash it again when we get back," he continued, "and then divide it in two equal portions, ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Barnaby all day, and wandering about the most wretched and distressful streets for a couple of hours in the evening—searching for some pictures I wanted to build upon—I went at it, at about ten o'clock. To say that the reading that most astonishing and tremendous account has constituted an epoch in my life—that I shall never forget ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... Meat Bridge, went through Kaiser Street and the White Tower to St. James's Place. Some people looked at the odd couple in amazement. When they reached Frau Hadebusch's little house, it was dark. "Listen, Philippina, are you ever going to talk?" ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... me a couple of chairs,' said the duchess, 'I will sit down in the gangway with the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... Periods and commas, various (in the poetry footnotes). The text appears worn; there is space for a period (and a couple of letters are missing), so I am assuming that the missing punctuation may have been rubbed off ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... few months o' the War, An' the vessel wot I was on Was layin' a couple of cables from shore; I'd pulled to the steps in the scullin' boat To get some thread for the skipper's coat Where the seam of the arm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... stern land, are common, and always the people seem steeled to meet them. And so in silence they led the way into the cabin, and in silence they sat, uttering no word, while Skipper Ed related what had happened. And though still there was no crying and no wailing from the stricken couple, Skipper Ed knew that they felt no less keenly their loss, and he knew that they had lost what was dearer to them than ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... affectionate couple plodded on during five years in their humble little home in Wardour Street, always with the long journey to Rome before them. It was never lost sight of for a moment, and not a penny was uselessly spent that could be saved towards the necessary expenses. They said no ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... advised me then and wisely I believe, though there have been times when I've wished I hadn't listened to them. They told me with the privilege of life-long service, that I'd made a brilliant failure of my raising of Cecil. They advised me to hunt up some worthy couple unburdened with children of their own and force the child upon them, to rear in simple, sensible ways, I to pay such a sum as would provide for the child's actual necessities. No more. I listened and the notion ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... don't come youse'll be damn sorry, Mister. You've plugged a couple o' our fellas pretty bad an' y'aint goin' to git away with ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... young couple are to live in future with the Grand Duke they will not want any Plate, but if they are to have a separate menage, then they will want it. I shall find it out by and by. I wonder that the Duchess likes to part with her fine sapphires. I thought the turquoises had been intended ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... beat it! But I'm goin' to take a couple of 'em, anyway." Disgusted, filled with red anger, he flung the phones from his head, watched Praed's plane whirl its stubby nose for home, settled himself alertly in the low, padded seat and concentrated his attention ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... back in a couple of weeks; I'll only lose three lessons and surely, Pat, you'll forgive me if I desert you for that one glimpse of my darling Nan and ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... "Fan, we're a couple of weaklings, both of us, to have sprung from a mother like ours. I don't know which is worse; my selfishness, or yours." Then, at the hurt that showed in her face, he was all contrition. "Forgive me, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... I handed him his nite drink uv rye whisky flavored with bourbon, that he hed one hold, ez Delaware hed sustained him. A flush uv satisfaction passed over his nose, but it subsided in an instant. "Troo," gasped he, "it's ourn now; but before the next election a couple uv them Massachoosits ablishnists will buy the cussid State, and re-people it to soot em;" and he gave a convulsive gasp, and sank ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... of the Empire Stock Company and afterward in advance of John Drew, in "That Imprudent Young Couple." He left the job, however, and soon returned to ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... the boys did in heder that I could not have done—if I had not been a girl. For a girl it was enough if she could read her prayers in Hebrew, and follow the meaning by the Yiddish translation at the bottom of the page. It did not take long to learn this much,—a couple of terms with a rebbetzin (female teacher),—and after that she was done ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... couple," breathed Joshua Stillman, standing beside the blazing fireplace with Colonel Stratton. "She's like a dewy sweet rosebud and he's a regular story-book lover in looks and a rare fine boy. We haven't had a wild rose romance like this ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... that De la Rey made his coup at Uitval's Nek, Grobler had shown his presence on the north side of the town by treating very roughly a couple of squadrons of the 7th Dragoon Guards which had attacked him. By the help of a section of the ubiquitous O battery and of the 14th Hussars, Colonel Lowe was able to disengage his cavalry from ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of plans and ends in the parties. This is much wanting in women, who think chiefly of persons, little of laborious aims. Two girls, who live in a multitude of evaporating impulses and dreams it were as easy to yoke a couple of humming-birds, and make them draw. Because the polarity of a grand fixed purpose is absent from it, the mind of many a woman is a heap of petty antipathies; and, where the likings are fickle, the dislikings are pretty sure to be tenacious. A keen student of human nature ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... box, and found what he wanted. It was a small object scarcely a couple of inches in length. He fastened the wires of the electric machine quickly to it, and then imbedded it in a small piece of blubber which he lowered, as before, ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... the pretty blue bedchamber, passed through ceilings and floors into the little parlour, terrified Harry, and opened all Catherine's water-gates and speech-gates. I had but just time to collect two dogs, a couple of sheep, a pair of bantams, and a brace of gold fish; for, in the haste of my zeal to imitate my ancestor Noah, I forgot that fish would not easily be drowned. In short, if you chance to spy a little ark with pinnacles sailing towards Jersey, open the skylight, and you ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... six feet in height, of figure rather graceful and harmonious than massive. A black velveteen jacket fitted closely to his shape; he had on a Tyrolese hat; his boots, of thin, pliant leather, reached above the knee. He carried a stout cane, with a handle of chamois-horn; to a couple of straps, crossing each shoulder, were attached a travelling-scrip and ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Gate (HUTCHINSON) is that its author, MAUD STEPNEY RAWSON, found herself with two stories to choose from, one of the Gate itself, and another of the romance of Lydia and John Wodrush. In my opinion she chose the wrong one. The history of the Wodrush elopement, compressed to a couple of pages, seems to me far more original and interesting than the present rather unwieldy tale. The Magic Gate is a war-novel confessed, and I can only fancy that the thronging new sensations of the past three years have proved a little too much for Mrs. RAWSON'S sense of form. She is so anxious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various
... groom began housekeeping. Her wedding outfit was a feather bed, a frying-pan, a dinner-pot, and some wooden and pewter plates. She was just the kind of a woman to be the mother of patriots and to make the Revolution a success. The couple had been married nine years, when the news of the marching of the British upon Lexington reached Boscawen, on the afternoon of the 20th of April, 1775. Captain Coffin mounted his horse and rode to Exeter, to ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... not know yet what had happened, and he was admitted. Then, in his wild despair, he told them all, begging them to give him a couple of hundreds only of the four hundred thousand which he had stolen in order to give them to Miss Brandon,—a hundred only, to enable him to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... to drink "Prosperity to the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution," and I beg to couple with that toast the name of its noble President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is written in all his deeds, and who has communicated to his title and his riches a lustre which no title and no riches ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... her window watched the scene—the tall figure of his Excellency—the bowed woman—the throng of officials and of mourners. Over the head of the Governor-General a couple of flags swelled in a light breeze—the Union Jack and the Maple Leaf; beyond the heads of the crowd there was a distant glimpse of the barracks of the Mounted Police; and then boundless prairie and ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and had lain with the ink dry upon them ever since the outbreak of the Dutch War. The two men were half a minute in finding a couple that would write. Then Captain Runacles turned the hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons on the roof, and the creaking of ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the Principalities was despatched to St. Petersburg by England and France, the Czar kept a haughty silence, and at the end of March war was declared. In the event the Principalities were evacuated a couple of months later, but the state of war continued. On September 14, English, French, and Turkish troops disembarked on the shores of the Crimea, and on the 20th of the month was fought the battle of the Alma. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... remembered the time he put out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round, and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby. Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game and taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone through the mill himself, that ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... remarked, in a patrician tone of disgust. "I lived for two years where these things grow. The memory of their taste lingers with you. The oranges are not so bad. Just see if you can gather a couple of them, O'Day, when the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... foreleg, then the other, and sank to his knees. Jane slipped her left foot in the stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a ringing stamp. It was not easy for Jane to hold him to a canter through the grove, and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage. Jane let him have a couple of miles of free running on the open trail, and then she coaxed him in and waited for her companion. Lassiter was not long in catching up, and presently they were riding side by side. It reminded her how she used to ride with Venters. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... a living, farming, it would have to come from trees, not row crops. He was what I would call a self-educated man. He had small chance of formal education, being the sickly son, one of eight sons and three daughters, of a couple who eked out an existence on the poor, unproductive, sandy, soils of Crawford County, Georgia, growing the one and only cash crop of those days, cotton. The combined wages of these boys often amounted to more cash money than their own cotton crop returned because the supplier got most of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... March, 1804, the Senate had determined on offering Bonaparte the Imperial dignity, he immediately gave his wife full powers, with order to form her household of persons who, from birth and from their principles, might be worthy, and could be trusted to encompass the Imperial couple. She consulted Madame Remusat, who, in her turn, consulted her friend De Segur, who also consulted his bonne amie, Madame de Montbrune. This lady determined that if Bonaparte and his wife were desirous to be served, or waited on, by ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... its protectorate to join with Italian Somaliland and form the new nation of Somalia. In 1969, a coup headed by Mohamed SIAD Barre ushered in an authoritarian socialist rule that managed to impose a degree of stability in the country for a couple of decades. After the regime's collapse early in 1991, Somalia descended into turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy. In May 1991, northern clans declared an independent Republic of Somaliland that now includes the administrative ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stern-ports on the main-deck could only return the fire by two quarter-deck 6-pounders. Lieutenant Watkins accordingly resolved to venture on the somewhat hazardous experiment of blowing away part of the stern to allow a couple of guns to be run out. The firemen were called with their buckets ready to extinguish the flames should they burst out, and two 12-pounders being pointed astern in the cabin, soon made a clear breach, through ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... urgent, so at last his father said: "Yes, there is a black stone to be found a couple of hundred miles from here, over that way," pointing as he spoke. "It is the only thing on earth I am afraid of, for if it should happen to hit me on any part of my body it would hurt me very much." The West made this important circumstance ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... colored I passed an old fellow sitting on the sidewalk. There was somthing of that venerable, dignified, I've-been-a-slave look about him, so much of it that I almost stopped to question him. Inside I entered a classroom, where a young woman was in conference with a couple of sheepish youngsters who had been kept in ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... reality, have taken Anita's modest allowance for a couple of years to buy Gamechick. Mrs. ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... vessel in which I sailed, among the few passengers, Mrs. and Mr. John Gilbert, a well-known dramatic couple, who were extremely agreeable and genial, the husband abounding in droll reminiscences of the stage; a merry little German musician named Kreutzer, son of the great composer; and a young Englishwoman with ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... That night the young couple talked it over. They had a few hundred dollars saved, sewed in a belt and in a dress bodice. They got the money out and recounted it. In the morning they told their host how much money they had and offered to give him all of this money for his farm. He was to leave them a yoke ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... it best, Miss Boyce, as I had unexpectedly a couple of spare hours this evening, to come and let you know how things were going. You understand that the case comes on at the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... needle, giving up her nights and days to play and idleness; no silly lover could have been more foolish than she. The Sun-king, in great wrath at all this, concluded that the husband was the cause of it, and determined to separate the couple. So he ordered him to remove to the other side of the river of stars, and told him that hereafter they should meet only once a year, on the seventh night of the seventh month. To make a bridge over ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... also in this place be proper to mention the crooked lines or Braces, which couple two or three words or lines together that tend to the same ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... degree exhilarating; and the little captain was the happiest person on board, where all was merriment and rejoicing. The boat was to go down the lake as far as Isle La Motte, where the party would spend a couple of hours on shore, and return by six o'clock in the afternoon. This program was carried out to the letter, without any accident, or any nearer approach to one than a thunder-shower and squall. When the little captain saw the tempest ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... I didn't. I told 'em I didn't know yet. I was cal'latin' to hire a couple of dozen men and a boy to count it, and soon's the job was finished I'd get out a proclamation. What did you ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... road, two miles out from Shiloh Church, were fired upon. A body of Rebels rushed through the woods, and captured several officers and men. The Seventieth, Seventy-second, and Forty-eighth Ohio, of General Sherman's division, were sent out upon a reconnoissance. They came upon a couple of Rebel regiments, and, after a sharp action, drove them back to a Rebel battery, losing three or four prisoners and taking sixteen. General Lewis Wallace ordered out his division, and moved up from Crump's Landing a mile or two, and the troops ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... it, but mind you, Mac, not a word of this to the sisters. We are a couple of old fools to be matchmaking so soon but I see what is before me and it's a comfort to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... ruck or wrinkle; in long illnesses the skin becomes chafed and bed-sores may be produced by neglect of this simple precaution. The complaint that a child throws off the bed-clothes is easily remedied by a couple of bits of tape tied on either side loosely from the sheet or blanket to the sides ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... been sent to a couple of village schools to acquire the ordinary accomplishments taught at those places, and for three years to the grammar school at Grantham, then conducted by an old gentleman named Mr. Stokes. He had not ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... in the Government House in Calcutta! Viceroys, tigers, horse-racing, elephants, jealousies, flirtations, deaths, all now forgotten, and if not forgotten, at rest; and now glad to watch life unfolding itself again in an English village, this old couple sat in the calm sunlight of an English garden, relics of another generation, emblems of an England ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... the likeness, I see, master," replied Tristram, joining in the laugh. "How say you, Mab?" he added to his granddaughter, who at that moment returned with a jug and a couple of drinking-horns. "Whom does ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his opinion, it would be an advisable plan for the governor to contrive to despatch a couple of Japanese vessels without telling Faranda that he would give him any present, or any fathers to accompany him. He should show signs that he wishes to detain Faranda, in order to ascertain his intention in this way; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... voices arises, a unanimous rush is made to the water, cooking fires are kindled in all directions, and in ten minutes a scene of (it may be) utter desolation becomes full of life and activity. For a couple of hours the columns continue to file in, until all the hillsides are covered with tents. Then, far into the night, is heard the braying of mules, the shouts of drivers, and the rattling of wheels, as the heavy wagon trains toil to the place of rest. All through the evening prevails ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mused, her eyes absently wandered to a couple under a tree some twenty yards beyond them. There was something familiar in the girl's graceful back, and, as she turned her fresh face to look at her companion, Halcyone saw that it was ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... declared that an artist ought to be a man of the world; that it was his duty to maintain his dignity; that painters in general dressed like shoemakers; that their manners were excruciatingly vulgar, and that they were people of no education. His studio was a pattern of elegance; he kept a couple of magnificent footmen; took a number of dandified pupils; had his hair curled; dressed half-a-dozen times a-day in various fantastical costumes. He was perpetually rehearsing improvements in his way of receiving visitors; meditating on all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... hampered with luggage. When finally the train was driven into the glare of the station, and the usual roar and confusion began, he took his small bag in his hand and rapidly made his way through the crowd; then out and down the broad stone steps, and into a gondola. In a couple of minutes he was completely away from all that glare and bustle and noise; nothing around him but darkness and an ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... could do in the way of classics. Eugene Burnouf, after perusing a very defective essay which I wrote for the Volney Prize in 1847, chose me as a pupil. M. and Mme. Adolphe Garnier were extremely kind to me. They were a charming couple, and Madame Garnier, radiant with grace and devoid of affectation, first inspired me with admiration for a kind of beauty from which theology had sequestered me. With M. Victor Le Clerc I had brought before my eyes all those ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of the two who seemed to calculate the better, actually calculated the worse. The luncheon went off merrily. Very soon, seated in a little drawing-room newly decorated, before a cheerful fire which gave warmth and made our hearts expand as in spring time, I felt compelled to make this loving couple a guest's compliments on the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... been favourable, and we regret to say that we have found in the closing scenes of our Legislature no reason to alter our opinions.' Then follows a scathing account of the 'work done,' in which occur such references as:—'With the exception of a couple of members, no one had the sense or manliness to go into the question of confederation'; and 'The most surprising feature of the whole affair was this—that most of the speakers seemed not to have the faintest conception of the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... sad reminders of the terrible Mohammedan rebellion of a generation ago, crowd up to the very walls on the near side of the town. Outside the South Gate is the station, and not far distant the Chinese house which an enterprising French couple had turned into a very comfortable inn, where I stayed the three days needed for arranging my caravan and seeing the sights of ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... asked Caesar for two things, which he promised me,—first, to take Lygia from the house of Aulus, and second to give her to thee. Hast thou not a knife there under the folds of thy toga? Perhaps thou wilt stab me! But I advise thee to wait a couple of days, for thou wouldst be taken to prison, and meanwhile Lygia would ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... All the tickets being sold here for six nights (three visits of two nights each), the suite complain of want of excitement already, having been here ten hours! Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, with a couple of servants, and a pretty little child-daughter, were in the train each night, and I talked with them a good deal. They are reported to have made an enormous fortune by acting among the Californian gold-diggers. My cold is no better, for ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... take the large end, put it on in cold water, let simmer for a couple of hours, then take out and drain; cut off skin, and part of the fat and put it in the oven to finish cooking. The skin I save for use on the griddle, the fat I render and use the dripping for salads. After baking, serve hot or ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... at eight A.M., and started again shortly after. Our horses to-day were most miserable caricatures, and it was with difficulty we managed to progress at all. The last stage was accomplished at a walk; and what with this and the delay caused by a couple of sandy river-beds, we only reached Kurnaul at ten P.M. The miserable condition of the horses was accounted for by the enormously high price of grain and the absence of grass, in consequence of the want of rain. The general topic, in fact, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... got on as fast as we could, but darkness came on us before we reached the Chagres River and we had to stay all night at a native hut. We had some supper consisting of some very poor coffee, crackers, and a couple of eggs apiece, and had to sleep out under a tree where we knew we might find lizards, snakes, and other poisonous reptiles, and perhaps a thieving monkey might pick ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Latterly she had begun to consider whether she might not secure the praise, without incurring the blame, by writing novels of a different kind. With a view to perfecting a new story of adventure and perfectly respectable love, she determined to isolate herself for a couple of months. As certain Irishmen played a part in her story, she fixed upon Connacht as the place of her retirement, intending to study the romantic Celt on his native soil. A house advertised in the columns of The Field seemed to offer her the opportunity ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... the women moste communely are appareilled ylike. The men weare vpon their heades shallowe copin tackes, comming but behinde with a taile of a handefull and a haulfe long, and as muche in breadth: whiche thei fasten vnder their chinnes, for falling or blowing of, with a couple of strynges of ribbande lace, as we doe our nighte cappes. Their married women wear on their heades, fine wickre Basquettes of a foote and a haulf long: rounde, and flatte on the toppe like a barrelle. Whiche are either garnished with chaungeable ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... for those which I give here are the only ones which I could find in print; and if I asked the Japanese to tell me others, they only thought I was laughing at them, and changed the subject. The stories of the Tongue-cut Sparrow, and the Old Couple and their Dog, have been paraphrased in other works upon Japan; but I am not aware of their having been literally ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... time to find out for yourself, lad. Take a couple of turns around, an' I'll guarantee you'll agree that Peter Sitz an' I are not tryin' to make ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... pretty well sure they ain't anything of the kind. They are pirates—I guess the same two vessels I heard them talking about down at Rio. They have been doing no end of damage there. There were pretty nigh a dozen ships missing, and they put them all down to them. However, a couple of English frigates had come into Rio, and hearing what had happened had gone out to chase them. They hadn't caught them, and the Brazilians thought that they had shifted their quarters and gone for ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... Above, through streaming air, the sky showed faintly blue, and a campanile to the right loomed pale and uncertain like a ghost. The sound of innumerable bells floated over the still city. Hardly a soul was abroad; here and there a couple of dusty peasants were trudging in with baskets of eggs and jars of milk and oil; a boat passed down to the fishing, and the oar knocked sleepily in the rowlock as she cleared the bridge. And above, on the heights of Mont' Oliveto, the tapering ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... couple of pleasure trips with my friend, Lannes," replied John. "Between trips I was a prisoner of the Germans, and I've seen a lot of the great battle. Has ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... matters [3].' When he was nineteen, he married a lady from the State of Sung, of the Chien-kwan family [4], and in the following year his son Li was born. On the occasion of this event, the duke Chao sent him a present of a couple of carp. It was to signify his sense of his prince's favour, that he called his son Li (The Carp), and afterwards gave him the designation of Po-yu [5] (Fish Primus). No mention is made of the birth of any other children, though we know, from Ana. V. i, that ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... ill, and my grandfather, clergyman there at the time, had to do duty for him. One fine summer evening, about 7 o'clock, a young man and woman came to get some papers filled up, as they were going to be married. My grandfather was with the couple in the session clerk's room, no doubt attending to the papers, when suddenly all three saw through the window a funeral procession passing along the road. From their dress the bulk of the mourners seemed to be farm labourers—indeed the young woman recognised some of them as ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... all these things that you went to seek in my father's house. Since I went under spells, many a man have I ran at before you met me. They had but one word amongst them: they could not keep me, nor manage me, and they never kept me a couple of days. But when I fell in with you, you kept me till the time ran out that was to come from the spells. And now you shall go home with me, and we will make a wedding in my ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... like that. It's sort of caked and crusty. And I think some of that coating has broken away in a couple spots, and they are like scabs on the sores, only ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... (at T. R.'s suggestion) before real business of conference begins. Plan outlined to Knox, who likes it, and subsequently, in H. H.'s office, draws up letter for Governors. Draft shown to T. R., who suggests a couple of added sentences emphasizing that the nomination must come as a real popular demand, and declaring that the Governors are taking their action not for his sake, but for the sake of the country. Knox takes copy ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... about twelve feet long; six of them are carrying it on poles, three to a side, and a couple more are walking behind it. Mark, do you think it could be ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... my friend and I set out a pied, followed by a couple of stout deer-hounds. We made directly for a part of the woods where it was known to my friend that the striped maple grew in great plenty. It has been stated already, that the moose are particularly fond of these trees, and there we would ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... trouble yourself with the Spot Cash, says you," said Skipper George. "We'll lend you a spar an' a couple o' ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... till they came in sight Of a couple of windows shining bright. Then J. M. stopped and held up his stick. "Yonder's your house," he said. "Be quick! I'll count very slowly, but you must be As far as the gate by twenty-three; And when I have counted twenty-four You ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... sport of or treated rudely. I saw him on one occasion when a couple of passing hoodlums jeered at him. He turned and gave them a look so full of mingled dignity, pain, and surprise, that the low fellows were abashed, and uttering a forced laugh, with averted faces they hurried ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... a blow!" said Bilbil indignantly. "That is not quite true, Prince Inga. You did not fight, I admit, but I struck a couple of times to good purpose, and I claim to have ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum |
