"Sill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the door. Anxiety quickly overspread his face as he saw the gloom on St. Pierre's. He stood on the outer edge of the sill, and drew ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... hardly able to drag myself along. All at once I went into this ditch, and struck full length. In its bottom there was about two inches of mud, thick enough to encase me. By the time I had pawed out, I could not, if laid out, have been distinguished from a mud sill; but I was too near gone to speak bad words, and so went on in silence, weighing five pounds more than before my descent. Before long we halted and bivouaced for the night. The next morning, the 27th, our regiment started about 10 o'clock, and was thrown out as an advance guard ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... this time filled with currants, and they returned to the house. Mrs. Hill, seating herself on the sill of the kitchen door, began to prepare her fruit for tea, while Mrs. Troost drew her chair near, saying, "Did you ever ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Leslie felt; he pictured to himself the warm and loving reception each of his departed school-boy friends would receive on reaching home. Yes, he pictured it all to himself as he stood watching the falling rain, and the hot tears gushed from his eyes, and, laying his head upon the window sill, ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... they might give it, says the vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew away." [Ib. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had the rope of hide been braided. To secure one end to the remaining bar that he had left for this purpose was the work of but a moment, and while the warriors whispered without, the brown body of the ape-man slipped through the small aperture and disappeared below the sill. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... prop her up as he had been shown. When the water boiled he dropped in two bouillon cubes the nurse had given him, and set out some crackers he had bought. He put the milk in two cups, and when he cut the bread, he carefully collected every crumb, putting it on the sill in the hope that a bird might come. The thieving sparrows, used to watching windows and stealing from stores set out to cool, were soon there. Peaches, to whom anything with feathers was a bird, was filled with joy. The odour of the broth was delicious. Mickey ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... then I saw something come up above the sill, and clutch at the broken window-frame. It caught a piece of the woodwork; and, now, I could make out that it was a hand and arm. A moment later, the face of one of the Swine-creatures rose into view. Then, before I could ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the sun: the lighthouse had opened its glaring eye, and, disinclined to leave a spot sublimed both by early association and present regret, he moved back to the church-wall, warm from the afternoon sun, and sat down upon a window-sill facing the grave. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... at him, with a triumphant: "You see!"—But Purdy who, sick and tired of the discussion, had withdrawn to the window to watch the rain zig-zag in runlets down the dusty panes, and hiss and spatter on the sill; Purdy puckered his lips to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... him with a grateful look, and a faint attempt to smile through her tears; then hurried on to her room, where she seated herself in a chair by the window, and laying her arms upon the sill, rested her head upon them, and while the bitter tears fell fast from her eyes she murmured half aloud, "Oh! why am I always so naughty? always doing something to displease my dear papa? how I wish I could be good, and make ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... even when Grandma made him walk with her home from church ahead of us. So when it come out that David was really going to marry, and wouldn't take Hannah, Grandma got as mad as could be and said we never any of us should step over his door sill. But I've stepped, I have, and Grandma can't ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... was down, but the blinds had not yet been closed to. One saw Kerry standing with his forepaws on the window-sill, his nose against the glass, his ears lifted, his eyes anxious and distressed, his lip caught in his teeth. At intervals he threw back his head, ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... over-excited by shock, sometimes take queer and irrelevant channels of thought, and now the only thing on which she seemed able to concentrate was a duel she had witnessed on that very schoolhouse window sill but the previous day: a duel between a locust and a wasp. They had fallen there in deadly embrace, the clumsier holding his antagonist by brute strength that ultimately would break its frail body; but the wily wasp, conscious of this danger, sent thrust after thrust of its venomous ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... have noise enough presently: May has stopped at Lizzy's door; and Lizzy, as she sat on the window-sill with her bright rosy face laughing through the casement, has seen her and disappeared. She is coming. No! The key is turning in the door, and sounds of evil omen issue through the keyhole—sturdy 'let ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... windows and the doors and saw no one except Miss Kitty Cat, dozing