"Toying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of decision and bravely crossed the room. Martha was seated upon the davenport, nervously toying with her fan. He saw with misgiving that she evidently expected something was going to happen. Her ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... a complacent smile, toying with his gold chatelaine, "I really could not have visited you sooner, under the circumstances in which ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... toying with his fourth meal since sunset, and admitted that he was ready for anything rather than spaghetti ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... but it passed. She was wonderfully pretty, all admitted, in her gown of a rich amber satin draped with delicate folds of black lace; around her white throat a diamond necklace glistened. How well I can remember her as she stood there toying with a button of her glove! And how mean and dowdy we all looked ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and irresolute; but she smiled, and swept her fingers over the bars of her bird-cage, toying with ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... life, there is no history in this war that can be written that can recount the number of occasions when the seeming first thought of men was to do for their pals, utterly regardless of their own safety. For sheer toying with death and taking chances in situations that did not seem to offer the slightest hope or chance of getting through, the Great War discloses feats of valor with which nothing can compare that comes out of the mist of "Days of old ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... hell—to a gibbet or to an abode of love. Anything was a glean of hope to him in the depth of his misery. The lady strolled along the bank of the Loire towards Plessis inhaling like a fish the fine freshness of the water, toying, sauntering like a little mouse who wishes to see and taste everything. When the page perceived that Jacques de Beaune persistently followed his mistress in all her movements, stopped when she stopped, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... of the direction and character of female education. It is dolefully affirmed that young ladies learn how to sing operas, but not how to keep house,—that they can conjugate Greek verbs, but cannot make bread,—that they are good for pretty toying, but not for homely using. Doubtless there is foundation for this remark, or it would never have been made. But I have been in the East, and the West, and the North, and the South; I know that I have seen the best society, and I am sure I have seen very bad, if not the worst; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Max, tho' it may be an easy character to draw, for a man of thought and lofty feeling—for a man who possesses all the analoga of genius, is yet so delightful, and its moral influence so grand and salutary, that we must allow it great praise. The childish love-toying with the glove and Aunt Tertsky in the first act should be omitted. Certain whole scenes are masterly, and far above anything since the dramatists of Eliz. & James the first.' Note on fly-leaf of annotated ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fever. And all the time it was as if the rattlesnake was conscious of the dreadful power he held over his victim. Its arrowy head and long neck were started silently toward him, as if threatening instant destruction; and then, like the cat toying with her victim, it was withdrawn again, and the spell deepened and increased. A strange whirl passed through the mind of the boy. By a violent attempt to call in his wandering thoughts he gathered an idea of the mortal danger impending over him, ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... to be merely toying with him. He scarcely moved his arm to parry the strokes which his adversary's fury did ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... "he was afraid he should be beaten and scolded, as if it was he himself that was going to be married! Why, where is the harm?" she continued, her fingers toying with Lucien's hair. "What is your family to me when you are an exception? Suppose that my father were to marry his cook, would that trouble you much? Dear boy, lovers are for each other their whole family. Have I a greater interest than my Lucien in the world? Be great, find the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... should rather place and fix them in a little below mine eyes, that I might see the better what I should stick at with them; for, being so situated, Momus then would find no fault therewith, as he did once with the position of the horns of bulls. The wanton, toying girl, notwithstanding any remonstrance of mine to the contrary, did always drive and thrust them further in; yet thereby, which to me seemed wonderful, she did not do me any hurt at all. A little after, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... briskly and exactly. The three on the left of the line attended to me, and I sat there, toying with a wine-glass for appearance sake, though the three brown barrels levelled straight and steady at my head made my heart rattle like a stone in a can. These were none of Brocton's untrained grey-coats, but precise, disciplined ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... minutes she was too overcome to say anything; she sat grim and silent, her pale eyes glaring at me, her freckled fingers toying with the diamonds. She was baffled and perplexed—she did not know what ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... he passed the window on horseback, and with a heavy sigh Mrs. Murray dropped her head on her hand, compressing her lips, and toying abstractedly with ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... hours, for be often indulged in it, always making his approach in the same deliberate way, tripping daintily a step or two at a time, examining everything in a careless way, tasting a piece of apple-skin, lifting a bit of thread, toying and dallying to all appearance, as he moved, still always advancing, and never turning aside from his purpose till he reached the distance of a foot from the thrush, crouching motionless with crown feathers ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... air, the green of jungle comes like a cooling bath of delicate tints and shades. I think of all the green things I have loved—of malachite in matrix and table-top; of jade, not factory-hewn baubles, but age-mellowed signets, fashioned by lovers of their craft, and seasoned by the toying yellow fingers of generations of forgotten Chinese emperors—jade, as Dunsany would say, of the exact shade of the right color. I think too, of dainty emerald scarves that are seen and lost in a flash at a dance; of the air-cooled, living green of ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... considered that at the age of seven, or something earlier, miss is instructed by her mother that master is a very monstrous kind of animal, who will, if she suffers him to come too near her, infallibly eat her up and grind her to pieces: that, so far from kissing or toying with him of her own accord, she must not admit him to kiss or toy with her: and, lastly, that she must never have any affection towards him; for if she should, all her friends in petticoats would esteem her a traitress, point at her, and hunt her out of their society. ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... dim light from the shaded windows he had not at first seen the girl. She was seated on a footstool, her hands on her father's knee, her fond face gazing up into his, and that strong, bony hand of his resting on her head and toying with the ribbon, the "snood," as he loved to call it, with which she bound her abundant tresses. At sound of the doctor's voice, Janet, ever apprehensive of ill, had come forth from the dining room, silver brush and towel in hand, and stood at the doorway, gazing austerely. She could not yet forgive ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... gate she stooped to pick a flower, which she held for a moment to her face; then, toying lightly with it in her fingers, she slipped the latch and continued along the path leading down into the ravine. It was dark and cool down there, with a touch of dampness in the grass, and the balm-of-Gileads across the stream sent a fine moist fragrance through ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... troubled Lemminkainen, But engaged himself as herd-boy, Passed his days among the meadows, And his nights 'mid lively maidens, Sporting with the charming maidens, Toying with their ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... and down the yard in his shirt sleeves—the day was very warm—with a flat cloth cap over his close-cut hair, and his hands in his trousers pockets, or toying restlessly with a piece of straw. The parsonage dog had found companions, and the youth followed the dog's frolic with his eyes, and gazed at the chickens and at us children as though he longed to be one of us. The girl's words, "But don't do him any harm," rang in my ears unceasingly— ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... have used me as well as those of Rome. Besides, the whole reputation of my gallantry is at stake. Give up such a lovely woman to that drunken boy! My character would be gone for ever. No more perfumed tablets, full of vows and raptures. No more toying with fingers at the circus. No more evening walks along the Tiber. No more hiding in chests or jumping from windows. I, the favoured suitor of half the white stoles in Rome, could never again aspire above a freed-woman. You a man ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... similar trees—alike in age and character for all the difference in soil—the one tree that does not leave the flat being the tea or melaleuca. In some places the jungle comes down to the water's edge, the long antennae of the lawyer vine toying with the rod-like ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... had a fancy for sketching and made numerous caricatures of those persons with whom she came in contact. These contained so much humor that Mary Louise was delighted with them—especially one of "Uncle Peter" toying with his watch fob and staring straight ahead of him with round, ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... translucence of her long, thin hand in the sunshine striking across the painted iron surface of the garden movable. The translucence had a pathos for his intelligence which the pensive tilt of her head enhanced. She stopped toying with the cards, and looked at ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... unlucky Belleville easily on the preceding Saturday, while Scranton was "toying" with that aggregation of sluggers from Mechanicsburg, and almost getting their fingers burned while doing so. The "Champs," as the visitors delighted to call themselves, seemed to have an air of confidence that impressed ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... Gazette" in Philadelphia, he becomes involved in the bitter quarrel between his chief, Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. His attachment to the cause of the French Revolution makes him publish baseless attacks upon Washington. By and by he retires to a New Jersey farm, still toying with journalism, still composing verses. He turns patriotic poet once more in the War of 1812; but the public has now forgotten him. He lives on in poverty and seclusion, and in his eightieth year loses his way in a snowstorm ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... when it came to close fighting, there was no one more to be trusted than the sterner of these two young fellows. Ducking now and again, for somehow he could not help it, turning his eyes anxiously every few minutes in the direction of the enemy, his fingers locking themselves about his rifle and toying nervously with the buttons of his tunic, Henri did indeed, at that moment, look ill at ease, to say the least of it. And yet he too smiled as that shell burst, and, turning a moment later, smiled once more as ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... to stores and cafes, all wide open to the pavement and protected from the sun by brilliantly striped awnings, and gay with the national colors of Olancho in flags and streamers. In front of them sat officers in uniform, and the dark-skinned dandies of Valencia, in white duck suits and Panama hats, toying with tortoise shell canes, which could be converted, if the occasion demanded, into blades of Toledo steel. In the streets were priests and bare-legged mule drivers, and ragged ranchmen with red-caped cloaks hanging to their sandals, and negro women, with bare shoulders and long ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... with a sort of quiet assurance that conveyed the idea, without her saying it directly, that any such venture was somehow doomed to failure, that desecrators were merely toying ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... almost started from their sockets, but the monk looked on without pity. He dragged him to that part of the tower whence the gilded weathercock could be seen toying with the free air of heaven. The sky shone blue and bright; never had it seemed so fair to the wretch that was looking his last upon its azure dome. He felt himself raised in the arms of the monk, firmly ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... "Decker's working up a deal in Crown Diamond and toying a little with Confidence—you gave me a week to find ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... If toying young Damon by Sylvia's Charms, At length should look pale and perplexed be; To cure the Distemper and ease those harms, Go straight to the Globe and ask Number three: There beauties like Venus thou canst not lack, Be kind to them, they will sweetly ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... for a while, toying with his glass, his young brow contracted under a painful frown. At length, checking a sigh, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... circumstances of peculiarity, by which the murder would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively—his wife Csonia; and whilst fondling her, and toying playfully with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he half insinuated to her) between the desire of caressing it, which might be often repeated, and that of cutting it, which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... on another. The proletariat rose up and destroyed it. To mobs anything beautiful is offensive. Palaces looted, banks, museums, houses. The ignorant toying with hand grenades, thinking them sceptres. All the scum in the world boiling to the top. After the Red Day comes ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... read to the Earl of Essex, and on the evening before his appointed execution, the Countess of Shrewsbury paid his lordship a visit, and found him, as it appeared, toying childishly with a ring. The diamond, that enriched it, glittered like a little star, but with a singular tinge of red. The gloomy prison-chamber in the Tower, with its deep and narrow windows piercing the walls of stone, was now all that ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... already at the depot, the doors of which were open. Captain Sol entered the waiting room and unlocked the ticket rack and the little safe. Issy, languidly toying with the broom on the front platform, paused in his pretense of sweeping and awaited permission to go home for breakfast. It came, in ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... keep your hands in your lap when you are not eating; toying with articles on the ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... coroner began the examination. The American captain was a rude, uncouth Down-Easter, about thirty years old, and sat on a bench, doubled and bent into an indescribable attitude, out of which he occasionally straightened himself, all the time toying with a ruler, or some such article. The case was one of no interest; the man had been frost-bitten, and died from natural causes, so that no censure was deserved or passed upon the captain. The jury, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... never seek amusement in toying with human hearts. I should deem myself a villain if I came into your house and stole your purse, and I should think myself no better if I entered the citadel of a woman's heart to steal her affections only to waste their wealth. Her stolen money I might ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... by the mantel, toying absently with a bronze model of the Praxiteles Faun which rested on ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... the dust at a pace implying some business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the steaming pair tethered to a post outside a rough structure labelled the 'Miner's Rest,' and at the bar stood the driver toying lazily with a nobbler of brandy. He passed groups of men lounging against the building and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern about anything. Their lethargy surprised him. He had expected to find the town mad with excitement, to behold here the gold ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... remain on the level of accepted or rejected axioms. I wasn't about to devote much time to them when the whole fascinating field of subatomic mirror numbers was just opening up; certainly not because a few sensational journalists were toying with dead-end notions. For that matter the newsplastics weren't either and quickly went back to the regular mathematical ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner
... coiffeur—children trooping in, in hoops and uniforms, to kiss their mother's hand, the fine gentleman choosing a waistcoat and ogling the pretty embroideress, the pert young maidservant slipping a billet-doux into a beauty's hand under her husband's nose, the old beau toying with a fan, or the discreet abbe taking snuff over the morning gazette. The grand ladies of Longhi's day pay visits in hoop and farthingale, the beaux make "a leg," and the lacqueys hand chocolate. The beautiful Venetians and their gallants swim through the gavotte or gamble ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... with its thin, almost hollow cheeks, tanned brown by the blazing suns of the southern desert, his hair cropped close to his shapely head, his gray-blue eyes, large, full and steady, fixed unswerving upon her. Leaning on his elbow, one lean brown hand was toying with the sun-bleached ends of his mustache, the other, with the class ring gleaming in the moonlight, lay idly on his knee. Lacking stature, size or weight, the physical attributes that make a man impressive, he looked the picture of the young athlete, firm and fit and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... being adored," he answered, toying with some fruits. "Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as Humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... I leave my chair and seat myself on the bearskin beside the ample fireplace and begin toying with ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... them what they should eat at the end of the day and brought for the twain wine and dessert and fruits and flowers. After this fashion I abode in their service, standing on my feet, and she said not unto me, "Sit," nor "Take, eat" nor "Take, drink," while she and the young man sat toying and laughing, and he feel to kissing her and pinching her and hopping over the ground[FN476] and laughing. They remained thus awhile and presently she said, "Hitherto we have not become drunken; let me pour out." So she took the cup, and crowning it, gave him to drink and plied ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... indeed, very curious and interesting, the literary fate of Charles Lamb. Jocular Bishops, archly toying Rural Deans, Rectors with a "penchant" for anecdote, scholarly Canons with a weakness for Rum Punch, are all inclined to speak as if in some odd way he was of their own very tribe. He had absolutely nothing in common with them, except ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... scene before him. He inhaled with delight the soft summer air; never had it seemed to him so balmy, so full of strengthening power, and he acknowledged that never had the stars, the moon, the sky looked as beautiful. With lively joy he felt the night-wind toying with his hair. The king would not tire of all this; it seemed to him as if a friend, dead long since, mourned and bewailed, had suddenly appeared to him beaming with health, and as if he must open his arms and say, "Welcome, thou returned one. Fate separated ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; Chiefs, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... a quilt of brocade, a little face, youngish, very merry, somewhat pallid, whilst its eyes never ceased to express a sentiment at once lively, intellectual, and amiable. This was the Abbe Scarron, always laughing, joking, complimenting—yet suffering—and toying nervously with ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cortege, then, was just about to pass from Germany to France. It was evening, and the fiery gold of the setting sun was mirrored in the waves of the Rhine which with gentle murmur were toying with the greensward that sloped gracefully down to the water's edge. The emperor gave the word to halt, and rising from his seat, looked back upon the long line of carriages ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and it was a name which is at present one of the best known on the German stage, with which a number of terrestrial adventures are connected, as every Viennese knows, with which those of Venus herself were only innocent toying, but which I then ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... There on a table was all dainty food That sea, that earth, or liquid air could give, And in the crystal of the laughing flood They saw two naked virgins bathe and dive, That sometimes toying, sometimes wrestling stood, Sometimes for speed and skill in swimming strive, Now underneath they dived, now rose above, And ticing baits laid forth of lust ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which four days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat down, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned Balashev ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a quick, suspicious glance at Blakeney, who, leaning back against the chair and one knee resting on the cushioned seat, was idly toying with the other blade, the exact pair to the one which the ex-ambassador had ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... whole translunar gamut ranging. There my astral body slides and skims, Choriambic melodies exchanging With the apolaustic cherubims; Weaving in a polyphonic pattern Harmonies that mock at clefs and bars; Toying with the shining rings of Saturn, Throwing star-dust in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... Tarzan watched, toying idly with the rifle of the dead German. Presently he fell to examining the mechanism of the piece. He glanced again toward the German trenches and changed the adjustment of the sights, then he placed the rifle to his shoulder and took aim. Tarzan was an excellent shot. With ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... eyelid the Ramblin' Kid looked into the eyes of Carolyn June. He had seen her coming from the corral and guessed correctly the reason for her second visit to the enclosure. Indeed at that moment his hand was in his pocket toying with the delicate souvenir for which she had gone to search. Yet his face was utterly without emotion as he lifted his hat and stood aside, acknowledging with formal words the introduction. "It's sure a ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... red men of the distant forest. On nearing the shore of what is now a great city the lonely voyageur was amazed on discovering that the pale face of the white man had many years preceded him. "What, ho!" he muttered to himself; "methinks I see a paleface toying with a dusky maiden. I will have speech with him." On approaching near where the two were engaged in some weird incantation the voyageur overheard the dusky maiden impart a strange message to the paleface by her side. "From ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... of the English lady is a most extraordinary one," remarked the Chief of Police, toying with his pen as he sat at his big table. "She seems to have met this Englishman up at Tammerfors, or at some place further north, yet it is curious that her passport should be in order even though ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... game cock, when engaged in amorous toying with a hen, if perchance he espies another cock at hand, immediately quits his female, and opposes himself to his rival, so did the ravisher, on the information of the crabstick, immediately leap from the woman and hasten to assail the man. He ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... one flame was not enough for her. Wolff must know it to-morrow. By day the slender little flame of honourable betrothed love flickers for him; by night it blazes more brightly for yonder Swiss scoundrel. And the young lady chooses for the scene of this toying with fire the easily ignited warehouse of her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thought hath swept o'er me like a fiery breeze—'What if our Lord be coming this minute?' Dost thou reckon, Sissot, that man to whom such thoughts be familiar friends, shall be oft found sitting in the alebooth, or toying with ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Ashton give you these particulars?" asked Maude, toying with a late rose that lay ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rides the seas, that break softly upon the vine-clad shores of that luxuriant land. Who is this that, wrapped in Persian rugs, and dressed in the most expensive manner, calmly reclines on the quarter-deck of the schooner, toying lightly ever and anon with the luscious fruits of the vicinity, held in baskets of solid gold by Nubian slaves? or at intervals, with daring grace, guides an ebony velocipede over the polished black walnut decks, and in and out the intricacies of the rigging? ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Witcherley had played with existence—toying with it, enjoying it, as an epicure enjoys a rare wine or a choice morsel of food prepared for his appreciation. Now, as she stood alone in her small drawing-room with its costly decorations, its feminine atmosphere, she was conscious for the ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... If it were Sunday, not many years ago, and about eleven in the morning, a stranger passing the church would have heard through the open doors and windows the exquisitely sweet voice of Alice Page, clear as a bell and melodious as a bird's, toying and trilling through "Coronation," or some other easily recognized hymn; and had that stranger awaited the close of service he or she would have seen among the congregation filing out one petite and plump ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... shone upon the opposite houses and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation—when, through the deep red heat and glow, the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin—when it shone and gleamed so brightly that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to whom the communication began to feel so momentous, that she could not help toying round it before coming to the point—'I know; at least, I am sure he will want ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... withdrew her eyes and looked across the table with an expression which Nicholas Colcord could have interpreted had he not been engrossed with Sybil Latham. Evelyn studied him with admiring tenderness as he lounged in his chair, toying idly with a fork, smiling at something his partner was saying, while her mind ran lovingly over the dominant traits of a personality which was so strong, so keenly alive, so sensitive to decent, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... across the Plaza, entering the Eldorado gambling house. There he ordered a drink, gulped it, made, more quietly, a survey of the room. He scanned the players carefully. Spear sat at one of the tables, toying with a pile of chips and stroking his chin reflectively as he ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... while, toying with his fork. "I'll tell you what I've been thinking, Jennie," he said finally. "There's no use living this way any longer, if we're going to stick it out. I've been thinking that we might take a house out in Hyde Park. It's something of a run from the office, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... table, but not crowded up close against it; and keep the hands, when not in use to convey food to the mouth, in the lap, beneath the table, never resting upon the table, toying with ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... against the dingy marble shelf and laid one white-gloved arm along it, in an attitude that was positively regal. Her right hand might appropriately have been toying with the orb of empire on the mantelpiece, and her left, which hung down beside her, might have loosely held the sceptre. Mr. Van Torp, who often bought large pictures, was reminded of one recently offered to him in ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... of this until next morning, when, as he was toying with one of the maids, he heard a voice from the window, "Johann! Johann! I will give thee the diamond." And looking up, there was Sidonia. So the knave ran to her, and swore he was only jesting with the maid in the court, for that he would marry no one but ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... room again until summarily dismissed by the ruling power, I stood guiltily by the doorway with a look of sullen helplessness on my face, toying half indifferently with the ends of a pink ribbon that was fastened artistically to my frock. Suddenly, the unforgiving baby sent forth a fresh volley of screams, and the irate mother turned towards me with a new and awful scowl and bade me—"Begone" that ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... slyly at the man across the table, noting his pale cheeks and the dark rings beneath his eyes. Hugh had misrepresented the facts; he was not eating at all. Instead, he was merely toying with his fork, making uncertain circles in the layer of brown, gravy which covered the plate, his cheek resting on the other hand, a faraway look of distress in his eyes. They were directed at the plate, ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... again. "First you say that Clarence is toying with me, then you say he's trying to steal me. Now it stands to reason ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... objections dwindled, in spite of her, to one feeble little question. "Suppose I allow you to go, Allan?" she whispered, toying nervously with the stud in the bosom of his shirt. "Shall you ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... in an iced dish between them. Monohan was toying with the stem of a half-emptied glass, smiling at his companion. The girl leaned toward him, speaking rapidly, pouting. Monohan nodded, drained his glass, signaled a waiter. When she got into an elaborate opera cloak and Monohan into his Inverness, they went out, the plump, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... exquisite child-wife slipped quickly, noiselessly, to his side and with the same easy grace leaned over and touched his brow with her lips, but this time instead of moving away, remained hanging over the back of his chair, her fair hand gently toying with the ringlets on his brow. He was calm ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... and sure of her lover delights in toying with a sort of coquetry of love; as if it pleased her to try to win over again that the winning of which gave so exquisite a pleasure. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... a light-minded, even frivolous, manner, toying airily with a sugar biscuit, as he leaned back in his chair, which stood opposite to Madame Sagittarius's. To his great surprise his well-meaning remarks were received with every symptom of grave dissatisfaction by his illustrious companions. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... toying with a book-mark, reflecting. She must inevitably come to suspect that something had happened, and it would be as well ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... three centuries, the science of electricity remained at very much the same point at which our psychical sciences stand to-day. Men were recording, accumulating, trying to interpret a host of odd and futile phenomena, toying with Ramsden's machine, with Leyden jars, with Volta's rough battery. They thought that they had discovered an agreeable pastime, an ingenious plaything for the laboratory or study; and they had not the slightest suspicion that they were touching the sources of an universal, ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... timidity. Quite accidentally she stood toying with a bud that she had picked from the flower-bordered roadway. She turned as Sundown jingled up and met him with a murmur of surprise and pleasure. He swung from his horse hat in hand and advanced, bowing. Anita flushed and ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... amazement—"How came you here, sir?" The dog knew me at once, and when benches were reared against him, after the women had huddled into a corner, and every thing was in sad confusion, he ran to me, and leaped on my neck, gasping and yelping; but finding that I was angry, and in no mood for toying, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and no one could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he sat so quiet and motionless. "Sneezer, my boy, what have you to say—where have you come from?" ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... moment, toying with his cane. "I am," he said slowly. "This cabaret—er—is a little speculation on the side. Come now, say you'll be at the train ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... joined. She had seen glances hot with wine and lust, claspings of hands, loosened cyclas, and more lascivious reclinings. The gloomy Perolla had yielded a little to the soft influences, and even Hannibal seemed to force himself to toying, if only in the name of courtesy; while, through it all, and more and more as the light of day advanced, Marcia felt the eyes of Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth, burning into her soul. He at least gave no heed to nearer blandishments, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... freely may discover What would please me in my lover, I would have her fair and witty, Savouring more of court than city; A little proud, but full of pity: Light and humorous in her toying, Oft building hopes, and soon destroying, Long, but sweet in the enjoying; Neither too easy nor too hard: All ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... the lawyer. The delightful consciousness that the people with whom his son was supping were of the smartest set in town for the moment had banished all fears of exposure. From time to time he glanced proudly across to the alcove table where the men were engaged in unfolding their napkins and toying with their glasses, in lively anticipation of the enjoyment to come; while the women, with the hope of eliciting admiration for their hands and the sparkle of their rings, were taking off their gloves and spreading out their fingers on the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... somewhat ruffled apparel, adjusting his fashionable wig and peruke, and touching up his mouth with the lipstick that the dandies of that age carried, he advanced elegantly upon the young women, cane in one hand and the other toying delicately ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... patting Brown's brawny arm even while she continued toying playfully with the silken mane, "he know me, he lofe me. He bettah as any man, for he nevah tell lie,—nevah,—only be nice all de time. He ride me till he drop dead, swift, quick, like de bird fly. So I make eet all right, senor. You see ven de daylight ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... took place in the Riverside Drive apartment. She sat on Wheeler's left knee, toying with his platinum chain, a strained, a rather terrible pallor out in her face, but the sobs well under her voice, and its modulation about normal. She had been talking for over two hours, silencing his every interruption until ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... in the box door till Mr. Shepherd looked them away. Veronica laughed at Hamlet, and Temperance said it was stuff and nonsense. Veronica laughed at Ophelia, also, who was a superb, black-haired woman, toying with an elegant Spanish fan, which Hamlet in his energy broke. "It is not Shakespeare," ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... next time you find yourself using ridicule or sarcasm to provoke mirth remember you are toying with a habit-forming practice that is likely to get the best of you unless you stop and ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... could shoot" still sat toying with her revolver, and the mountaineers obeyed her injunction. The rock promptly closed, and the group ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... Hill, to whom I owe these data, rightly maintains. He writes concerning the child born deaf: "His voice seems just like that of other children. He screams, weeps, according as he feels uncomfortable; he starts when frightened by any noise. Even friendly address, toying, fun, serious threats, are understood by him as early as by any child." But he does not hear his own voice; it is not sound that frightens him, but the concussion; it is not the pleasant word that delights him, but the pleasant countenance of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... social vices inside that fair, honest face; the diplomacy and duplicity of fashion were unknown to her guileless heart, she was solid worth in every way, even while she sat under the broad leaves of rare branches, toying with her silver spoon, and listening to the earnest voice beside her. The wavy, chestnut braids that bound her shapely head, were natures own great gift to her, and had never been stowed away in idleness during the hours of her deshabille: ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... time of rage and enmity, Which breathing now and smiling, Reminds the whole creation, The animal, the human, Of loving! Dost thou see not How all things are enamoured Of this enamourer, rich with joy and health? Observe that turtle-dove, How, toying with his dulcet murmuring, He kisses his companion. Hear that nightingale Who goes from bough to bough Singing with his loud heart, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese |
