"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cause to blush with Brother Michel. Our new parents were kind, gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a most motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with his employers. Enough has been said to show why Moipu should be deposed; and in Paaaeua the French had found a reputable substitute. He went always scrupulously ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snow-plants of the California woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly weather. ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... a consciousness of the blessed sympathy that welled up from her motherly heart that relaxed his features into a half smile, and moved him to a half glad, half sad emotion; perhaps the memory of as dear a face that once beamed upon him with the same holy tenderness, stirred the long-time quiet depths within his young bosom, and sent forth ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... W. H. I take this to be one of the brightest of Tyler's ideas, because the persuasions in the sonnets are unaccountable and out of character unless they were offered to please somebody whom Shakespear desired to please, and who took a motherly interest in Pembroke. There is a further temptation in the theory for me. The most charming of all Shakespear's old women, indeed the most charming of all his women, young or old, is the Countess of Rousillon in All's Well That Ends Well. It has a certain individuality ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... for a woman to gaze on, and there was much kindness in hers as she smiled on him. Nay, there was almost more than kindness, he thought, as he caught her eye. It was like,—almost like the sweetness of motherly love. "And I shall scold you," she continued. "People say that for two or three nights running men have been playing cards at Hap House ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... father, was as crusty an old curmudgeon as one could find in a county. His wife (the lovely Evelyn Wormgate, a daughter of the Duke of Bognor and Wormgate) had died while the radiant Moll was but a puling infant. Thus it was that, knowing no hand of motherly authority, the child perforce ran wild throughout her ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... was in the village came forward and released the children, as Nakpa gave a low whinny and stopped. Tenderly Zeezeewin nursed them at her own motherly bosom, assisted by another young ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... spirits. Ducks were paddling off to the pond; geese to the meadow; and meek gray guinea-hens tripping away to hunt bugs in the garden. A splendid cock stood on the wall, and crowed so loud and clear that all the neighboring chanticleers replied. The motherly hens clucked and scratched with their busy broods about them, or sat and scolded in the coops because the chicks would gad abroad. Doves cooed on the sunny roof, and smoothed their gleaming feathers. Daisy's donkey nibbled a thistle by the wall, and a stately ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Etienne," she went on in motherly tones. "We are at this moment old comrades; speak to me as you ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... objecting to everything and everybody on principle. Knowing that I was an orphan he sometimes took me aside and gave me sound fatherly advice which I have since remembered, and am now beginning to appreciate. His wife, too, was a kindly motherly woman who, because being practically homeless I was often compelled to spend my holidays at school, seemed better disposed towards me than to the majority of the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... was kind and motherly, and Mary felt that it was so: but although there were no actual faults of spelling, it was evidently not the production of a cultured woman, and she thought with some dread of her future mother-in-law. It would ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the squirrel, when a tiny thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried whether pussy would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack's pet ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... into the wings, surrounded by her little troupe. A motherly colored woman took them, shooed them off, rounded them up like a flock ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... properly engaged to him you may ask him round here on Sunday afternoons, and have tea with him in the kitchen;" for my Euphemia has a motherly conception of her duty towards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was being worn about the house, even with ostentation, and Jane developed a new way of bringing in the joint so ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... sit up?" said Adela at dinner, suddenly prodding me in the back. Adela is old enough to take a motherly interest in my figure, and young enough to look extremely pretty while ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... had my mother set her table to rights than she, with an air of motherly watchfulness, drew her chair beside the damsels, with whom I was exchanging the gossip of the Cape, and entered ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... both a pleasant journey. Then Eve, near whom Monseigneur Martha had remained, smiling, in her turn had to say farewell. In this she evinced touching bravery; her determination to remain beautiful and charming until the very end lent her sufficient strength to show herself both gay and motherly. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... silent about all the rest,—has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbor to. Alas, is not this the history ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... small Manners, and dispensed various teas to Winifred and Marion Thorold. I have met their father several times at the Manners' flat, and have likewise—low be it spoken—received two evening calls from him in my own domain. He says it is such a comfort to find a kind, motherly woman with whom to talk over his difficulties! He hesitates to trouble Mrs Manners, who is already overworked. Winifred holds one shoulder a little higher than the other. Does that mean anything wrong with the spine? Ought ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not tell the master, for one reason: it took a long time for so stupendous an idea to penetrate the good lady's brain; and for another: her motherly heart was touched by another story than this Aladdin's lamp of Joel's wherein burned petroleum. She watched from her window until she saw Holmes crossing the icy road: there was a little bitterness, I confess, in the thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... and Edie, with wee Dot sleeping placidly on her arm, stood at the door to welcome him back again in wife-like fashion. The flowers in the window bloomed bright and gay in the tiny parlour: and Edie, with her motherly cares for little Dot, seemed more like herself than ever she had done before since poor Harry's death had clouded the morning of her happy lifetime. But to Ernest, even that pretty picture of the young mother and her sleeping baby looked only like one more reminder of the terrible ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... little adventures of childhood days with irritating exactness, and there mingled with it a bitter feeling of regret for the lost opportunities. The kiss blown me from a window in Naples, the extraordinary, more than motherly cares of the hotel chambermaid in Vienna, the roses pressed into my hands on the street by a young Spanish girl somewhere in the south of France, the embrace and the kiss on my cheek which I once suddenly felt in a dark ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... shouldn't have done that. I am wicked. Never you mind, my dear: it's only a motherly kiss. Go and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... had tried to make friends with the child, but the voice of the nurse had soon cut in. And in the motherly Scotch face Ethel had detected again a feeling of hostility. "What for?" she had asked. And the answer had flashed into her mind. "She's angry because Amy hasn't been in to see Susette." And Ethel had frowned. "It's funny. If I had ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... At this he commenced to regain his composure, and by the time he had slipped the ring on Donna's finger and plighted his troth for aye, all of his troubles and worries vanished. The minister and his gardener shook hands with them, and the minister's wife kissed Donna and gave her a motherly hug—primarily because she looked so sweet and again on general feminine principles. Bob, not desiring to appear cheap on this, the greatest day in history, gave the minister a fee of twenty dollars, and five minutes later found himself on the sidewalk ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... wandering Felatahs, from whom they came, who speak the same language and wear the same external characters, it will be seen how Nature has yearned for her children in these unknown regions, and set herself, for their sakes, great stints of work, in that motherly ambition to bring them forward in the world. Yes,—thought the Guinea trader,—these skilful Foulahs are Nature's best gifts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Cardiff, wrapped in the arms of the Dowager Lady Le Despenser. And in every sense, from the lightest to the deepest, the words were true. The wanderer had come home. Home to the Castle of Cardiff, which she was never to leave any more; home to the warm motherly arms of Elizabeth Le Despenser, who cast all her worn-out theories to the winds, and took her dead son's hapless darling to her heart of hearts; home to the great heart of God. And the ear of the elder woman was open to a sound unheard by ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... her shoulder, cried, not passionately, but with a complete abandonment of all self-restraint. Mrs. Costello did not try to check those natural and restoring tears. She soothed her child by fond motherly touches, kissed her cheek or smoothed her hair, but said not a word until the whole dull weight that had been pressing on her had melted away. There was something strangely forlorn in their circumstances which ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... recognized him. He was now clean, and neatly dressed in an old suit of Mark's which just fitted him, and his hair, which had been long and tangled, was cut short and neatly brushed. Being naturally of a sunny and affectionate disposition, the cheerful home influences, the motherly care of Mrs. Elmer, whose heart was very tender towards the motherless boy, and, above all, the great alteration in his father's manner, had changed the shy, sullen lad, such as he had been, into an honest, happy fellow, anxious to do right, ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... Duncan girls were her best friends, and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to the settee, and arranged her head comfortably on its pillows. Then, giving her a motherly kiss, she said, "Rest, darling, while Tulee and I look ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Sandwith said, turning to the girls and kissing them with motherly kindness. "Come in, my dears, and welcome home for the sake of my dear boy, and for that of your parents who were so kind to him. Never mind all these wild young people," she added, as the boys and girls pressed round ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... boy when he came to them, laughing at the trick he had played his father, full of mockery of the hidebound ways of cities, and had wanted to send him back to Mr. Shandon. She had cried a little over him and kissed him and talked gently with him as was her motherly way. But Wanda's father berated him severely and sternly and Wayne flushed and bit his lip and then went away from them as he had gone away ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... regard of men and women belonging to the highest ranks of society. With the Prince and Princess Lichnowsky Beethoven shortly became very intimate, and was invited to stay at the Palace. The Princess looked after his personal comfort with as motherly an affection as Madame Breuning had done. The etiquette of the Palace however, offended Ludwig's love of Bohemianism, especially the dressing for dinner at a certain time. He took to dining at a tavern quite frequently, and finally engaged ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... this composition, the divine feeling not without a touch of motherly sentiment, its delicacy so rare and so pure, the distinction of its coloring, are all past expression, and give it a place unique in the nineteenth century."—Paul ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... conductor moved on, she said, "The nasty thing. They have no consideration at all. Look, child." For a moment Plato thought she was going to offer him flight fare from Space Junction to Venusberg, but she was not, he discovered, as motherly as that. "You know what you'll do when you get off? Send a 'gram, collect, to your people in Venusberg. They'll wire you your fare. And you'll reach them in a couple ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... of his early teaching. At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined round the fancied image of a brother born since he ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... that evening Grandmamma again wiped her eyes—though these tears were of thankfulness and motherly pride in the thought of the sweet and pretty children upstairs, who at that moment were kneeling in their little white nightgowns, one on each side of old Nurse, as they solemnly repeated after her the Lord's Prayer, and after that their own evening petitions that "God would bless dear Grandpapa ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... dismounted, a most touching scene of motherly affection ensued, for, as the old man explained to me, he was her son. The poor shrivelled creature threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fondly, first on one cheek and then upon the other, after which, having affectionately taken his face between her hands, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... a certain air of pathos which Mrs. Partington herself cast around him, which affected her the most, and I imagine her feeling to have been largely motherly. There was, however, another element very obviously visible, which, in anyone but Mrs. Partington, I should call reverence.... She told me that she could not imagine why he was traveling with the Major and Gertie, so she at least ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... indicate that she followed the course of every event with an anxious and intelligent interest. In 1657, her oldest son had left for England, where he remained until 1661, and she wrote then some verses more to be commended for their motherly feeling than for any charm ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... spoke openly of her "loss"; declared that the old families were dying out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himself of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he carried ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... for them in the hall. They went into the library. Mrs. Gallilee enfolded her son in a fervent motherly embrace. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... moved to profound pity; at first she could not believe her ears, but when she did she invoked the divine wrath on the inhuman monster who had the presumption to call herself a woman, a mother, and an aunt; finally, she folded Angela in a motherly embrace and burst into tears, promising to protect her at the risk of her own life—a promise she would really have kept if the girl ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... motherly, dumpy little woman in a large shawl, a wrapping gown, a clean, trim nightcap, and shod with the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... not so, seeing that we spent nearly half of every week practically alone together, and that, from the first, Marie, whose nature was as open as the clear noon, never concealed her affection for me. True, it was a very discreet affection, almost sisterly, or even motherly, in its outward and visible aspects, as though she could never forget that extra half-inch of height or month ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Not by supposing some ancient intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it quickens life; as the dew ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... you are working too hard, Bensie, and it's quite true," Polly gave him another pat, this time a motherly one; "and so you ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... motherly Esmeralda. She, too, was happy, for was she not returning to her beloved Maryland? Already she could see dimly through the fog of smoke the murky headlight of the oncoming engine. The men began to gather up the hand baggage. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his little bare feet, having learned to guard against croup by attending to the damp shoes and socks before going to bed. Boo lay with his round face turned up to hers, stroking her cheek while the sleepy blue eyes blinked lovingly at her as she sang her lullaby with a motherly patience sweet to see. They made a pretty little picture, and Mr. Bemis looked at it with pleasure, having a leisure moment in which to discover, as all parents do sooner or later, that his children were ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... agreeable to Adele; while the mistress of the house—mild, and cheerful, and sunny, diffusing content every evening over the little circle around her hearth—wins Adele to a new cheer. Yet it is a cheer that is tempered by many sad thoughts of her own loneliness, and of her alienation from any motherly smiles and greetings that are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... I am so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... the ladies appear, as trim and unconcerned as if they had never put their foot in a kitchen all their lives, and the circle round the fire widens to admit them. The elder of these ladies is a careworn but pleasant, motherly-looking body, who calls the elder gentleman "sir" when she speaks to him, and invariably addresses one of the two young men—the one with the black eyes—as Mister Johnny. As for the younger lady, whose likeness to Mister Johnny is ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with her knowing charm, the younger with her freshness, present a dualism more bewildering than any he has ever read about in his philosophy books, and part of the fun consists in seeing him fall in love with the younger in terms of pure reason, and finally, when the motherly young countess has quietly got him a professorship at Konigsberg, present to his delighted Elise ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... began when he was about three years old; that is to say, he was gathered under the wings of one of those good old motherly dames, found in every village, who cluck together the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, to teach them their letters and keep them out of harm's way. Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in this capacity for upward of fifty years, and it ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... cheeriness of her heart, that she was in good truth the youngest person in the house, so that her own daughters were sometimes quite shocked at her levity of behaviour, and treated her with gentle, motherly restraint. She was tall and thin, like her husband, and he, at least, considered her every whit as beautiful as she had been a score of years before. Her hair was dark and curly; she had deep-set grey eyes, and a pretty fresh complexion. When she was well, and rushing ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... looked at his face, which for all its brightness was worn and deep-lined, and her compassionate motherly heart was stirred. ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... labourer, of better education and more intelligence than the generality of his class. They had no children of their own, so that Mrs Williams, who was a truly godly woman, was glad to give a home for a time and a motherly care to the two little ones committed to her charge by Amos. The husband was, of course, absent from home during the working hours, so that his wife could not call him to her help when she missed the little boy; indeed, on the day of ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... room, Mrs. Haddon locked the door very carefully and quietly. She suspected that he was planning mischief that would lead to further trouble, and hoped that by next morning he would be in a frame of mind to be won over by a little motherly strategy. But she went about her work with a heavy heart. Later she took the impenitent young 'duffer' a tea cunningly designed to appeal to his rebellious heart, and spread it neatly on the big dimity-covered box in his ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... daughter had utterly out-read and out-thought her less educated parent, who was clinging in honest bigotry to the old forms, while Argemone was wandering forth over the chaos of the strange new age,- -a poor homeless Noah's dove, seeking rest for the sole of her foot and finding none. And now all motherly influence and sympathy had vanished, and Mrs. Lavington, in fear and wonder, let her daughter go her own way. She could not have done better, perhaps; for Providence had found for Argemone a better guide than her mother could have done, and her new ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... motherly lap the bright Girl can sever; your hand divine Gives dominion, ushering Warm the lover. O Hymen, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... happened to be a good motherly sort of woman, replied, that she was pleased with her countenance, or she would not have taken her in without enquiring into her character; and as she seemed not to be desirous of an idle life, she would recommend her to those that should find ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... who takes care of her little children has to go through a thousand tiresome actions which would be intolerable if they were meaningless, but which compose a beautiful life if they are held together by the aim which the motherly love sees before it. Whatever work a human being may perform, force on his mind the treacherous suggestion that it is meaningless, that it is slavery, that others seize the profit, and he must hate it and feel it an unbearable hardship. It has often been observed that the most ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... flush upon her cheeks telling of her happiness. Her eyes shone, soft in their brightness, and her lips were red with the leaping blood of youth. She had turned to speak with Mrs. Sturgis, the stoutest, jolliest and altogether most motherly woman in the valley, and Mrs. Sturgis, watching her eyes and lips and paying no attention to her words, put out her ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Mrs. Garland noticed this growing friendship, and began to despair of her motherly scheme of uniting Anne to the moneyed Festus. Why she could not take prompt steps to check interference with her plans arose partly from her nature, which was the reverse of managing, and partly from a new emotional circumstance with which she found it difficult to reckon. The near neighbourhood ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... was brushed and his bed remade a dozen times a day. Cherry shared her mail, which was always heavy now, with him; she flitted into the sick-room every few minutes with small messages or gifts. With her bare, bright head, her busy white hands, her voice all motherly amusement and sympathy and sweetness, she had never seemed so much a wife. She had the pleasantest laugh in the world, and she often laughed. The sick-room was kept with exquisite simplicity, with such freshness, bareness, and order as made it a place of delight. One day ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... the young inventor, though the motherly housekeeper had not done this since he was a little chap. She had to stand on a soap box, which Eradicate brought in order to reach Tom's face, and, when she ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... own little room at The Ship, and Mrs. Peck, with motherly kindness writ large on her comely, plump face, was bending over her with a cup of ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... was chief lieutenant. "Missus desires me to ask," said she, with her grim face and austere voice, "whether you will be pleased to dine at home to-day?" And yet the grim, austere woman could be affectionate and almost motherly in her ministrations to him when things were going well, and had eaten his salt and broken his bread for more than twenty years. All this was very hard! "Because," continued the woman, "missus says she thinks she shall be ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... I was musing so deeply on the intricacies of love that I nearly ran over a nice, motherly old cow that had come to the middle of the road with perfectly good faith in me when she saw me coming. And as I rounded her off well to the left again my thoughts skidded back to Sam and the way ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... put her hand gently on his brow, and caressingly touched the dusty hair and ragged clothes with the almost motherly feeling that longs to comfort and soothe. Meir sat on the bench in the posture of a man deadly tired. He leaned his head against the window-frame, and seemed to draw in the mild evening breeze. The moon reflected herself in the mournful eyes that were raised in question towards the silvery clouds. ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,' indeed there's no queen like her in ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... shed near the kitchen, in order to please La Teuse he went into ecstasies over the washing; he even had to dip his fingers into it and feel it. This so pleased the old woman that her attentions became quite motherly. She no longer scolded, but ran to fetch a clothes-brush, saying: 'You surely are not going out with yesterday's mud on your cassock! If you had left it out on the banister, it would be clean now—it's still a good one. But do lift it up well when ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... then, as the motherly Irish woman, with a quizzical smile on her face, started to the house for the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... through the garden, which was gay with flowers, though much less magnificent than Mr. Harrison's. Emma said, mamma was a great gardener, and accordingly they found her cutting off flowers past their prime. She gave Violet a bouquet of geranium and heliotrope, and conducted her to her room with that motherly kindness and solicitude so comfortable to a lonely guest in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a truly good woman, and had a sincere motherly love for her son John, yet there wanted not those who endeavoured to create a misunderstanding between them, and they had so far prevailed with him once that he turned her out of doors, to his great sorrow, as he found afterwards, for his ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned as she walked home through ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... back to the world he was lying in a very comfortable bed, and all the pain had gone from his head. A comfortable, motherly woman, whom he recognized as Mrs. Simmons, was sitting beside him, and Colonel Leonidas Talbot, looking very tall, very spare and very precise, was standing ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tenderly, motherly bringeth Flowers to the bee; Sweeter than autumn, which bounteously, lovingly flingeth Fruits on the tree, Shall be winter, when homeward returning, thy swift vessel wingeth Over ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... just how it had happened, and talked and kept on talking, until she suddenly discovered that David was looking a little weary—though he insisted that he was not tired. But in her motherly way, that was the delight of the ward, she bade him shut his eyes and "go right to sleep," giving his hand a final caressing pat, and then running away to let him have a ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... in her motherly way, "there is room enough and to spare in my house for every one of you—room enough and to spare. You shall ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... May sunny rooms at a pension in the Boulevard Haussmann, where a motherly French woman resided with her two daughters. In beautiful Paris, May Ingram was to live and study, hoping to realize the dreams of her childhood, a first rank in ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... somewhat jumbled consideration about "Knowledge of Hebrew—tenor voice—courage and imagination—unworldly," and so forth, when a knock at the door announced Mrs. Mawle who came to inform him that dinner was ready. She stood there, a motherly and pleasant figure in black, and she addressed him in the third person. "If Mr. Spinrobin will please to come down," she said, "Mr. Skale is waiting. Mr. Skale is always quite punctual." She always spoke thus, in the third person; she never used the personal ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her. Her eyes were most wonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She seemed to have a certain confidence in Gerald, and to feel a certain motherly ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... smooth, straight dark hair with a few threads of grey, all streaked back flat to her head to please papa; or would she have lovely auburn waves done on a frame, with a curl draped over her forehead? Would her complexion be just as nice, comfortable, motherly sort of complexion, of no particular colour; or would it be pink and white like rose-leaves floating in cream? Would she have the kind of figure to fit the corsets you can pick up at any shop, ready made for fifty-nine and a half cents, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... supper laid on the kitchen table, waiting for him, for Dick had told his mother of the guest he expected. He decided to say nothing of the circumstances that led to the invitation. He might safely have done so, however, for Mrs. Schmidt was a good, motherly woman, who pitied the boy and understood very well that his position in Mr. Badger's family must be ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy and grew quite motherly. 'Now you've got a nice little wife of your own—you have,' she said. 'She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I've been thinkin' ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... that moment Sarah appeared. She took Tommy up in her strong, motherly arms, soothing him in practised fashion. "There, there, honey! Yo's goin' have yo' mother pretty soon. What yo' wants now's yo' supper, ain't it, honey? I reckon ain't no one had de sense ter gib yo' chillens a mite ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... to watch the doll open and shut its eyes, and to try to unbutton and button its coat and dress; and then the railroad track had to be set up and the train started off on its rounds. Ellen Robinson really looked almost motherly while she watched her happy children; and Julia Cloud relaxed, and let the smile come around her lips ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... children, wearisome and uninteresting. On the other hand, the little Morleys were full of life and eagerness. The fault in them was that they wouldn't take petting; and what's the good of a child that won't be petted? They lacked that something which makes a woman feel motherly. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... upon which Mrs. Gray could expatiate for hours. Mary had a tender, strong pity from the earliest age for the down-at-heel, over-burdened stepmother, which lightened her own load, as did the vicarious, motherly love which came to her for ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... relaxing oppressions have lifted the restraints of fear between master and servant, without disturbing the familiarity of their relation. She advised freely with us upon all household matters, and took a motherly interest in whatever concerned us. She could be flattered or caressed into almost any service, but no threat or command could move her. When she erred, she never acknowledged her wrong in words, but handsomely expressed her regrets in a pudding, or sent up her apologies in a favorite ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... the natural interest of a kindly spinster in a bride and bridegroom, especially when the bridegroom was in khaki, and under orders for the front. She promised, at once, to come and see Mrs. Sarratt, and George, beholding in her a possible motherly friend for Nelly when he should be far away, insisted that she should fix a day for her call before his departure. Nelly added her smiles to his. Then, with a pleasant nod, Miss Martin left them, refusing all their offers ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... horse to bring in the meat. When the Indian woman arrived at the spot, she found the two cubs cuddled up against the dressed meat of their mother, and crying as if their poor hearts would break. Their affectionate behaviour so touched the motherly heart of the old woman that, after loading the meat aboard the travois—a framework of poles stretched out behind the horse—she picked up the sobbing children and, wrapping them in a blanket to keep them from falling off the travois, bestrode her horse, and brought ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... obvious duties which should come first," says the quiet and motherly voice of the third reformer; "infants die by the hundred thousand owing to neglect. There will soon be no babies for you to instruct either in materialism or socialism. The race will die out whilst you talk. Look at the slums ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... each other's calves is certainly erroneous. During the catching of elephants many cases occur in which young ones, after losing their mothers by death or separation, are refused assistance by the other females, and are buffeted about as outcasts. I have only known one instance of a very gentle, motherly elephant in captivity, allowing a motherless calf to suck along with her own young one. When a calf is born the mother and the herd usually remain in that place for two days. The calf is then capable of marching. Even at this tender age calves are no ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Stephens? How absurd! Florence, this is just another of your motherly, oldmaidish ways—dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets and knitting socks for all the little dirty babies in the region round about. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... knowledge of Henderson's accumulating millions, lent an interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. "You act, child," she said, "as if youth ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... time that it was supposed my father must have perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two—Dora and I—were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Morley, who respectively represented the interests of Britain and America, were tremendous friends. Miss Rodgers was fair and rather plump and rosy-faced and calm, with a manner that parents described as "motherly," and a leaning towards mathematics as the basis of a sound education. Miss Morley, on the contrary, was thin and dark and excitable, and taught the English literature and the general knowledge classes, and was rumored—though this no doubt was libel—to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... du take her physic like a lamb." She prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her convalescence in such a way as only belongs to your proper-managing, motherly moral woman. If ever the patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened her with instantaneous death, when Miss Crawley instantly gave ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... She went to see him; she told him that great works of art were not to be manufactured like cannon; and that the State—like Louis XIV., Francis I., and Leo X.—ought to be at the beck and call of genius. Poor Hortense, believing she held a Phidias in her embrace, had the sort of motherly cowardice for her Wenceslas that is in every wife who carries her love to the pitch ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... kissed Andy on the cheek in a motherly way. Marco followed the boy outside. He thumped him on the back with the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... a telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs. Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I knew that I could ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... Lane and the regions of Newgate. Over this little territory, thus bounded and designated, the great dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the intervening houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave-Maria Lane, looks down with an air of motherly protection. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... "Nonsense, my dear, partial, motherly judge. Lookers-on see most of the game," said Uncle Richard good-humouredly. "I was looking on from the landing for some time, and from what I saw, I have no hesitation in saying that Master Tom got as good as ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... commenced by informing me that at ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy she was that her unfortunate ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... She was a pleasant-faced, motherly-looking woman, and she welcomed the boys with open arms. There was no mistaking the warmth and sincerity of her greeting. They felt at home at once and in a few minutes were chatting and laughing as easily ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... brought wood and water and counted it reward enough if they only received a smile from little Alma. Many a man was glad enough, too, to render such service for a meal or lunch of hot coffee and doughnuts, especially such good, big, motherly ones as Mary made, and there was no lack of men helpers. How the coffee steamed, the hot bread and meats smoked, and the soup odors tantalized the olfactories of hundreds of "tenderfeet" with their lusty Alaska appetites, which were increased ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... a motherly-looking woman, coming to the door behind her husband. "Bring them in, every one, and I'll give them some bread and milk. I have cookies, too, for I just ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... his two or three themes: the weird one already described; the little one in triple measure imitating the tap of his hammer, and fiercely mocked in the savage laugh of Alberic at his death; and finally the crooning tune in which he details all his motherly kindnesses to the little foundling Siegfried. Besides this there are all manner of little musical blinkings and shamblings and whinings, the least hint of which from the orchestra at any moment ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... had thrown something black over the young widow's shoulders, of which she seemed unaware. It kept slipping and falling down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs. Greening kept adjusting it with motherly hand. Sitting bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and wound her nervous hot fingers in her lap. Now and then she lifted her eyes to Joe's, as if struggling to read what intention lay behind the pale ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... and rain, it became necessary to circumvent a fierce-looking bull, and Mignot and the accomplice told rival tales of the dangers to which pedestrians are exposed from the violence of the cattle on some montagnes, where the bulls are allowed to grow to full size and fierceness. Mignot was quite motherly in his advice and his cautions, recommending as the surest safeguard a pocket-pistol, loaded with powder only, to be flashed in the bull's face as he makes his charge. When informed that in England ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... served at the meal. Motherly Mrs. Bentley laid aside her motoring dust coat and marshaled the girls for the various tasks to which ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... mother of Tom, of whom I had heard so much. She was, in truth, a motherly-looking person, her fleshy face creased with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... benevolent cat cumbered me the while with consolations—we two were alone in all that was visible of the London Road: two poor waifs who had each tasted sorrow—and she fawned upon the weeper, and gambolled for his entertainment, watching the effect, it seemed, with motherly eyes. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Daisy feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... this kind. Let one pass in absence from childhood to maturity, and who that had not seen him in the mean time could tell that it was he? The trouble arising thence is finely illustrated by Shakspeare in the motherly solicitude of Constance, who, on learning that her young son has been imprisoned by his uncle, King John, and will probably be kept until he pines to death, cries in anguish to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... hardy pioneers opened roads across the mountains, felled the forests, built forts and houses, subdued the earth, and began rapidly to replenish it, for they married and were given in marriage. The State of North Carolina, several years afterward, with a motherly forgiveness, passed laws to confirm marriages and other deeds of these wayward ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter |
