"Coyly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shy as a girl, although time was already coyly flirting white flowers at his temples, and could hardly be coaxed to meet the learned and great who wanted to take ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... skeerin' him up some,' replies Miss Bark coyly. 'W'y, if I was reely out for his skelp, I'd have shore got it a heap. You can pin a patch the size of a dollar on that disparin' lover's coat, an' I'll cut it nine times in ten, offhand, ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... coyly took the stocking so generously given for the divorce and subsequent trousseau, and Chugg continued to drive his stage with an Apollo-like abandon, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... find out half that was going on." Then she added coyly, "I don't know whether you can keep a secret—do you tell ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the fall. Adverse Fate led us up and down, and round and round, and backwards and forwards, amid a labyrinth of overgrown bushes which might have bewildered an Australian settler; and still the nymph of the waterfall coyly hid herself from our eyes. Our ears informed us that the invisible object of which we were in search was of very inconsiderable height; our patience was evaporating; our time was wasting away—in short, to confess the truth here, as I have confessed ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... sure that's what he said it was—I ain't sure o' anythin' only jest you," she said coyly, burying her face in ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... and spurning anybody," explained the startled orphan, coyly accepting the chair he pushed forward. "I'm sure I don't feel any sectional hatred, nor any other ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... it was really embarrassing to him, the tender way in which she looked up to him—her black eyelids coyly drooping over her dark, slumbrous eyes, inviting a caress. He was certainly wooed against his will, but there was no help for it; he was forced to take up his part and ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Eton jacket, folded his arms, turned his back to the smiter and assumed a scientific arrangement of the shoulders with tense muscles and coyly withdrawn bones. He ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... bachelor, and had literally never handled a baby in his life. He, therefore, felt an uncommon awe and trepidation, as half unwillingly and half proudly he undertook the office. However, at last, when coyly led forward, with his head all on one side and a beaming smile on his honest countenance, he found that his big paws, stretched out, made a first-rate cradle; though, not being aware of the excessive lightness of the little ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... see a young girl come into the room. She came up coyly, greeting Doctor Hissong, and when she came over toward Shawn, he felt a hot flush coming to his cheek. He had seen this young girl before, with her father in town, but now as she came before him, with her merry, flashing eyes and radiant color, he stood with downcast eyes, and the old desire ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... girls move off. And Madge, chewing gently on her wad of gum and smoothing her huge hair puffs out with the coyly stiffened ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... the Hatter, tapping Alice on the shoulder coyly. "You must not believe all you overhear the Duchess say about me. She is so prejudiced, and blind to my faults. I—I'm almost sorry I connected you ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... place of embarkation. Luis found himself beside a dark-eyed maiden, who ambled along on a white mule, and when he ventured to joke her a little on her late appearance as an armed cavalier, she said coyly, "Did you think my only weapons were roses?" Looking eagerly at her, he recognized the laughing face which he had once seen at a window; but ere he could speak again she had struck her mule lightly ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... just right to catch the sun, and strutted and uttered a low, soft chuckle that must have been just as good as the 'sweet nothings' of another race, for clearly now her heart was won. Won, really, days ago, if only he had known. For full three days she had come at the loud tattoo and coyly admired him from afar, and felt a little piqued that he had not yet found her out, so close at hand. So it was not quite all mischance, perhaps, that that little stamp had caught his ear. But now she meekly bowed her head with sweet, submissive grace—the ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... obtained access—with marvellous cunning—to the men's side; but was now coming back with a flea in her ear, and faster than she went; being handcuffed and propelled by Baby-face biceps. On passing the disconsolate Alfred the latter eyed him coyly, gave her stray sheep a coarse push—as one pushes a thing—and laid a timid hand, gentle as falling down, upon the rougher sex. Contrast sudden ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of the field and wood, Gipsy, whose roof is every spreading tree, June is the pearl of our New England year, Still a surprisal, though expected long, Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, With one great gush of blossoms storms the world. A week ago the Sparrow was divine; The Bluebird, shifting his light load of song From post to post along the cheerless fence, Was as a ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... was easily seen by the broken bottles littered all over it. However, the Mayor was a bon-vivant, and I do not wish to have a better set of bins to pick from. Chambertin, Graves, Alicant, white wine and red, sparkling and still, they lay in pyramids peeping coyly out of sawdust. Old Bouvet stood with his candle looking here and peeping there, purring in his throat like a cat before a milk-pail. He had picked upon a Burgundy at last, and had his hand outstretched to the bottle when there ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on you?" inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of sentiment, but she was her father's daughter and inherited from him the ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... gather up out of the grass or underbrush in the adjacent jungle the concealed presents. The arrival of the presents is a grand moment for the father and relatives of the young man. Even the future bride, who up to this time has coyly hidden away in a corner, can not help stealing a few peeps at the display of spears, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... virgin purity of the orange-blossom, the voluptuous perfume yearningly foretells the luscious, perfect fruit, and the blush of the peach-bloom shows the flower coyly but triumphantly conscious that it will one day ripen into mouth-watering deliciousness,—so even then there were hints and prophecies in Margaret's budding womanliness that the time was approaching when she would not only awaken love but would herself ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... those worthies, excited or pensive as the case might be, you would have said that they were the greatest breeders of ideas on earth; unluckily, on the days when the Chamber was in session they were transformed, they clung coyly to their benches, as frightened as school-boys under the master's ferule, laughing obsequiously at the jests of the man of wit who presided over them, or taking the floor to put forward the most amazing propositions, or for interruptions of the sort that make one think that it was not a type simply, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was apparent that his courage was slipping from him. Aggie was quick to realise her opportunity, and before Jimmy could protect himself from her treacherous wiles, she had slipped one arm coyly ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... emptied your drawer," laughing coyly. "There is just enough to keep Lewin in good humour till you are well again, and we can be ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... so much when we come to the real Baghdad, and we find so little—so little, that is, of the glamour of the East. Few "costly doors flung open wide," but a great deal of dirt. Few dark eyes of ravishingly beautiful women peering coyly through lattice windows, but a great deal of sordid squalor. Few marvellous entertainments where we can behold the wonderful witchery of Persian dancing girls, but a theatre, the principal house of amusement in Baghdad—and lo, a man selling ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... removed that very day. He managed to meet the consternation, perhaps also the reproaches, of his elderly friend with quiet composure; and to the end of his life he continued his regular daily visits to 'Mam'selle Thome,' who at times would coyly pretend to sulk. It was only poor Friederike who seemed obliged at times to atone for ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... thing. Thence to my lodging, where I find my Lord Rutherford, of which I was glad. We supped together and sat up late, he being a mighty wanton man with a daughter in law of my landlady's, a pretty conceited woman big with child, and he would be handling her breasts, which she coyly refused. But they gone, my Lord and I to business, and he would have me forbear paying Alderman Backewell the money ordered him, which I, in hopes to advantage myself, shall forbear, but do not think that my Lord will do any thing gratefully more to me than he hath done, not that I shall get any ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... twisting and bending as a soft breeze ruffled the surface into tiny waves. The hills already brilliant with color—scarlet, burnt orange, mauve, and purple—flamed up to meet the clear blue sky; the elms softly rustled their drying leaves; the white houses of the village retreated coyly behind maples and firs and elms: everywhere there was peace, the peace that comes with strength that has been ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... Stokes car never had a chance. Before he took his leave of her he had her signed order for a "Sedan" for immediate delivery. And she grasped his hand and held it, leaning coyly close. "We're going to have some wonderful times this fall. We'll drive to Bloomfield, just you and I. And what am I going to do about a chauffeur? What will I ever do with a strange creature who cares for nothing but speed? Why don't you stay with me and drive for me? We'll just ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... say that, Miss Pilgrim," he demurred coyly. He paused. Her mention of shipping offices disturbed him. He had much business with shipping offices; and he was picturing to himself, involuntarily and with distaste, that gentle courage bruising itself upon the rough husks ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... started westward for his wife. He had not seen her now for months, and it was more than two weeks since he had heard from her, and his heart beat high with joyful anticipation as he thought just how she would look when she came to him, shyly and coyly, as she always did, with that droop in her eyelids and that pink flush in her cheeks. He would chide her a little at first, he said, for having been so poor a correspondent, especially of late, and after that he would love her so much, and shield her so tenderly from every want ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... for an instant to the pressure of his and then coyly withdrew itself. She had few words at any time and none in moments of emotion, but he knew her and ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... distance diminish! On and on he swam, till at length he was close to the rock, and the lady, bending down, was holding out her lily hands to him. Hans clutched at them, and they were, I thought, already in his fevered grasp, when she coyly snatched them away and struck him playfully on the head. The cruel, hungry waters then surged over him. I saw him sink down, down, down: I saw him no more. When I raised my agonised eyes to the rocks, all was silent and desolate: the ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... of it. The widow was affected by my vehemence, as a matter of course—she stammered—she hesitated, and of course, being an ass, I was only made more vehement by all that sort of thing, you know. So I urged her, and pressed her, and then, before I knew what I was about, I found her coyly granting my insane ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... looking coyly from the Skeptic to the Philosopher, "that I shall have to let each of you take me for a farewell walk to-night. You first"—she indicated the Philosopher. "Or shall it be a row for one and a walk for ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle! With what inimitable grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too-maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods! She is transformed all at once into an Amazon—the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson—her ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... she asked, glancing coyly at Roderick, as they moved back through the crowd. But he did not hear her, and she was surprised at a sudden light that sprang to his eyes. She looked in their direction, and saw Helen Murray in a blue gown and ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... day while, in an innocent mood, Moppin' his brow ('cos 'twas a trifle sweaty) With a blue kerchief—lo, he spies a white 'un Coyly responding. ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... speaking to a passer-by and did not hear the remark. Frankie had been paying better attention. She smiled and looked into his face coyly. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... Jonathan Witchcott took up the song, turning yearningly to Dru who now smiled coyly, head to one ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... gala one, and a merrier set of negroes never sang at a corn-shucking, nor did a jollier leader than Wash ever tread the pile, while Mercy sat on a throne of shucks receiving Sambo's homage, and, unmolested by fear, coyly held a corncob between her teeth as she hung her head and bashfully consented that he should come next day to "ax Mas' Ned de liberty of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... corner of her veil coyly and, peeping out beneath it, called in a soft, clear voice, "Oh! forgive me, dear friend, if I have run too fast for you, forgetting that you are still so very weak. Here, lean upon me; I am frail, but it may ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Priscilla came coyly to my arms, and I then knew all was well between us, especially when ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... had been a feather duster on the piano when they entered, but it, somehow or other, had disappeared beneath the piano scarf—partially disappeared, that is, for one end still protruded. The lady's cotton dusting-gloves no longer protected her hands but now peeped coyly from behind a jig-sawed photograph frame on the marble mantelpiece. The apron she had worn lay on the floor in the shadow of the table cloth. These habiliments of menial domesticity slid, one by one, out of sight—or partially so—as she bustled and ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... St. Mark's was conscious of a pleasurable emotion, even now, as he recalled the time when she had, at his own request, first called him Arthur, her bird-like voice hesitating just a little, and her soft eyes looking coyly up to him, as ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... states this differently, and even repeats his remark, thus: "But y preceded by a vowel is never changed: as coy, coyly, gay, gayly."—Walker's Rhyming Dict., p.x. "Y preceded by a vowel is never changed, as boy, boys, I cloy, he cloys, etc."—Ib., p viii. Walker's twelve "Orthographical Aphorisms," which Murray and others republish as their "Rules for Spelling," and which in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... with her smile and in tears—the image of bewitching but pathetic self-justification and surrender. Her mind was made up; hence why procrastinate and coyly postpone the desirable, and the inevitable? That was what she had the shrewdness to formulate in the ecstasy of her transport; and so eloquent was the mute revelation of her love that Littleton, diffident reverencer of the modesty of woman as he was, without a word from her clasped her to his breast, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... with surface-drainage, and the sun-for-garbage cure, Till you've been a periwinkle shrinking coyly up a sewer. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the hall a very grove of dead game, and dangling joints of mutton; and in one corner an illustrious larder, with glass doors, developing cold fowls and noble joints, and tarts wherein the raspberry jam coyly withdrew itself, as such a precious creature should, behind a lattice work of pastry. And behold, on the first floor, at the court-end of the house, in a room with all the window-curtains drawn, a fire ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the moon, Ootah," she replied. "I shall await thee, Ootah! Bring thou back fat and blubber, Ootah, to warm thy fires, Ootah." And she laughed gaily. Then she turned her back to Ootah, bent her head coyly and did not turn around again. To Ootah this was a good augury—for when a maiden turns her back upon a suitor she thinks favorably of him. This is ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... fast, my lord," she said as she caught his handsome cloak and drew him back into the room. "I want you with me." She looked coyly into his lordship's face as though he were the one man in all the world she loved, and her curls and cheek almost nestled against his rich cloak. "A dozen, did you say? What a heart you have, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... legends told by the early French explorers concerning the giant monsters who were supposed to haunt the swamps and wild lands at the mouth of the Mississippi. He would not have been surprised to see a brontosaurus peeking coyly down at him from twenty feet or so of neck. It was just the sort of place any self-respecting brontosaurus would ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... minor, it sends out prehensile filaments that entwine and draw us into the centre of a wondrous melody, laden with rich odors, odors that almost intoxicate. The figuration is tropical, and when the major is reached and those glancing thirty-seconds so coyly assail us we realize the seductive charm of Chopin. The reprise is still more festooned, and it is almost a relief when the little, tender unison begins with its positive chord assertions closing the period. Then follows a fascinating, cadenced step, with lights ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... and Youth, Lionel and Sophy, in the arbour round which her slight hands have twined the honeysuckle, fond imitation of that bower endeared by the memory of her earliest holiday—she seated coyly, he on the ground at her feet, as when Titania had watched his sleep. He has been reading to her, the book has fallen from his hand. What book? That volume of poems so unintelligibly obscure to ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that every one should be made welcome on board. You should have seen these big fishermen coyly removing their heavy boots before treading our decks—I believe that "snowy deck" is the proper term—lest they should mar the holystoned smoothness. They have entered with bated breath the dining and sitting room, explored ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... lady, who had been coyly affecting not to know that a gentleman was so near, turned round as Sam spoke—no doubt (indeed she said so, afterwards) to decline this offer from a perfect stranger—when instead of speaking, she started back, and uttered a half-suppressed scream. Sam was scarcely less staggered, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... happy bee! how boldly dost thou try To steal the lustre from her sparkling eye; And in thy circling movements hover near, To murmur tender secrets in her ear; Or, as she coyly waves her hand, to sip Voluptuous nectar from her lower lip! While rising doubts my heart's fond hopes destroy, Thou dost the fulness ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... Court. Perhaps it might have been that beautiful sheet of water, which the cool breeze rippled like the wavy undulations of Cleopatra's hair, waters bedecked with cresses and white water-lilies, whose chaste bulbs coyly unfolding themselves beneath the sun's warm rays, reveal the golden gems which lie concealed within their milky petals—murmuring waters, on the bosom of which black swans majestically floated, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to a high-priced concert-room. But, then, who make up the audience? Gradually the "penny" people have been retiring into the background, as slowly but as surely as the old-fashioned pits at our theatres are coyly withdrawing under the boxes to make way for the stalls. The Penny Readings have been found to "draw" a higher class of audience than those for whom they were originally intended. The curate himself, if unmarried, secures the whole spinsterhood of the parish. His rendering ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of Our Women (CASSELL) Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT coyly disclaims any intention of tackling his theme on strictly scientific principles. The warning is perhaps hardly necessary, since, apart from the duty which the author owes to his public as a novelist rather than a philosopher, the title alone should be a sufficient guide. One ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various |
