"Mantel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the marble mantel chimed the hour of four, causing a general movement of surprise. "'Pon my soul! had no idea it was that late," exclaimed Mr. Thornton, taking out his watch, while Hugh Mainwaring, touching an ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... room, to room, all filled with the antique, till you get leg-weary. The floors are exquisitely beautiful—some in fine old black oak, let in, in patterns; others are bricks and tiles, in mosaic. Then the old mantel-pieces are wonderfully fine. We saw plenty of tapestry, old as the hills; and one set of hangings was the history of David and Bathsheba. Some of the bedsteads are very curious. One belonged to Francis I. Perhaps the largest and ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... there were scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollection the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man, while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools of a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room was the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not: on the contrary, it became, if anything, clearer. There was a reading lamp on the table which threw a strong circle of light upon the bent head of the reader. Then Will Challice began to tremble and his knees gave way. The clock ticked on the mantel-shelf: else there was no sound: the College was wrapped and lapped in ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... afraid, and both were as icily tranquil as the thing upon the bed. You could not hear anything except the clock upon the mantel. Colonel Musgrave went to the mantel, opened the clock, and with an odd deliberation removed the pendulum from its hook. Followed one metallic gasp, as of indignation, and ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the mantel-piece. She wore a beautiful gown, a long string of diamonds was twisted about her neck, and her soft, black hair was coiled high after a foreign fashion, and held in place by a large diamond comb. As he entered she turned ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... again, sent off the visiting justices to look after various pleas of the Crown, among which was a question of defaults. These gentlemen began their milking process in September, 1194. It was discovered that an old tribute of an expensive mantel had been paid in times past by Lincoln See to the King. This pall was a matter of 100 marks (say L2,000 of our money). In the long vacancy and under Bishop Walter there had been no payment, and the royal claim was ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... sides. Mrs. Howard, a plump, voluble dame, met Rilla gushingly and left her in the parlour while she went to call Irene. Rilla threw off her rain-coat and looked at herself critically in the mirror over the mantel. Hair, hat, and dress were satisfactory—nothing there for Miss Irene to make fun of. Rilla remembered how clever and amusing she used to think Irene's biting little comments about other girls. Well, it had ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... there was a painting of a girl over the mantel and that the girl was Mary Ogden. He stepped forward eagerly, almost holding his breath. The portrait ended at the tiny waist, and the stiff satin of the cuirass-like bodice was softened with tulle which seemed to float about the sloping ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the work of a moment to change the time of the little clock that ticked softly on the mantel, and then Patty slipped into the next room. Cousin Elizabeth's watch lay on her dressing-table, and as it was a little stem-winder just like Patty's own, it was easy to turn the tiny ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... left alone, and, as it still wanted some time to Nicholas's appointment, she stood by the fire, looking at herself in the glass over the mantel. Reflectively raising a lock of her hair just above her temple she uncovered a small scar. That scar had a history. The terrible temper of her late husband—those sudden moods of irascibility which had made ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... or significant of places he had seen. The room which had been secured from the landlord was the parlor of the tavern; long and low, colonial in the very smell of the tapestry carpet, with doors and mantel that made one think of John Adams and General Washington. The walls had a certain terror in them, a kind of suspense, as when a jury sits petrified while their foreman announces a verdict of death. A long line of portraits in oil produced this impression. The faces of ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... framed picture, representing Truth lying drowned at the bottom of a well, stood on the mantel-piece; indeed, there were many things in the room that, on another occasion, Andrew would have been interested to hear the ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... flooring laid over the hearthstones. Some detective work around the logical locations will tell whether fireplaces have been torn out or just concealed. If mantels are missing, look for them in the attic or on the rafters of a shed. More than one fine old mantel has been rescued from such a hiding place. We know of one fireplace complete with crane and iron cooking utensils that reposed for fifty years or more behind an unsuspected opening covered with ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... its brilliancy, the spiders' webs enclosing it like a shroud. Over the chimney piece were hung two or three drawings framed and glazed, but a dusty mildew was spotted over the glass, so that little of them could be distinguished. In the centre of the mantel-piece was an image of the Virgin Mary, of pure silver, in a shrine of the same metal, but it was tarnished to the colour of bronze or iron; some Indian figures stood on each side of it. The glass doors of the buffets on each side of the chimney-piece ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the house are of mingled brick and stone, the main body of wood. The wide entrance hall, paneled to the ceiling, opens into a large room, also paneled, in which is a wide fire-place with a richly carved mantel reaching to the ceiling. On each side of this mantel there is a closet let into the wall, one of which communicates by a secret door with the large basement room below. Tradition says that from this room a secret passage led to the river; that here the pirate confined his captives, ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... appeal—so absolutely heathenising is the influence of the world—appeared to startle my aunt. She said, "I will do what I can, Drusilla, to please you," with a look of surprise, which was at once instructive and terrible to see. Not a moment was to be lost. The clock on the mantel-piece informed me that I had just time to hurry home; to provide myself with a first series of selected readings (say a dozen only); and to return in time to meet the lawyer, and witness Lady Verinder's Will. Promising ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Lauriston turned in that direction, also. Two objects immediately met his eye. On the table stood a small tray, full of rings—not dissimilar in style and appearance to those which he held in his hand: old-fashioned rings. The light from the gas- brackets above the mantel-piece caught the facets of the diamonds in those rings and made little points of fire; here and there he saw the shimmer of pearls. But there was another object. Close by the tray of old rings lay a book—a beautifully bound book, a small quarto in size, with much elaborate gold ornament ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... Kent's letter was hidden in the folds of her loose-waisted morning gown, and she fancied it stirred like a thing alive to remind her of its message. Ormsby was looking past her to the old-fashioned ormolu clock on the high mantel, comparing the time with his watch, but he was not oblivious of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... weapon that somehow wasn't quite fair. "Come and sit down. We'll leave the lights for a bit, and then we needn't draw the curtains: it's such a perfect evening." She spoke quite naturally now, standing by the side of the wide fireplace with one hand resting on the mantel. The soft evening air strayed in at the open windows, and the little pile of aromatic embers ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... see here, aunty. I have only this chalk shield, and you don't want your boy to go that way. Please let me take that old sword above the sitting-room mantel-piece," pleaded Charlie, with ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... fireplace. There were half a dozen camp chairs in the room, a couch in a corner, covered with a blue Indian rug, a homemade table in the middle, several pelts and shelves of books in the walls and more books and an alarm clock on the mantel shelf. It was a crude room, but one felt its harmony of tone and homelike ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... real man, John Gregory, as well as a real poet, and I'm going to help you ... if it was the townspeople alone I would hesitate advising you ... but it's dirty, hired outsiders who are back of this feeling. Here!" and she stepped over to the mantel and brought a six-shooter to me and laid it in ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Ein schwarzer Mantel schlaegt die Lenden, 105 Sie schwingen in entfleischten Haenden Der Fackel duesterrote Glut, In ihren Wangen fliesst kein Blut. Und wo die Haare lieblich flattern, Um Menschenstirnen freundlich wehn, 110 Da sieht man Schlangen hier und Nattern Die ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... day smoking, a voice came to me. I did not hear it with my ears, but more as a dream or sort of double think. It said, 'Louisa, lay down smoking.' At once I replied. 'Will you take the desire away?' But it only kept saying: 'Louisa, lay down smoking.' Then I got up, laid my pipe on the mantel-shelf, and never smoked again or had any desire to. The desire was gone as though I had never known it or touched tobacco. The sight of others smoking and the smell of smoke never gave me the least wish to touch it again." The ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... pulled the gold-embroidered band that hung by the mantel, clinging to it for a moment, then releasing it suddenly. Like a priestess she looked, unconscious, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... "good fellow;" and then she laid it on the mantel-shelf of the parlor, while she busied herself in arranging ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... jewels and wearing a low-cut, white evening gown—Mary Swinton, the rector's wife. The room was paneled, and the shadows were deep, relieved by the glint of gilt on the bindings of the books that filled the shelves on the three sides. The fireplace was surmounted by a carved mantel, upon which stood two gilt candelabra and a black statuette. The walls were burdened by scarce a single picture, and the red curtains at the windows were only half-drawn. On looking in, the impression given was one of luxury and of artistic ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... into the fire, and, with his elbow resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... chopped and heaped away in the wood-sheds and under the back portico; the church and house made as green as spring-tide with their abundant decorations, tastefully arranged in wreaths and folds and circles, with the great green "Merrie Christmas" welcoming all comers from over the high parlor mantel. All was finished in ample time before the day of Christmas Eve arrived, though there were dozens of final touches still to be made, last happy thoughts that had to be worked out in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... common wood and painted brown, the sofa was covered with chintz to match the window-curtains, and there was a pale blue paper on the walls. For ornaments, there were two or three pictures on the walls, and on the mantel-piece a great many curious shells and a quaint old vase or two. There was a bookcase of some dark wood in the corner, which was well filled with books, whose bindings were plain and dark, not to say dingy. There ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... store, and thought it would be just the thing to drink out of. Try and see how nice it is. Not a drop spills out, you see, even when you are lying down. When you get tired of it as a cup, then I'll call it a fancy vase, and set it on the mantel for flowers. Handy thing, isn't it? useful or ornamental, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... in prayer, but all around was silent. Suddenly the silence was broken by the deep, full sound of a large clock which stood on the mantel-piece. Isaella raised her pale face, and listened ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... jeder prismatische Krper, der zwei kongruente und parallele Kreise zu Grundflchen hat und dessen Seitenflche (Mantel) eine einzige solche krumme Flche ist, deren smmtliche mit der Grundflche parallele Durchschnitte der Grundflche ...
— German Science Reader - An Introduction to Scientific German, for Students of - Physics, Chemistry and Engineering • Charles F. Kroeh
... not reply. Dexter drew a cigar out from a vest pocket, as he stood leaning against a decaying mantel, and lighted it. This imitation of a man smoked in silence for a few moments, during which Prescott ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... bower, They sat together. He in manhood's prime And she a matron in her fullest flower. The mantel clock gave forth a warning chime. She put her work aside; his bright cigar Grew pale, and crumbled in an ashen heap. The lights went out, save one remaining star That watched beside the children in their sleep. She hummed a little song and nestled near, As ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... I was alone again I would turn my face so I could watch the little clock on the mantel. It ticked with a far-away, dreamy sound, like a child talking in its sleep, and somehow it had always one story to tell, and never any other;—"You've told—a lie;—you've ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... Mansfield, who died before he could arrange for its production. Another is "Christopher Columbus," and he has just finished an important tragedy entitled "OEdipus," dealing artistically with a horrifying story, which has been accepted for early production by Mr. Robert Mantel. Mr. Seibel has published a monograph on "The Mormon Problem." Charles P. Shiras wrote the "Redemption of Labor," and a drama, "The Invisible Prince," which was played in the old Pittsburgh Theater. Bartley Campbell was ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... within the sound of my voice is so restricted as that; almost if not quite every one buys something every year for his pleasure, a curtain, a rug, a wall paper, a chair, or a table not certainly needed, a vase, a clock, a, mantel ornament, a piece of jewelry, a portrait, an etching, a picture. Now whenever you make such a purchase, to please your taste, to make your parlor or your chamber more attractive, choose that which shows good handiwork. Such a choice will last. You will not tire of it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... Fourteenth-street house. This stove, connected with the flue by a small pipe, fitted into what had once been a beautiful open fireplace, but which was now walled up with broken bricks, and surmounted by a mantel of Italian marble sculptured with the story of Prometheus's boon to mankind, and supported on either end by caryatides in the shape of vestal virgins bearing flaming brands in their hands. Overhead the ceiling showed great patches of bare lath, where the plaster had fallen away, and the uncarpeted ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... commission faithfully; and when Elsie returned to her own room after her evening hour with Miss Rose, Chloe pointed out the little ship standing on the mantel. ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... me? Thanks!" she flared out. "I suppose I ought to be glad that the idea didn't immediately occur to you. At least there was a decent interval of doubt...." She stood up, laughing again, and began to wander about the room. In the mirror above the mantel she caught sight of her flushed angry face, and of Mrs. Vanderlyn's disconcerted stare. She ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... musty retreat she had removed her dripping hat, hung it on the fender to dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe in front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantel vases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow's numb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on his circulation; and when he had asked: "Aren't your feet wet, too?" and, after frank inspection of a stout-shod ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the Latimers'. Their house is about as large as madame's, but it has a greater air of carelessness, of disorder in its most charming estate. John Latimer lives all over it, and there are books and papers everywhere, and bric-a-brac in all the corners. The redwood mantel in the sitting-room is shelved nearly up to the ceiling, and tiled around the grate, and is just one picture of beauty. The easy-chairs are around the fire, and softest rugs are laid for your feet. Violet sits down in the glow and feels at home, smiles, blossoms, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... scouring the boards of the kitchen floor until they were soft and white as flax, helping old Anita with the dinner for the men, seeing about the number of new palings for the garden. She had swept every inch of the deep adobe house, had fixed over the arrangement of Indian baskets on the mantel, had filled all the lamps with coal-oil. She was very careful with the lamps, trimming the wicks to smokeless perfection, for oil was scarce and precious in Lost Valley, as were all outside products, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... principle of natural adaptation, there is always a "time" for a man to scatter abroad and for a woman to gather together. Mother or sister attends to "the boy's things." Why has the boy any more than the girl the right to leave his hat on the parlor table, his gloves on the mantel, his coat on the newel-post, and his over-shoes in the middle of the floor? They are left there, and there they remain until some long-suffering woman puts them away. From hut to palace, and through uncounted generations, by oral and written ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... anguish. Dr. Block asked a few questions. The man answered them, the woman remaining silent. The physician administered something stimulating, and then wrote a prescription which he placed on the mantel-shelf. ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... private library, consisting chiefly of the statutes at large, Hansard, the Annual Register, Parliamentary Reports, and legal treatises on the powers and duties of justices of the peace. A portrait of his mother is over the mantel-piece: opposite it a huge map of the county. His correspondence on public business with the secretary of state, and the various authorities of the shire, is admirably arranged: for the duke was what is called an excellent ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Both tired out with a day of effort, they had come near tears in a verbal battle over the best place for the sole article remaining unplaced. Gloria wanted it in the hallway; Mrs. Gaynor pleaded for it over the mantel in the living-room. Finally it was Gloria ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... a murmur the four little folks prepared to obey the summons, but cast wistful longing glances toward mamma, who was gayly chatting with her guests on the other side of the room. Just then the clock on the mantel struck, and excusing herself she came quickly toward them. "That is right, dears; come and say good-night to papa and our friends; then go with mammy and mamma will ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Kessit," Heidel said, when the butler had finished, "would you be kind enough to fetch me that little pistol from the mantel over there?" He smiled outwardly this time. The situation was right again; he was handling things, inch by ...
— The Eyes Have It • James McKimmey
... They would all be there—the old crowd, the crowd to which, by right of the white house, sold long since, and the portrait of the officer in gray over the mantel, Jim should have belonged. But that crowd had grown up together into a tight little set as gradually as the girls' dresses had lengthened inch by inch, as definitely as the boys' trousers had dropped suddenly to their ankles. And to ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... comes in through window curtains. JEAN VALJEAN creeps in from the alcove. He carries his knapsack and cudgel in one hand; in the other, his shoes. He opens the window overlooking the garden; the room becomes lighter. Jean steps to the mantel and lifts ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... times over. His "Robinson Crusoe" shows mo' wear'n tear'n what my Testament does, I'm ashamed to say. I've done give Miss Phoebe free license to buy him any book she wants him to have, an' he's got 'em all 'ranged in a row on the end o' the mantel-shelf. ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... gasped Lieutenant Greg Holmes ironically, and he appeared to need the support of the mantel at which ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... took a quart glass fruit jar, and bought a cork to fit it for a few cents. He could not get a solid bar of zinc, but had a piece of zinc folded which answered the purpose. Then following the rest of the directions, he placed the jar on the mantel-piece. The next day; the formations began, and are ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... faint sound in his throat. Isbister moved about the room with the nervousness of an inexperienced host, making little remarks that scarcely required answering. He crossed the room to his portfolio, placed it on the table and noticed the mantel clock. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing—nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... wife, James?" said she, in a mild, firm tone. "Is that mother?" said my child again, in a rather sleepy tone; "I am so glad you are come, I am so hungry." "That child," said I, "has gone to bed without her supper to-night," fumbling about at the same time upon the mantel-piece for a bit of candle, which I could not find. "Yes," said Mrs. Mason, very gravely, "and without its dinner too, I fear; but where is your wife, James? for I am come to see whether she brought any thing home with her for herself and family; for I ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... still standing with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the mantel-piece, with his coat-tails over his arms. He said nothing further at once, but continued to fix his eyes on his nephew, who was now walking backwards and forwards from one end of the room to the other with ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... The mantel-piece was ornamented with some beautiful branches of coral, several large and rare shells, and two horns of the narwhal, or sea-unicorn, fixed against the wall, and above it was the picture of a ship under all sail, with boats hoisted up along her sides, and flags ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... and he frowned and looked anxious as he met the General's keen eyes; but his face softened and wore a gracious expression as he thanked his protector. When the latter placed the bottle and glass on the mantel-shelf, the stranger's eyes flashed out on him again; and when he spoke, it was in musical tones with no sign of the previous guttural convulsion, though his voice was ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... And please warn her that she must stay at most only half an hour by that clock over there on the mantel." ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed, hung above a crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little ornaments he had worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon, his spy-glass hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of the clock at the hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was as he left it. To her, entering there, he was again ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... is more of a curiosity than an ornament," said Mildred Roper. "It wouldn't have looked very beautiful decorating the mantel-piece, I'm afraid—not nearly so nice as a real bunch ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... hardness under John Weightman's hands grew sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness and lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a lightness, in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the silvery bell-tones. The chimney clock on the mantel had just ended the last stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table. Thin, pale strips of the city morning were falling into the room through the narrow partings of ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... several pretty pictures on the walls, but they were all hung crookedly; the curtain at the window was unlooped, and you could write your name anywhere in the dust that covered mantel, stove, ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... rejoined Esther, "prove it by showing me how to load these." As she spoke she took from the mantel one of the pistols that were lying there, and turned it over to ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... wood fire that looked like a wood fire crackling and sparkling on the hearth, shining and dancing over the ceiling and the floor and the walls, cutting queer capers with the big rocking-chair,—which turned into a giant with long arms,—and with the little figures on the mantel-shelf, and the books in their cases, softening and glorifying the two grand faces hanging in their frames opposite, and giving just light enough below them to let you read "John Brown" and "Phillips," if you had any occasion to read, and did not know those whom ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... Mrs. Pantin's taste. A framed motto extolling the virtues of friendship hung over the mantel and the "Blind Girl of Pompeii" groped her way down the staircase on the neutral-tinted wall. A bookcase filled with sets of the world's best literature occupied a corner of the room, while ooze leather copies of Henry Van Dyke gave an unmistakable look of culture to the mission table ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... them inward, upward. And all the while the light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, with neither head nor trunk. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... had written it. She held it to the taper, and then flinging it on the hearth, silently watched spark by spark die out. Long did she stand there, her head against the mantel-piece, her eyes fixed upon the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the door of the Cottage in a state of hurry and excitement; but the empty kitchen seemed to act on it like a sort of emotional cold douche. The varnished walls, the neatly set chairs, the clock ticking so loudly above the mantel-shelf, all seemed somehow unnatural, with the unnaturalness of empty houses where steps ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... too shrewd; but he made endless calculations upon the probability of drawing prizes,—provided the tickets were really all sold, and the wheel fairly managed. A dice-box was always at hand upon the mantel. He had portraits of celebrated racers, both quadruped and biped, and he could tell the fastest time ever made by either. His manipulation of cards was, as his friends averred, one of the fine arts; and in all the games he had wrought out problems of chances, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... appreciation of Katy swept through her heart. Katy had been there before her. The room had been freshly swept and dusted, the rugs had been relaid, the furniture rearranged skilfully, and the table stood at the best angle to be lighted either by day or night. On the table and the mantel stood big bowls of lovely fresh flowers. Linda was quite certain that anyone entering the room for the first time would have felt it completely furnished, and she doubted if even Marian would notice the missing ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... in the day by their friends and your friends; 'tis the common course of things. Now you know what a multitude of obedient humble servants, dear creatures, and very sincere and most affectionate friends, I have in my writing-desk, and on my mantel-piece, not to mention the cards which crowd the common rack from intimate acquaintance, who cannot live without the honour, or favour, or pleasure of seeing Lady Delacour twice a week;—do you think I'm fool enough to imagine that they would care the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... with a deep filigreed frame hanging over the mantel-piece in this room. The glass was cracked and the quicksilver rubbed off or discolored in many places. When it reflected your face you had the singular pleasure of not recognizing yourself. It gave your features the appearance of having been ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in a moment. One hand dropped by her side, the other rested on a fossil on the mantel-shelf, and she stared down into ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... she. "There's that Turkish pistol, you know, that Mr. Shinn left hanging over the mantel in ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... to tell you to leave my matches on the mantel-shelf?" snapped Lancelot. "You seem to delight to hide them away, as if I had time to ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... told me that—that you loved another girl,' she said, her elbow leaning on the mantel, her eyes ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... poor. The price to be paid for Margaret's liberty was a bitter one, but it was that or nothing. Sydney faced it. He looked about the room. To him the walls lined with the dull gleams of old books were lovely. There was an oil portrait of his mother over the mantel-shelf. The weather was warm now, and there was no need for a hearth fire, but how exquisitely home-like and dear that room could be when the snow drove outside and there was the leap of flame on the hearth! Sydney was a scholar and a gentleman. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... her for her sister's sake, if nothing more,' said Mark with feeling; and then he bowed his head upon the marble mantel and looked steadily into the ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... there, stuck up on the mantel-piece. Gwinnie could come at the week-end; she implored her to hang on for five days longer, not to leave Stow-on-the-Wold till they could see it together. A letter ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... picturesque. It had two charming lattice windows, set in deep square bays. One window faced the fireplace, the other the door. The effect was slightly irregular, but for that very reason all the more charming. The walls of the room were painted light blue; there was a looking-glass over the mantel-piece set in a frame of the palest, most delicate blue. A picture-rail ran round the room about six feet from the ground, and the high frieze above had a scroll of wild roses painted on it in ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... eighties, this noble pile was the home of an invalid, a twelve-year-old boy, a housekeeping aunt, and nurses, valets, maids, butlers, cooks, and coachmen. The invalid master of the house was forty-eight. As he leaned on the mantel looking out across the lawn, you felt the presence of a massive, powerful physique, but as he slowly turned to greet you, you fairly caught your breath from the intensity of the shock. The cheeks were hollow; the lips were ever ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... is time to go! The mishaps of the household, instead of being a matter of anxiety and apprehension, are a matter of merriment—the loaf of bread turned into a geological specimen; the slushy custards; the