on a window sill. Then something moved beneath the piazza ceiling. It was a cage, which swayed as a green figure clung to the wires on one ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... only for a moment, and I daresay it was not agonizing, as I was tempted to call it; very likely your father and you would not have so much as winced at it. Then there was Miss Sill, poor old Miss Sill. Annie, I am afraid you girls laughed at her. Girls will be girls, and she does dress outrageously. You all said her mantles were worse than my cap," tenderly touching that untrustworthy piece of head-gear. "When she sent for ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... quite large, and must have weighed fifteen or twenty pounds. That done, he produced a tape-measure and began, as if he were a surveyor, to measure various distances and apparently to calculate the angles and distances from the window-sill of the Spencer house to the skylight, which was the exact centre of the museum. The straight distance, if I recall correctly, was in the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... always the same. It was brighter and happier and better altogether when, in the fresh morning time, the little lady went tripping by on the pavement beneath the window with a small market basket on her arm. Then Harry, clambering to the sill, and leaning out, could see straight into it; and sometimes it happened that, attracted by that fixed gaze of earnest admiration, that happy face would be turned upward, and break into a beaming smile, as the sunny eyes ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... piece of silk to the frame, and let the other end fall. He caught it and climbed up, making use of the projections of the wall with his two feet. Then, with a thousand precautions, he stepped over the sill. Trembling, the girl hastened to draw back the piece of silk and to shut ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... opened upon a lawn covered with orange, magnolia, and other ornamental trees. The house was low on the ground, and it was not more than three feet from the window-sill to the lawn. Without explaining any thing, Captain Passford took his daughter's trunk, carried it to the window, and then dropped it ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... tipped back against the sill of a window, his feet on a stool, watched us work, and smoked his cigar with ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... is similar to the Wall Spring, but differs both in method of execution and in general difficulty. The performer places the inner side of the thumbs against a wall, or the edge of a table or window sill may be used. No other part of the hands should touch this surface. The feet should then be moved as far backward as possible. The body will then be leaning forward; and from this position, without any movement ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... voice, if I had any objection to drawing down the blind, as her veil smothered her, and she had wept so much that her eyes could not bear the strong light of the afternoon sun. I drew down the blind—with such haste as to pinch my fingers cruelly between the sash and the sill. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... window, and, after gazing forth some time in silence, murmured, "Wild, wild is the night! Heaven send she does not suffer. I left two bundles on her lonely sill, though my fingers grew stiff with cold ere I had gathered them. Thus do I feebly endeavor to atone for past misconduct. How the wind roars through the pines! O, what memories of long ago rush o'er my soul! I think of Mary ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the bureau with its medley of toilet articles and medicine bottles. Through the open door of the closet could be seen Rose's personal belongings; under the table were a pair of high-heeled slippers; and two white stockings made white streaks across the window-sill. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... sure it was securely fastened, he put one leg over the window sill, grasped the lariat with both hands, ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... and saw only red brick factories and dingy houses and dirty streets. The longing for the spring in her old English home lay in her heart like a throbbing pain. "Oh, papa," she sobbed, resting her arms on the window-sill and laying her head wearily down, "do you know all about it, dearest? Oh, if you could only tell me ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that the Irishman's prisoner had jumped up, and was endeavouring to spring through a port—having watched the moment that Paddy's back was turned on him. Paddy had seized one of his legs, and was tugging away with might and main; while the Spaniard, with his other foot on the port-sill, had nearly effected his purpose, notwithstanding the Irishman's desperate efforts to prevent his escape. "Arrah! now he's done it!" exclaimed Doyle, holding up the Spaniard's shoe and a piece of his trousers which had come away ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... a word. She left the place, locked the door securely, and made her way round to the other side of the garage—the side hidden from the house. Here, at the far corner, she drew a little pocket wireless from her bag and set it on the window-sill. Very slowly she ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the tunnel, and at the right as one entered, was a door leading into the porter's office. This door was shut, but as Orme approached it, it noiselessly opened out. He expected to see a porter appear, and when no person stepped over the sill, he inferred that the door had been blown open by an ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... to knock you down coming out. 'Twas all the Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in under his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... a poet is high in the second rank. His Seasons have always been popular; and, when Coleridge found a well-thumbed and thickly dog's-eared copy lying on the window-sill of a country inn, he exclaimed "This is true fame!" His Castle of Indolence is, however, a finer piece of poetical work than any of his other writings. The first canto is the best. But the Seasons have been much more widely ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... block-box close to the sill, and stepped on it to take another view of the latch. For Elsy was enterprising, and had no more idea than have other two-year-old babies of remaining in ignorance of any new and untried danger. Of course she succeeded at last, and so ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... peewees built about the premises, one just inside the south barn cellar, the other under a projecting window-sill at the end of the wagon-house. These two pairs, or younger birds reared there, had built in these same places for seven or eight years. Night and morning as we milked, and at noon also, as we sat grinding scythes at the well, those old peewees would ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... standing beside the physician, "here are some of her long hairs," and she picked some from the window sill. "Oh, she did have the longest, most glorious hair!" and Betty sighed in memory, for Betty loved long tresses and her own, while they became her wonderfully well, were not ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... beside his dead son—"listen all of you that has wrought this murder of my dying boy! He is yet warm," he added, grinding his teeth and looking up to heaven, "and here beside him, I pray, that the gates of mercy may be closed upon my soul through sill eternity, if I die without vengeance for ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... also; for she stood at the open window of the garret, by which hung the cage containing the linnet, who then had no water-glass, but was obliged to be contented with an old cup. In the window-sill stood a myrtle in a pot, and this had been pushed a little on one side, that it might not fall out; for the old maid was leaning out of the window, that she might see. And she did see distinctly the aeronaut in the balloon, and how he let ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... close-fitting bonnet and a long, loose, grayish cape. She was a most particular person in some ways. A lady who lived there as a housekeeper said she was never allowed to leave her thimble on the window sill for a few moments; and it was well known that when a caller rang the front door bell the maid who answered had orders to scan the costume closely. If there was "bugle trimming" among its adornments the caller was shown into the parlor on the right side, where the furniture ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... have it, it is in a bottle on the window sill,' said they, hoping that they might obtain their freedom at once. But they ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... but one and a half stories high; few exceed two. That in which I and my chimney dwell, is in width nearly twice its height, from sill to eaves—which accounts for the magnitude of its main content—besides showing that in this house, as in this country at large, there is abundance of space, and to spare, for both ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... my lord!" she cried, and dropped a rose to attract him. His horse sprung aside and trod upon it; but Cedric looked up and saw the anxious face embrazured by ivy-clad sill; and with involuntary courtesy he speedily uncovered and waited thus ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the season is the dance you are giving to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French window, was just about to enter the ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... betwixt Ioppa and Ierusalem. These Arabians troubled vs oftentimes. Our Truchman that payed the money for vs was striken down, and had his head broken because be would not giue them as much as they asked: and they that should haue rescued both him and vs, stood sill and durst do nothing, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... in there, and you shall go in there,' said the little man, and with that he lifted him up on to the window-sill. Then he said to him: 'Notice well now what you have to do. This evening you must stretch yourself out on the left-hand side of her chest. The lid opens to the right, and she comes out to the left. When she ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... of bed, backing heedlessly across the room. He was still screaming as the low sill of the open window caught him behind the knees and toppled him thirty stories ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... the parlour, though not large, was of tolerable size; but little light entered, so shaded was it with a rose-tree in a pot on the sill. By the wall opposite was a couch, and on the couch lay Ian with a book in his hand—a book in a strange language. His mother and he would sometimes be a whole morning together and exchange no more than a word or two, though many a look and smile. It seemed ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... be a fairy," she said by herself; "I'll never make fun of Dudu any more—never. He must be a fairy, or how else could he have got up from the terrace on to the window-sill all in a minute? And I don't think a raven fairy would be nice at all; he'd be a sort of an imp, I expect. I wouldn't mind now if Houpet was a fairy, he's so gentle and loving; but Dudu would be a sort of ogre fairy, he's so black and ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... smells, sauntered on, asseverated that Amy Waring was an odd sort of girl; and finally went in to the Washington Hotel, where each lolled back in an armchair, with the white duck legs reposing in another—excepting Mr. Dinks, who poised his boots upon the window-sill that commanded Broadway; and so, comforted with a cigar in the mouth, and a glass of iced port-wine sangaree in the hand, the three young gentlemen labored through ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... face was browned by a thousand suns and storms; a long scar, the trophy of some Irish fight, crossed his right temple; his huge figure had gained breadth in proportion to its height; and his hand, as it lay upon the window-sill, was hard and massive as a smith's. Frank laid his own upon it, and sighed; and Amyas looked down, and started at the contrast between the two—so slender, bloodless, all but transparent, were the delicate fingers of the courtier. Amyas looked anxiously ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... two ways. A straight down push and a sideways push. The bolt resists the down push and transmits it to the first stick, and that pushes against the sill that I marked a. Now, the sideways push is against the butt of the first timber of the floor, and that's passed on, same way, ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... and looked out. Just below the window-sill he saw some branches of the broken tree. He looked down and noted that the tree-top had gone into the window of ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... Took, for having a dirty copybook Esau Klaster, for drawing caricatures of the master Paul Bhool, for letting a bird loose in school Jabez Breeding, for not knowing the place at reading Levi Stout, for stopping too long when let out Guy M'Gill, sharpening a knife on the window-sill Duncan Heather, pinning two boys' coat-tails together Ezekiel Black, pinning paper on another boy's back Patrick O'Toole, for bursting a paper-bag in school Eli Teet, for putting cobbler's wax ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... gone abroad, and had left some of his pictures on the wall in charge of the carpenter—a bewitched Greuze, copied in the Louvre; the inevitable study of a bird's-nest and primroses; a girl standing at a wash-tub by an open window, on the sill of which outside leaned an Irish peasant, with his handsome, blarneying face. Then there were sketches taken in the neighbourhood. "I remember this one half finished on his easel," said Harry. It was a glade of a forest; in the fore-ground a huge oak, knee-deep in bracken, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... twenty minutes the bush below the back-window parted and the Kaffir slipped out. He grinned at me, and after a glance round, hopped very nimbly over the sill. Then he examined the ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... mixed it with the syrup again, and her mother drank of it eagerly; then she laid her head wearily upon the low window-sill, and beckoned her little daughter to come to her side. It seemed to the child that her mother could not be comfortable, and she fetched a pillow from the bed, and placed it carefully under her mother's ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... crumbs. Of these he ate only a few, but he called all the other hungry sparrows around him, that they, too, might have some food. He flew into the towns, and looked round about; and wherever a kind hand had strewn bread on the window-sill for the birds, he only ate a single crumb himself, and gave all the rest ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... a moment later carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up: under it, through an open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green leaves of a pipal tree and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet with an official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... that you keep a keen look-out, and that you take an exact copy of any fresh dancing men which may appear. It is a thousand pities that we have not a reproduction of those which were done in chalk upon the window-sill. Make a discreet inquiry also as to any strangers in the neighbourhood. When you have collected some fresh evidence come to me again. That is the best advice which I can give you, Mr. Hilton Cubitt. If there are any pressing fresh developments ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wheel-barrow, strode from between the shafts and went and looked into the great window of the tobacco-shop. His eyes were all full, as far as they could carry: an abundance and a splendour to dream about. He came a step nearer and rested his two elbows on the stone window-sill, to see ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... the only course left him, and in the last GALAXY claims that HE wrote the criticism himself, and published it in THE GALAXY to sell the public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take the trouble to call at this office we sill show them the original article in the SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY. The best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... really parallel with the window by which Kathleen meant to escape. There was an interval of silence, and then Alice had her reward! for the window of their mutual bedroom was flung wide open, and Kathleen, neatly dressed, appeared on the window-sill. She looked around her for a minute. Alice caught a glimpse of her bright face by the light of the moon, which was already getting up in the sky. The next minute Kathleen caught firm hold of the arm of ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... kettle-drum. He had cracked his whip until he was tired, but he still kept cracking it. He cracked it at every fly that lit on the floor, at the motes that floated into the shaft of sunlight before him, at special knots in the door-sill, or at nothing, as the spirit moved him. A sort of holiday feeling, such as he felt on Sundays, had kept him at home this afternoon. If he had known that to be a little too full of good things and a little tired of cracking whips or tooting horns ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Fisherman's Rest" at Dover, was a prosperous man, was of course clear to the most casual observer. The pewter on the fine old dressers, the brass above the gigantic hearth, shone like silver and gold—the red-tiled floor was as brilliant as the scarlet geranium on the window sill—this meant that his servants were good and plentiful, that the custom was constant, and of that order which necessitated the keeping up of the coffee-room to a high standard of elegance ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the snow, too sick or too badly exhausted to fly. I stroked her feathers gently while she perched on my finger, and then resumed my walk; first putting her into a little more sheltered position on the sill of a cellar window, and promising to call on my way back, when, if she were no better, I would take her home with me, and give her a warm room and good nursing. When I returned, however, she was nowhere to be found. Her mate, I regret ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... where there is a school," he remarked. "I've never went, but I hung on ter the window-sill an' looked in, an' if yer went ter school up there, yer oughter be goin' down here, see!" And ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... to get away from me. I dragged him—the good honest creature who was incapable of concealments and treacheries!—into his master's room. In the moment before I closed the door again, I saw Toller down on his knees with his arms laid helplessly on the window-sill, staring up at the sky as if he had gone mad. There was no time for questions; I drove poor Ponto back into the ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... shed So strong a smell of fishes dead That people of a subtler sense Hold their breath and hurry thence. Miss Thompson hovers there and gazes: Her housewife's knowing eye appraises Salt and fresh, severely cons Kippers bright as tarnished bronze: Great cods disposed upon the sill, Chilly and wet, with gaping gill, Flat head, glazed eye, and mute, uncouth, Shapeless, wan, old-woman's mouth. Next a row of soles and plaice With querulous and twisted face, And red-eyed bloaters, golden-grey; Smoked haddocks ranked in neat array; A group ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... the clever godmother did? She took a quantity of moonshine, or some equally convenient material, and made an image, which she set on the window-sill reading, or by the table drawing, where it looked so like Prince Dolor that any common observer would never have guessed the deception; and even the boy would have been puzzled to know which was the image and which ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... open,—the pensive maiden Leans o'er the sill with a wistful sigh, Her heart with tender longings o'erladen, And a happy sadness, she ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... cushion; and, seating herself in such a way as to lean against the railing, she took up a fishing-rod and began to fish. Pao-ch'ai played for a time with a twig of olea she held in her hand, then resting on the window-sill, she plucked the petals, and threw them into the water, attracting the fish, which went by, to rise to the surface and nibble at them. Hsiang-yuen, after a few moments of abstraction, urged Hsi Jen and the other girls to help themselves to anything they wanted, and beckoned to the servants, seated ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... evening when, in the bluish and dark green and chalky landscape of the town and its rounded gardens, I saw that window lighted up. A narrow glimmer of rose and gold was enframed there, and I could distinguish, leaning on the sill that overhung the town, in the heart of that resplendence, a feminine form which stirred before my eyes in inaccessible forbearance. Long did I watch with shaking knees that window dawning upon space, as the shepherd watches ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... oneself on one's back and float—are just the remedies a man feels utterly unable at the time to try. He was alone and drowning when, his eye being turned at the moment to the cottage upon the hillside, he saw the candle for the night just being placed on the window-sill. The light arrested him, and 'there will be sorrow there to-morrow when I'm missed' passed through his mind. The thought made him give so fierce a kick that he fairly kicked the cramp out of his leg. A few strokes {21} brought him to the shore, where he sank down utterly exhausted ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... somnambulist. Her voice sank rapidly to a loud whisper and he heard her articulate—"My husband! Mine! Mine!"—but in no tone of tenderness, rather pronouncing the words as a passionate claim to his possession. Then suddenly she drooped, half kneeling on the deep window-seat, half fallen across the sill. He sprang to catch her, but not before her forehead had come down sharply on the stone edge of the outer window. He kneeled upon the window-seat and gathered her gently in his arms, where she lay quiet, but ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... endeavored to engage him in conversation, but without effect. Although answering politely any questions, he made no remarks in return, and the conversation soon languished for want of material to support it. Poor Josiah Sill, finding his social qualities not appreciated, soon himself relapsed into silence, wondering what could induce his companion to seek Holden, and connecting his reserve in some mysterious way with the visit. Finding the silence not altogether agreeable, Josiah finally burst out ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... dreaded noise knew at once what had happened, and rushed straight into the bathroom to try and staunch the flood, taking no notice of the figure on the landing in the towel, but Mrs. Fisher did not know what the noise could be, and coming out of her room to inquire stood rooted on the door-sill. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... motionless. There had been no barking of dogs, and, after listening intently, he became convinced that no living thing was out of doors in the vicinity of the shack. With infinite caution he wormed his way along the ground and, reaching a window in the rear of the house, drew himself to the sill ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... and thick, low masses of smoke-colored cloud scudded across the chill sky, whipped along their skirts by a stinging north-east blast into dun, ragged, trailing banners. Despite the keenness of the air, Salome opened one of the parlor windows and leaned her face on the broad sill, where a drizzling rain began to show itself. She had read and heard just enough with reference to the phenomena of clairvoyance to sneer at them in happy hours, and to recur helplessly to the same subject with a species of silent dread when misfortune seemed imminent. To-day, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... bit of it," I said; "you've gone up a hundred per cent in the estimation of the villagers. There was a real fight for the window-sill. But your friend, Jem ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... desolate, to wake, to rise, Leaving the couch, where softly sleeping still, What through the past night made my heaven, lies; And looking out across the window sill ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... carved chimney-piece of almost black oak. A sombre place in gloomy weather, yet so decorated with old china vases, and great brass salvers, and silver cups and tankards catching every ray of light, that the whole room glistened in this bright May-day. In the broad cushioned seat formed by the sill of the oriel window, which was almost as large as a room itself, there sat the elder Mrs. Sefton, Roland Sefton's foreign mother, with his two children standing before her. They had their hands clasped behind them, and their faces were turned toward her with the grave earnestness children's ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... them in a row on one end of the long table. The mugs were to hold the contents of sundry bottles of beer, now safely stowed away in the lidless, pigeon-holed box, standing in the hall, which Fred unloaded later, placing the bottles on the window-sill outside to cool. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... six and twenty, with black hair and whiskers of the window-brush school, and a face reminding you of the BOURBONS. As, although lighting his lamp, he has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat, his room is but imperfectly illuminated, and you can just detect the accordeon on the window-sill, and, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a school-girl. (There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another and slightly larger triangle ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... the one small door to the little adobe shop, and into this an Indian had ridden his piebald pony; its forefeet were up a step on the sill and its head and shoulders were in the room, which made it quite impossible for us three frightened women to run out in the street. So we got back of a counter, and, as Mrs. Phillips expressed it, "midway between the devil and the deep sea." There certainly could be no mistake ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the thickening darkness, among the big-boned and slouching figures of the clansmen, she seemed to shrink from the stature of a woman into that of a child, and, as she felt his eyes on her, she timidly slipped farther back into the shadowy door of the cabin, and dropped down on the sill, where, with her hands clasped about her knees, she gazed curiously at himself. She did not speak, but sat immovable with her thick hair falling over her shoulders. The painter recognized that even the interest in him as a new type could not for long keep her ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observed the same slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his little hatchet, splitting kindling, and breaking coal for his fire. He does this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not to be attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain of his prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an axe), and daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason is this: That the sill is a strong supporting beam, and that ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... gone in at the gate,' said Varvara, and she suddenly got up on the window-sill and ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... made by a pebble striking the floor, bounding and rolling across the room. There it was again. Some one was tossing stones in at her window. She slipped out of bed, ran, and leaned on the window-sill and looked out. The moon was going down behind the hill, but there was light enough for her to distinguish objects. She saw a dark figure ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... They were talking and laughing loudly, and wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands. It was evident that somebody had been "standing treat" in the narrow passage; and leaning their elbows on the sill of the little bar window were more miners, each with his pint ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... those feast-days the four sisters were prevented from keeping their little friend company. Elena, with nothing to do, and feeling melancholy, leaned upon the window-sill which overlooked the narrow canal. And it chanced that just then Gerardo, on his way to Dulcinea, went by; and Elena looked down at him, as she had seen those sisters look at passers-by. Gerardo caught her eye, and glances ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... voice asking admittance. An instant later, a huge, bearded, broad-shouldered man stepped inside, shaking himself free of the snow, laughing half-sheepishly as he did so, and laying his fur cap and gloves with exaggerated care on the wide window-sill. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... Burns warehouse exceeded the young minister's estimates. The standing audience was greater than the number that found seats. A few venturesome lads who had never seen a midget climbed up to the braces that held sill to pillar to get a better view. But withal it was a quiet, orderly gathering of the men, women, and children of the little ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... lean-to looked towards the road, and so made a kind of front door to the kitchen which was within. The door-sill was raised a single step above the rough old grey stone which did duty before it; and sitting on the doorstep, in the shadow and sunlight which came through the elm branches and fell over her, this June afternoon, was the person whose life story I am going to try to ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Vera eagerly looking up, while, from the window of their room Elf reached out, desperately struggling to draw the heavy bundle up to the window sill. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... ledge. I had pulled the window open before I turned my head. I had only to feel for the sill. When I touched its edge, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... cold that Elizabeth had built a roaring fire, and to keep the snow, which penetrated every crack, from sifting under the door, she laid old coats and carpets across the sill. She brought coal and cobs from the shed, stopping each trip to get warm, for even to go the twenty steps required to get to the cobhouse was to experience more cold than she had ever encountered in all the days when she had plowed through ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... she sat for a long time thinking, with her face buried in her hands, while the gay gos-hawk preened his feathers, and crooned to himself on the window sill. At last she sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing and her mouth set determinedly. Taking a beautiful ring from her hand, she tied it with trembling fingers under the bird's wing where ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... the window cut short this argument. All glanced up: but it came this time from no avalanche of snow. Someone had planted a ladder against the house, and the top of the ladder was scraping against the window-sill. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with thee to Essex. Lord, how I laughed to watch thee groping to find a place safe enough to put it in. 'I'm drunk,' says thou, 'and I would have it safe till I am sober. 'Twill be safe here,' and stuffed it in the broken plaster 'neath the window-sill. And safe it was, for I'll warrant thou hast not thought of it since, and safe thou'lt find it at ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to the window, opened a square of the glass, sat down on the window-seat, and looked out to the tiny garden. A faint smell, as of dewy earth, rose from it, fresh, delicate, and—somehow—pathetic. As Claude leaned on the window-sill this frail scent, which seemed part of the dying night, connected itself in his mind with his past life. He drew it in through his nostrils, he thought of it, and vaguely it floated about the long days and nights of his work-filled loneliness, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... spoke to some one who stood hidden in the deep embrasure of a window, but it was too far to either see or hear. Then it seemed that a small object fell lightly from the window-sill. The Doomsman caught it dexterously and fastened it on his breast. Another low bow and, wheeling his horse, he dashed down the slope. Constans ran blindly to meet him; why, he did not know. He who named himself Quinton Edge swerved slightly in his course so as to pass within arm's-length, calling ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Minnie was interrupted by two strong hands grasping the window-sill. A moment after a shadowy head arose above it. Mrs. Willoughby started back, but through the gloom she was able to recognize the strongly marked ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... said that the window of Marie's bedroom was above the door. The curtains were closed, but the folding sides were thrown open, and a lamp burned in the room. Young and active, I felt that I could spring high enough to reach the edge of the window sill and to draw myself out of danger. The monster was within touch of me as I sprang. Had I been unaided, I should have done what I had planned. But even as in a superb effort I rose from the earth he butted me into the air. I shot through the curtains as if I had been fired ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the sill, catching her breath as the tin roof cracked beneath her feet, but gathered the roses and returned to her mirror. With the nimble fingers of her race she arranged the roses at one side of her head, above and behind the ear. Certainly they were becoming. She also discovered ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... put his fore-hoofs on the sill of the window, the dog got on the ass's head, the cat on the dog's head, and the cock on the cat's head. Then Jack made a sign, and they all sung out ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... his goin' ter de lawyer ter fin' out 'bout a defoce, an' w'en I heared w'at de lawyer said 'bout my not bein' his wife 'less he wanted me, it made me so mad, I made up my min' dat ef he ever put his foot on my do'sill ag'in, I 'd shet de do' in his face an' tell 'im ter go back whar he ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... crept toward the west, and it shone into the side window and through the screen of splendid fuchsias which clambered from sill ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... and goes out. BUILDER again utters his glum laugh. And then, as he sits alone staring before him, perfect silence reigns in the room. Over the window-sill behind him a BOY'S face is seen to rise; it hangs there a moment with a grin ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lightning play over the hilltop and the streams of rain chasing each other down the lightning rod. And this was the day that had dawned so joyfully! It had been a red sunrise, and she had leaned on the window sill studying her lesson and thinking what a lovely world it was. And what a golden morning! The changing of the bare, ugly little schoolroom into a bower of beauty; Miss Dearborn's pleasure at her success with the Simpson twins' recitation; the privilege of decorating the blackboard; ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... we ask how did the man get into the house. Your argument that no one could have escaped through that window in the passage was sound, I think, Wigan, and considering the immaculate condition of the latch and the lack of signs on the sill and the flower bed, I doubt if any one got in that way, either. On the whole, I am inclined to think he came through the front door, which was opened for him by Hollis the butler or ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... roguish white one with pink blemishes on a twisting black nose. And while the large brown face loomed steadily above two powerful front paws, the small white face only appeared at intervals as the nervous little body below flung it up to the sill in a series ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... when, as the professor did not surrender, it began to be feared that the joke had gone too far, and two of the conspirators went out to see if there were any external signs of vitality, and found that the victim had opened his window and was lying with his head below the window-sill so as to be out of the smoke which poured out over him. I suppose that the delegates were drunk, for one of them threw a block of wood at the professor's head which, missing him, drove in the window pane and finished ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... came from his hiding-place within the recess. He ran to the window and opened it noiselessly. A moment later he was standing upon the stone sill. The afternoon sun shone full upon his face as he stood there, and showed a deep red flush on either cheek. Slowly he stooped forward, holding with one hand to the woodwork of the window while he ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... his own entrance. But he did not attempt to enter. Though he had been running, it was his pallor, not his heat, which struck Claire in that first moment. He was white, with the pallor of intense anger; the flash of his eyes was like cold steel. He rested his hands on the sill of the window, and looked ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