jaundiced or measly biscuits. It is a very bright sunlight that falls on the cutlery and the mantel ornaments ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... the rather high window we could see nothing but space. I had placed a writing-table underneath it, with some books and a few flowers in a dainty crystal bowl. On the walls, several photographs of Italian masterpieces disguised the ugliness of the typical boarding-house paper. The chimney-mantel was bare ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... violet velvet fauteuil, she fell into a reverie that lasted for upward of an hour. With sleepy, slow, half-closed eyes, the wicked, smile just curving the ripe-red mouth, Mme. Blanche wandered in the land of meditation, and had her little plot all cut and dry as the toy Swiss clock on the low mantel struck up a lively waltz preparatory to striking eleven. Ere the last silvery chime had ceased vibrating, the door of the boudoir opened and Dr. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... long moment and then with a glance at the clock on the mantel slowly gathered her music, aware of his voice ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... room. There, with one sweeping glance at the dull red walls, the oil-painted landscapes in sprawling gilt frames, the heavy plush curtains, the furniture with its "saddle-bag" upholstery, the common Turkish carpet, and the mantel mirror with tasteless, tasselled draperies, "Nelson Smith" seemed to comprehend the deadly "stuffiness" of ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... read it over twice with a lengthening visage. Now also it became apparent that there was another letter inside, at the superscription of which the Major having looked, put it in his pocket, and turning round to the mantel-piece, with his back to the others, began drumming against the fender ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... of this snug abode were a wide fireplace, enormous cupboards, a brown settle, and several sketches on the wood mantel, done in outline with the point of a hot poker—the subjects mainly consisting of old men walking painfully erect, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions; divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions, conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria—two plaster heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, looking with arched eye-brows of astonishment on their uninviting palace, and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of a friend of mind—while still of very tender years—was first taken to church by her aunt. On the way home, and soon after leaving the portals of the sacred edifice, she looked up solemnly in her guardian's face, and, "Auntie," she asked, "was yon God on the mantel-piece?" She referred doubtless to the minister in the pulpit. Don't think of irreverence, my reader! The child, in its atmosphere of perfect innocence, knows not the word. And bear that in mind further ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... was in ill humor; so was the vase. It was all on account of the little shoe that had been placed on the mantel-piece that day, and had done nothing but sigh dolorously all the ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... leaning against the high mantel, saying a wood fire was delicious. He smiled down on me and ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... instead of a fortalice. Behind the castle the mountain slopes are clothed with young trees. The castle itself is a very imposing building from the outside; grand, strong, rather repellant; inside it has a comfortless; ill-planned, unfinished appearance. The mantel-piece of white marble with the Adair arms carved on it—the bloody hand, the motto valor au mort, the supporters two angels—lies in the hall cracked in two. A very respectable Scotchman, a keeper, I suppose, showed me over the building. He must enjoy a very retired life ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... on first and we followed, to find ourselves, about ten minutes later, in the big library, with Sir Francis seated behind a large table, and a lamp and some silver candlesticks on table and mantel-piece, trying to ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... impenetrable veil over it and left to tradition and fable and conjecture to say what had once been there portrayed. During the rule of many successive governors it had hung, by prescriptive and undisputed right, over the mantel piece of the same chamber, and it still kept its place when Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson assumed the administration of the province on the departure of Sir ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had come from her apartment uptown to dine with her father and play chess. In the living room, a cheerful place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its old-fashioned high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble mantel with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar Roger watched ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... False tidings reach'd the Rhenish strand That he had fall'n in fight! And thy faithful bosom swoon'd with pain, Thou fairest maid of Allemain. Why so rash has she ta'en the veil In yon Nonnenwerder's cloister pale? For the fatal vow was hardly spoken, And the fatal mantel o'er her flung. When the Drachenfels' echoes rung— 'Twas her own dear warrior's horn! . . . . . . She died; he sought the battle plain, And loud was Gallia's wail, When Roland, the flower of chivalry, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... not wholly unlike the rabble rout of the morning, moved from the dining-room to the great front parlor, where the tree was lighted, and parcels of gray and white and brown lay round on mantel, on piano, on chairs, on tables, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... great room to the right and rear of the wide hall at Cairncross, and a black servant has just brought in candles, to be placed on the broad marble mantel, and on the oaken table in the centre of the room. The soft light mellows the shadows creeping over the white and gold panelling of the walls, and twinkles faintly in reflection back from the gilt threads in the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... five-cent size or ten-cent size, but mostly five-cent size. As Emily sees 'em coming, she smiles until she looks in the face like one of these here old-fashioned red-brick Colonial fireplaces, with an overgrown black Christmas stocking hanging down from the centre of the mantel. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... I opened the drawing-room door, was sitting with his feet upon the mantel-piece, and a bumper of port in his paw, making strenuous efforts to accomplish ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... it was a button on your husband's coat that you told me about. Every two or three stitches look up to show us how happy you are. When you get it sewed, take the coat up this way and hug it. You look still happier at that. Then you walk over to the mantel, pick up the photograph of your boy that's there by that china dog and kiss it. I won't tell you how to do that. Remember who he is and do it your own way, only let us see your face. Then put back the picture ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the dinner was over I was intensely nervous. Katie served us our coffee in the living room, and when I took mine my hand trembled so that the tiny cup rattled against the saucer. I rose from my chair and walked to the fireplace, set the cup upon the mantel and stood looking into the blazing logs Jim had heaped against the old chimney. My guests could not see my face, and I hoped to be ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... She saw a huge fireplace where the flames were dancing. Above it, on a wide mantel, was a disarray of books, cigar-boxes, pipes and papers, the papers weighted oddly with a ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... her cup and saucer, got up, and stood by the fireplace, with one arm outstretched along the quaintly carved old mantel. She laid her head down on its curve ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... soot to the house-front, the two faded poplars, the faces of the passers-by. The long train of mules, dragging masses of pig-iron through the narrow street, have a foul vapor hanging to their reeking sides. Here, inside, is a little broken figure of an angel pointing upward from the mantel-shelf; but even its wings are covered with smoke, clotted and black. Smoke everywhere! A dirty canary chirps desolately in a cage beside me. Its dream of green fields and sunshine is a very old dream,—almost worn ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... are you going to-day, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman putting on his tall silk hat, and taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch down off the mantel. ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... skirt was of the grass-green silk, Her mantel of the velvet fine, At ilka tett of her horse's mane Hung ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... reflection, but somehow seemed rather more real than himself. The picture is better, perhaps, than the bricks were, yet it is not enlivening. The only other objects in the room worth mentioning are, a particularly small book-shelf in a corner; a cuckoo-clock on the mantel-shelf, an engraved portrait of Queen Victoria on the wall opposite in a gilt frame, and a portrait of Sir Robert Peel in a ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... look after," he said. "I thought I might get down before he went." A deep leathern arm-chair stood before the hearth where the young rector had been sitting, with the ladies at either corner of the mantel; Northwick let himself sink into it, and with a glance at the face of the faintly ticking clock on the black marble shelf before him, he added casually, "I must get an early train for Ponkwasset in the morning, and I still have some things to put ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... mantel with a blue and white lambrequin, a blue and white toilet set, pretty pictures on the wall, and a small bookshelf, made a very cozy looking nest for a little girl, and so Florence thought, who had no room of her own, but slept ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... ceiled in oak; the drawing- room, the dining-room, and the library were furnished in solid mahogany; and the chambers were finished in poplar and pine. The great charm of the house was that each and every room, large and small, had its open fire-place, some of them surrounded by beautiful mantel-pieces, with carved wood and mirrors. It was, indeed, an English house, with its comforts set ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore |
