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More "Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have doubted her sanity. As it was, his perplexity deepened; so also did his interest in her. It was impossible not to admire this brisk, kindly, outspoken woman, who already moved about in the village with a certain air of motherly interest in every thing and everybody; had already begun to "help" in her own sturdy fashion, and had already won the good-will ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... about her small ears, or the sharp barking of a dog hunting rabbits for himself over the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of being grasped in a pair of strong arms, and, awakening with a little scream, looked up into the grinning face of Marianne, who straightway gave her a big, motherly hug until she was quite awake and then kissed her soundly on both cheeks, until Yvonne laughed over ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... shortcomings of his elder son, and to assume a somnolence which, while it was not real, certainly did conduce to the maintenance of his personal comfort. Mrs. Jarley, therefore, rose up in her wrath. It was merely a motherly wrath, however, and those of us who have had mothers will at once realize what that wrath amounted to. She repaired immediately to the nursery, and without knowing anything of the technical terms of the noble game of football, instinctively realized that Jack and Tommy ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... to change your form of religion simply means that you are unhappy and uneasy. You want more beauty, or more assurance, or more sympathy, or more antiquity. Have you never noticed how all converts personify their new Church in feminine terms? She becomes a Madonna, something at once motherly and young. It is the passion with which the child turns away from what is male and rough, to the mother, the nurse, the elder sister. The convert isn't really in search of dogmas and doctrines: he is in love ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sort of friendship between Mrs. Bluestone and the two Miss Bluestones and the Lady Anna, arising rather from the forlorn condition of the young lady than from any positive choice of affection. Mrs. Bluestone was kind and motherly. The girls were girlish and good. The father was the Jupiter Tonans of the household,—as was of course proper,—and was worshipped in everything. To the world at large Serjeant Bluestone was a thundering, blundering, sanguine, energetic lawyer, whom nobody disliked very much though he was ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... face was shining with motherly pride as she looked at Philip and her fair daughter, who joined with keen delight in the conversation in which the two friends took the lead—her quick and ready appreciation of the subjects under discussion winning a smile from her brother, who continually ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... known it," Prudence thought, with sorrow. But her motherly pride vanished before her motherly solicitude, and Connie was soon ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... Damon run away with her clothes, leaving behind in exchange his heart! Gadflies are rife in the dogdays, and should one "imparadise himself in form of that sweet flesh," there will be a cry in the woods that will speedily bring to her assistance Pan and all his Satyrs. Autumn is a motherly matron, evidently enceinte, and, like Love and Charity, who probably are smiling on the opposite wall, she has a brace of bouncing babies at her breast—in her right hand a formidable sickle, like a Turkish scymitar—in her left an extraordinary utensil, bearing, we believe, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... spent two days in the Schmidt home when this conversation took place. In Frau Schmidt they had found a lovable and motherly woman, well ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... returned with some of the neighbors, Madge met him at the door and held up a warning finger. The overwrought woman had been soothed into the blessed oblivion of restoring sleep, the first she had for many hours. A motherly-looking woman whispered her intention of remaining with Mrs. Wendall all night. Mr. Wendall took Madge's hand in both his own, and looked at her with eyes dim with tears. Twice he essayed to speak, then turned away, faltering, "When I meet ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... girls can help each other, as my dear Dora. Now bestir yourself, Mr. Haverley, and make Miriam look at this thing as she ought to. I don't pretend to deny that I have spoken to you very much for Dora's sake, for whom I have an almost motherly feeling; but you should act for your sister's sake. And please don't forget what I have said, young man, and ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... the supper, having had no dinner that day. The cook even urged, with an earnestness worthy of a motherly landlady, several dishes, but his browned potatoes and roast beef claimed our attention. "Well, what are you doing in this country anyhow?" inquired Edwards of Bradshaw, when the inner ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... said I had frightened her with my talk about lions. Indeed, I think my picture of poor Baby, albeit a trifle highly colored, touched her motherly heart. She was even a little vexed at what she called Sylvester's "hard-heartedness." Still I was not without some apprehension. It was two months since I had seen him; and Sylvester's vague allusion to his "slinging an ugly left" pained me. I looked at sympathetic little Mrs. Brown; and the thought ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... came over the side just before the transport started North. One was a large, motherly-looking woman, with a German accent. She had been a trained nurse, first in Berlin, and later in the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... catalogue and explain the following instincts which he considered of basic importance in any study of economics: (1) gregariousness; (2) parental bent, motherly behavior, kindliness; (3) curiosity, manipulation, workmanship; (4) acquisition, collecting, ownership; (5) fear and flight; (6) mental activity, thought; (7) the housing or settling instinct; (8) migration, homing; (9) hunting ("Historic revivals ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... the girl is. If he did, he wouldn't tell. When you arrest him, he can tell a good story about Mrs. Loraine's motherly care of Kate." ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... morning's post had brought her the promise of three new pupils, daughters of a mighty sheep farmer lately returned from Australia, and supposed to be a millionaire. He was a widower, and wanted motherly care for his orphans. They were to be clothed as well as fed at Mauleverer; they were to have all those tender cares and indulgences which a loving mother could give them. This kind of transaction was eminently profitable to the Miss Pews. Maternal care meant a tremendous list of extra charges—treats, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Phil needed a mother. This dear, thoughtful woman, whom nature had made for motherhood, had seen things about his child, that he, the child's father, had not perceived. To a mind like Colonel French's, this juxtaposition of a motherly heart and a motherless ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... son of Barton Swift, lived with his father and a motherly housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert, in a large house on the outskirts of the town of Shopton, in New York State. Mr. Swift had acquired considerable wealth from his many inventions and patents, but he did not give up working out his ideas simply because he had ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... motherly glance, first at the one, and then at the other, ere she answered the Englishman, "Surely, sir, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Johnston Lincoln lost no time in taking poor Abe and Nancy Lincoln to her great motherly heart, as if they were her own. They were dirty, for they had been neglected, ill-used and deserted. She washed their wasted bodies clean and dressed them in nice warm clothing provided for her own children, till she, as she expressed it, ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to understand ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... Mary," he exclaimed, delivering the burden into her willing, motherly arms, and sinking down into the nearest chair, thoroughly exhausted. "I'll tell you all about it later, when I get my breath and my nerves are settled. Do everything you can to revive the poor young creature. She is ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... interfere every minute, and tease her; she loves her daughter-in-law almost as much as she does her son, and she is happy because he bids fair to be an immortal painter, and, above all, a gentleman; and she, a wifely wife, a motherly mother, and, ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... stood in the little room where he breathed his last, that bleak day in Eighteen-Hundred Fifty-one. The unlettered but motherly old woman who took care of him in those last days never guessed his greatness; none in the house ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the slate-pencil from his pocket without reply. Mrs. Salter, who had been watching him with motherly eyes, pushed a small stool towards him, and he began to draw a scene such as he had been studying daily for months past,—pigs at the water-side. He had made dozens of such sketches. But the delight of the farmer ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of the canyon, swung out upon the broad mesa. Here the outfit could be seen for miles, and now he took to lagging behind again, and to frisking far ahead, always returning at frequent intervals for the motherly ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... had been hazarded to the long-veiled mystery of her parentage, and Mrs. Orme wondered at the exceeding delicacy with which her daughter avoided every reference that might have been construed into an inquiry. As the soft motherly hand passed caressingly over the forehead resting so contentedly on her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of faintness came upon her before she had been carried to the little bed which had been made ready for her. When she opened her eyes, while a spoon was held to her lips, the first thing she saw was the sweetest, calmest, most motherly of faces bent over her, one arm round her, the other giving her the spoon of some cordial. She looked up and even smiled, though it was a sad contorted smile, which brought a tear into the good sister's eyes; but then she fell asleep, and only half awoke when the ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to which she was to grant as few advantages as possible, and from which she was to extort as much money as possible. Her benefits were given, not sold; and, when once given, they were never withdrawn. She gave them too with a frankness, an effusion of heart, a princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, which enhanced their value. They were received by the sturdy country gentlemen who had come up to Westminster full of resentment, with tears of joy, and shouts of "God save the Queen." Charles the First gave up half the prerogatives of his crown to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... been amusing, Aunt Elizabeth having nothing to say and being fully occupied with keeping an eye on Maggie, her idea apparently being that the girl would suddenly dash off to freedom and wickedness and be lost for ever. Maggie had no such intention and developed during these weeks a queer motherly affection for both the aunts, so lost they were and helpless and ignorant of the world! "My dear," said Maggie to herself, "you're a bit of a fool as far as common-sense goes, but you're nothing to what they are, poor dears." She tried to improve ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible advice as to personal ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... horses. I was timid and did not dare speak to them. Very often, I ran home and flung myself in my mother's arms with a burst of tears, and asked her if nothing could be done to help the poor animals. With mistaken, motherly kindness, she tried to put the subject out of my thoughts. I was carefully guarded from seeing or hearing of any instances of cruelty. But the animals went on suffering just the same, and when I ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... that his patient should come downstairs. "You know that nice Mrs. Randall in the Models; well, she has a lodger, but she expects that he will leave her in a week or so, as he has work at a distance. I might take the room for Barton, it is a clean, tidy little place. And Mrs. Randall is a motherly sort of woman, ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... reached the last of the passengers. She was middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peered down at him with more than common interest as he went through his pat little presentation formula. A psychologist would have gathered much from the lad's tense, flushed face and in the oddly strained look of the big blue eyes. To this woman, he was only a thin, lonely ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... up from a thousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cows stood in the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to God in their dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on the plains, little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor any misgiving of approaching mutton marred their happy heyday. Straight through the piny forests, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... to bloom in the Flower Spirits' home." Then from the mother's breast, where it still lay hid, Into the fading bud the dew-drop gently slid; Stronger grew the little form, and happy tears fell, As the dew did its silent work, and the bud grew well, While the gentle rose leaned, with motherly pride, O'er the fair little ones that bloomed ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... with which an enthusiastic boy may cling to the wise and tender matron, who, amid the turmoil of the world, and the pride of beauty, and the cares of wifehood, bends down to with counsel and encouragement—earth knows no fairer bonds than these, save wedded love itself. And that second relation, motherly rather than sisterly, had bound Philammon with a golden chain to ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... obtained that for which I was thirsty. You will learn for yourself all that you have unconsciously been to me, to me a toiler who was misunderstood, overwhelmed for so long under misery, both physical and moral. Ah! I do not forget your motherly goodness, your divine sympathy for those who suffer. . . . Well, then as soon as you wish to come to Paris, you will come without even letting us know. You will come to the Rue Fortunee exactly as to your own house, absolutely ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... wouldn't let ennythin' in shape ev a human creetur go perishin' past aour fire sech weather's this," replied the woman, as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its first ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... freshly picked and sparkling with dew. The gendarme said he had never seen any girls—not in this particular square. Referring casually to the blood of saints and martyrs, he said he would like to see a few girls in that town worth looking at. In the square itself sat six motherly old souls round a lamp-post. One of them had a moustache, and was smoking a pipe, but in other respects, I have no doubt, was all a woman should be. Two of them were selling fish. That is they would have sold fish, no doubt, had anyone been there to buy fish. The gaily ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... dears, and don't quarrel," said Mrs. Vincy, with motherly cordiality. "Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor. How is ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... had never seen her child other than deliberate, calm, judicial, in all his movements. In a sudden spasm of motherly love she bent to pick him up, to ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs. Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I knew ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... was very tired, had just returned from the death-bed of her dearest friend, had certainly heaps of worries of her own; but that did not prevent her whole heart from going out to Jasmine with an affection which was almost motherly. ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... step-mother, and she learned through a lonely childhood how to pity motherless children, and I heard a thoughtful woman say of her orphan asylum, "It was a shabby place, but beautiful to me because there was such a motherly atmosphere about it." ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... mother would occasionally glance up from her needlework, though always but for a moment and that, too, furtively, because she did not wish to show how fascinating she considered her own child, although in this feeling of motherly pride she was fully justified. Effi wore a blue and white striped linen dress, a sort of smock-frock, which would have shown no waist line at all but for the bronze-colored leather belt which she drew up tight. Her neck was bare and a broad sailor collar fell over her shoulders and back. In ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... are we! It pleased me to leave them alone before the fire, and to go out on the quay to dream, leaning on the parapet and looking at the water. When they spoke of their life at N———, and when Brigitte, almost cheerful, assumed a motherly air to recall some incident of their childhood days, it seemed to me that I suffered, and yet took pleasure in it. I asked questions; I spoke to Smith of his mother, of his plans and his prospects; I gave him an opportunity to show ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... reveal the criminal. If we succeed, other things being equal, in adducing a number of feminine characteristics with one of which the cruelty of the crime may be connected and explained, we have a clew to the criminal. The instances mentioned,—the motherly care of house and family, frugality, miserliness, hardness to servants, cruelty to aged parents,—seem rare and not altogether rational, yet they occur frequently and give the right clew to the criminal. There are still other ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... vast difference then," Richard rejoined, "but 'tis not then I dread. 'Tis now, the next twenty-five years, during which I shall be slowly decaying, while you will be ripening into a matured, motherly beauty, dearer to your husband than all your girlish loveliness. 'Tis then that I dread the contrast in you; not when both are old; and, Edith, remember this, you can never be old to me, inasmuch as I can never see you. I may feel that your smooth, velvety flesh is wrinkled, that your ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... in. Beverly said he would wait in the passage. Mrs. Munroe proved to be a nice, motherly sort of a person, who, as it need hardly be said, was stone-deaf. It required some time for Matty to adjust her speaking apparatus to the exigency, but when this was done, Mrs. Munroe explained that Mr. Gilbert was dead,— that an effort had been made to ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... school with her son, received the exiled poet, though fully aware that by doing so she might have displeased the Duke and blasted her fortunes and those of her children. Schiller preserved the tenderest attachment to this motherly friend through life, and his letters to her display a most charming innocence ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Barnabas? Well, it so chanced, her Grace's back was towards them; while as for Master Milo—abashed, and for once forgetful of his bepolished topboots, he became in very truth a child, though one utterly unused to the motherly touch of a tender woman's lips; therefore he suffered the embrace with closed eyes,—even his buttons were eclipsed, and, in that moment, the Duchess whispered something in his ear. Then he turned and followed after Barnabas, who was already striding away across ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... among them. It has lawns and shrubberies, but few flowers; Nature frowns on every hand, even in sunshine, when the waterfalls flow like silver, and the crags are decked with diamonds. There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' waiters in the house, but country damsels attend upon you, and a motherly dame, their mistress, expresses her hope every morning that you have slept well. If you have not, it is the fault of your conscience: you have had a poet's recipe for it, for you have been 'within the hearing of a hundred streams' all night. Will you go up the ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two—Dora and I—were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute to have my own way. But Dora—ah! ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... the rose, the marigold, and the hollyhock were permitted to skirt the domains of the capacious cabbage, the aspiring pea, and the portly pumpkin. Each had its prolific little mansion teeming with children; with an old hat nailed against the wall for the housekeeping wren; a motherly hen, under a coop on the grass-plot, clucking to keep around her a brood of vagrant chickens; a cool, stone well, with the moss-covered bucket suspended to the long balancing-pole, according to the antediluvian idea of hydraulics; and its spinning-wheel humming within doors, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... could do no good by remaining, and did not think it well to intrude longer. He suggested that it might be more pleasant if Isabel had a friend with her; Mrs. Ducie would no doubt be willing to come, and she was a kind, motherly woman. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... England and New," indicate that she followed the course of every event with an anxious and intelligent interest. In 1657, her oldest son had left for England, where he remained until 1661, and she wrote then some verses more to be commended for their motherly feeling than for any charm ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... and put her hand gently on his brow, and caressingly touched the dusty hair and ragged clothes with the almost motherly feeling that longs to comfort and soothe. Meir sat on the bench in the posture of a man deadly tired. He leaned his head against the window-frame, and seemed to draw in the mild evening breeze. ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... club-lounger of his day. I have sufficient faith in human nature to trust that two-thirds of the men of this country have that most amiable eccentricity. But in Selwyn it amounted to something more than in the ordinary paterfamilias: it was almost a passion. He was almost motherly in his celibate tenderness to the little ones to whom he took a fancy. This affection he showed to several of the children, sons or daughters, of his friends; but to two especially, Anne Coventry and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... went to a nursery for some trees, and while coming home late at night he caught a severe cold and was taken seriously sick, with lung fever. Mother did everything in her power for him. She could not have done more had he been her own son, but notwithstanding her motherly care and attention, and the skill of a physician from Leavenworth, he rapidly grew worse. It seemed hard, indeed, to think that a great strong man like Harrington, who had braved the storms, and endured the other hardships ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... infant, wrapped in a pelisse of costly furs. For a few seconds the woman stood in mute surprise; but curiosity to obtain a nearer view of the beautiful child, and perhaps also a feeling of compassion and motherly tenderness, speedily restored to her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... her hope. She describes nothing after the "tap" at the door, which was the beginning of the end. She has attained the crown of her woman's existence, and she can bear no resentment towards him whose cruelty embittered, and whose vengeance has cut it short. The motherly heart in her goes out to the wicked husband who was also once a child, and strives to palliate what he has done. "He was sinned against as well as sinning. Her poor parents were blind and unjust in their mode of retaliating upon him. She was blind and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Noraway pitch; All dried and split for that jubilee day, The day of the holocaust of a witch. The prickers are chosen—hang-daddy and brother— And fixed were the fees of their work of love; To prick an old woman who was a mother, And felt still the yearnings of motherly love For she had a son, a noble young fellow, Who sailed in a ship of his own the sea, And who was away on the distant billow For a cargo of wine to this bonnie Dundee. Some said she was bonnie when she was a lassie, Ah! fair the young ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... right," Cherry smiled. "He was so glad to get to bed, and so appreciative!" she added in a motherly tone. ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... possibility as his becoming seriously attached to Miss Forrest. She had indulged the major in one very plain and startling dissertation on the subject of that young woman, from the effects of which he was still suffering; but, worst of all, her motherly heart longed to acquire, through Nellie's words, looks, or actions, some idea as to whether she really cared for her pet among all the lieutenants. Of course Nellie liked—but did she love him? Of McLean's deep-rooted regard for the shy and sensitive little ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... don't you go to the office?" Then she saw his face and hesitated. She felt again the old motherly instinct to be the first to welcome the new pupil; a luxury which, in later years, the endless push of details ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... exasperating, but it was not the worst that treacherous sex could do. The widow's demeanor was a hundred times more menacing. She was so motherly towards Jean, so sisterly towards his unfortunate aunt, so skittishly condescending towards himself, that his previous suspicions of her were sunshiny compared with the dark convictions that lay heavier upon him each day. Her black eyes danced mockingly whenever he looked into them; ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... time the ladies appear, as trim and unconcerned as if they had never put their foot in a kitchen all their lives, and the circle round the fire widens to admit them. The elder of these ladies is a careworn but pleasant, motherly-looking body, who calls the elder gentleman "sir" when she speaks to him, and invariably addresses one of the two young men—the one with the black eyes—as Mister Johnny. As for the younger lady, whose likeness to Mister Johnny is very apparent, she is all sunshine and smiles, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... garden, with pavilions, and running water and the song of birds ... a garden where he would lie at ease at last from his torn body and that feverish mind, which was all that his pain had left to him; where Mary went, gracious and motherly, with her virgins about her; where the Crucified Lamb of God would talk with him as a man talks with his friend, and allow him to lie at the Pierced Feet ... where the glory of God rested like eternal sunlight on all that was there; on ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... kerchief at the neck, so like an old woman. Her face too, was short and broad; her nose was very short and her eyes very narrow. So you see she was not pretty, but her face was all love and sunshine. She sat down on a low stool and took up the baby in such a dear, motherly way, smoothing its hair and ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... of her imaginative ideal, Aileen, attracted from the first by her beauty and motherly kindness towards an orphan waif, gave a child's demonstrative love, afterwards a girl's adoration. In all this devotion she was abetted by Elvira Caukins to whom Aurora Googe had always been an ideal ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to "old David" as she called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with much kindly solicitude. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... labourer, of better education and more intelligence than the generality of his class. They had no children of their own, so that Mrs Williams, who was a truly godly woman, was glad to give a home for a time and a motherly care to the two little ones committed to her charge by Amos. The husband was, of course, absent from home during the working hours, so that his wife could not call him to her help when she missed the little boy; indeed, on the day of her loss her husband had gone with his master, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the knees of their trousers, and outgrew their frocks, was a subject upon which Mrs. Gray could expatiate for hours. Mary had a tender, strong pity from the earliest age for the down-at-heel, over-burdened stepmother, which lightened her own load, as did the vicarious, motherly love which came to her ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... The door opened, and a motherly looking woman stood aside to let them enter. Phyllis stood directly below a flaring gas-jet, as she turned to ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... perceived the look of misery on the young man's face, his pale cheeks, his otherwise vigorous frame obviously attenuated by fear, the motherly instinct present in every good woman's heart caused her to go up to him and to address him timidly, offering such humble solace as her simple heart ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... of intense excitement—having rushed through the parlour, leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning brass of the never-mended Brummagem work-table—tore across the hall, whirled out of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left, and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hasty and uncomfortable kiss. "And you are hungry too, and nothing in the house but cold mutton! Jenny, Jenny, I say, Jenny! Juliet, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Please don't; it hurts me so—it nearly kills me!" And with the loved pictures of home—the motherly face, with its white cap; the mother's bed, with his own little trundle-bed underneath; the table, with its white cloth folded and laid upon it; the hickory-bound cedar water-bucket, with its crooked handled gourd; the red corner-cupboard, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... if her Serene Highness kept fond motherly records of the babyhood and childhood of the Queen? If so, what a rich mine it would be for a poor bewildered biographer like me, required to make my foundation bricks with only a few golden bits of straw. I have searched the chronicles ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... and highly-coloured Mrs. Batty was an early caller. She arrived, rather wheezy, compressed by her tailor into an expensive gown, a basket of spring flowers on her head. She and Henrietta took to each other, as Mrs. Batty said, at once. Here was a motherly person, and Henrietta knew that if she could have Mrs. Batty to herself she would be able to talk more freely than she had done since her arrival in Radstowe. There would be no criticism from her, but unlimited good nature, a readiness to listen and to confide and a love ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Thanksgiving Day at home. Such generous cups of coffee, enriched with cream almost too thick to flow from the capacious pitchers, and sweetened not only with snow-white sugar, but also with the smiles of some gracious woman, perhaps motherly in appearance, perhaps so fair and young that hearts beat faster under ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... becomes, not indeed right or just, but consistent and clear. Helena's native force and rectitude of mind are approved from the first in her just appreciation of Parolles; and her nobility of soul and beauty of character are reflected all along in the honest sagacity of Lafeu and the wise motherly affection of the Countess, who never see or think of her but to turn her advocates and wax eloquent in her behalf. The thoughtful and benevolent King also, on becoming acquainted with her, is even more taken with her moral and intellectual beauty than with her service in restoring him ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune like a step-mother has so long detained me. But nevertheless, you say—which But is aerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But, you say, you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... ones. At Modena I had my hair cut by a young man whom I perceived to be Raffaelle. The model who sat to him for his celebrated Madonnas is first lady in a confectionery establishment at Montreal. She has a little motherly pimple on the left side of her nose that is misleading at first, but on examination she is readily recognized; probably Raffaelle's model had the pimple too, but Raffaelle left it ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Wandering, he revels, Dreaming, desiring, possessing; Till, of a sudden Tired and afraid, he beholds The sordid assemblage Just as it is; and he runs With a sob to his Nurse (Lighting at last on him), And in her motherly ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... heard the news, and she could scarcely speak, but she folded the young girl, her dear pet lamb, in her arms, and rocking herself to and fro she sobbed and eased her aching, motherly heart. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... overcome with sleep at the breaking up of the festivities of the previous night that she was unable to distinguish between those whom she loved and those for whom she cared not. In these circumstances, she had seized the first motherly tail that came within her reach, and followed it home. It chanced to belong to Kunelik, so she dropped down and slept ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... imperial honours and given to understand by kotowing sub-mandarins that she might have the whole red-star library sent home to her house if she so desired. There was no other result. The rest of reading Boston remained under the motherly but autocratic care of ces dames. Those skilled in the artistic records of Boston may remember that the management of the same Library once refused the offered gift of a statue of a woman holding a baby, on the sole ground that the woman ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... with his curved and derisive finger into Lisa's eyes. And in truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart and person that which is comprehensively called motherly. She saw perhaps some pathos in the sight of this rugged man—worn by travel, bent with hardship and many wounds, past his work—shouldering his haversack and trudging off ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... the rug which Mrs. Thornburgh's motherly providence had spread on the grass for him, with a smile and a look of supreme physical contentment, which did indeed almost efface the signs of recent illness in the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Possibly I cannot, yet," she allowed, "but wait a while. I intend to tame Texas, and then I shall have him to perch on my wrist like a falcon. And, just now, I don't know that I care to be hampered by any sort of a baby," laughing mischievously, for Faith looked quite motherly, with the kitten wrapped in a fold of ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... and left her. She took no notice of the little girl's sullen face, nor of her rude manner. She went away looking what she was, a gracious motherly woman. ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistook[268:2] her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she at length, overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion—"O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you—she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Lavalles stood just inside the doorway. Never had Monsieur Perron seen them before, as he saw them now. Like turtle-doves, with smiling eyes, and affectionate caress, they had lived in happy harmony during the seven months of their married life, and motherly dames, when they gave their daughters away, bade them prosper and be pleasant in their union, as they had been joyous in their love, pleasant and joyous, as neighbor ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... bench before the fountain, indulging his caprice with that sacred, motherly tolerance, some touch of which is in all womanly yielding to men's will, and which was perhaps present in greater degree in her feeling towards a man more than ordinarily ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... for a certain dear old lady had a motherly presentiment that you had got into a domestic whirlpool, and sent me as a sort of life-preserver. So I took the basket of consolation, and came to fold my feet upon the carpet of contentment ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... head, and speaking his name more tenderly than before, she told him not to be afraid, not to grieve any more, and he should go home soon. She made her harsh, commanding voice sound so sweet and motherly that the child turned a little, and clasped that large brown hand, and held it against his lips and his eyes, while he wept and sobbed, till his heavy heart grew lighter. When Grace drew away her hand, and found it all wet with tears, she looked at it for a moment, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... voice, the depths of his eyes, the grateful weight of his head upon her bosom. Why had he loved her? Because she was his mother! A forgotten perception returned to illuminate her way—a perception, never before reduced to formal terms, that her virtue, her motherly tenderness, were infinitely more appealing to him than the sum of ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... dust up the road announced that John was now near the parental roost. Mrs. Fogel with her motherly solicitude was awaiting him with happy tears dimming her eyes. She took in with all a mother's fondness his high-stepping prancers, his prosperous appearance, last but not least the entire ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... wet-nurse, that commonplace fact gets turned into a dancing-master, who does his professional bow before us in pumps and knee-breeches, with his fiddle under one arm and his crush-hat under the other, thus: "The beauty of Harriet's motherly relation to her babe was marred in Shelley's eyes by the introduction into his house of a hireling nurse to whom was delegated ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... enjoying himself. He was exactly in the position of some good motherly soul who held a pumpkin pie before the eyes of several hungry boys. The only difference was that the pie Johnny was thinking of was raw, so exceeding raw that it would turn these natives into wild men. So Johnny decided that, like as not, he wouldn't let them ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... sunlight is casting fantastic shadows where her foot, but a moment since, rested. The leaves glisten and whisper strange things. The golden buttercups laugh up in the sun's face, as if there were no drama of loving and hating, sin and atonement, daily enacted on their green, motherly bosom. And Madeline Payne has put her childhood behind her, and turned her face to ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... to the behavior of other human beings A. Motherly behavior B. Filial behavior C. Responses to presence, approval, and scorn of men 1. Gregariousness. 2. Attention to human beings. 3. Attention-getting. 4. Responses to approval and scorn. 5. Responses by approval and scorn ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... chose. I know well enough what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... sleep now. Go home to bed," urged Sally. "It's no good trying to work if you're sick. Go home now." She did not know how motherly, how caressing and wise, her voice had become. She was absorbed in his state of exhaustion and passivity. "It's not right," she went on. "You can't do any good. Get the doctor to give you something ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... little open shed near the kitchen, in order to please La Teuse he went into ecstasies over the washing; he even had to dip his fingers into it and feel it. This so pleased the old woman that her attentions became quite motherly. She no longer scolded, but ran to fetch a clothes-brush, saying: 'You surely are not going out with yesterday's mud on your cassock! If you had left it out on the banister, it would be clean now—it's still a good ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... distressing times. In his brief on this occasion Leo XIII says: "It has been a favorite and prevalent custom of Catholics, in times of need and danger, to take refuge in Mary, and to seek consolation from her motherly concern." ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... pneumonia, and has had one relapse. I dare not send him home, where he would be neglected by a very careless mother; nor can we keep him longer here. I thought you might possibly know of some good, motherly woman, who would take the little fellow, and let him run about in the sunshine and drink milk, for that ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... with Tennyson conning over the Morte d'Arthur, Lord of Burleigh, and other things which helped to make up the two volumes of 1842. So I always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy if you know of such a ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... we can't give it to you now," Miss Harper persisted, with a motherly smile; "we're wearing it ourselves. We've had no time to take it off. I couldn't get the boots off me last night. And even if you had the ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... elderly Friend who led me to this choice point of observation is her father. The plump and motherly matron on the high seat, whose face alone is a remedy for care and worry, is her mother. They will invite me home with them when meeting is over. Already I see the tree-embowered farmhouse, with its low, wide veranda, and old- fashioned roses climbing the lattice-work. In such a fragrant ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... with pieces of misfitting good furniture, an accidental-looking gilt tarnished mirror, and a sprinkling of old and middle-aged books. Some one had lit a fire, which cracked and spurted about cheerfully in a motherly fireplace, and a lamp and some candles got lit. Mrs. Wilder, Amanda's aunt, a comfortable dark broad-browed woman, directed things, and sat at the end of the table and placed Benham on her right hand between ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... "So much for motherly love! Dang it, what's her heart made of?" said a voice. I turned round; it was old Ben, who had been an unobserved spectator ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... my mother and sister, I well knew that many a girl of fifteen, or under, was gifted with a more womanly address, and greater ease and self-possession, than I was. Yet, if Mrs. Bloomfield were a kind, motherly woman, I might do very well, after all; and the children, of course, I should soon be at ease with them—and Mr. Bloomfield, I hoped, I should have but ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... father's wish and her own, perhaps mistaken, pride she had avoided all these people hitherto; but there was no need to avoid them any longer; she was their equal in birth, and her newly discovered wealth effectually removed any cause for pride. Lady Bannerdale, a motherly and good-natured woman, came forward to meet her, and ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... face was the first beheld by many a little, new-born infant; her voice, the first to hush its wailing cries as she cuddled it up to her motherly breast, and oft, with loving hands, softly closed the lids over eyes no longer able to see; whom the Gracious Master had ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... called, "wake up an' git a hustle on. I want a pail of water, an' then ye kin carry out the dishes. I do believe that boy'd sleep all the time," she grumbled. Nevertheless, she watched him with motherly pride as he slowly rose from the ground, stretched himself ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... cloudy eyes—misty just now and a little empty, with that placid emptiness of the nursing mother—to mark the change that my not-to-be-deceived scrutiny soon discovered. We left the sleepy Mary slowly patrolling the brick walks in a pompous perambulator propelled by a motherly English nurse under Miss Jencks's watchful eye, and strolled, in our customary hand-in-hand, to the boat-house, a low, artfully concealed structure, all but hidden under a jagged cliff, and faced wherever necessary with rough cobbled sea-stones ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... occurred to her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful peril in the passage of the flames—peril to his eyes and face and clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was the means of saving ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... form was reassuring to children, kept them from feeling strange with parents back. Nana was big, gray-haired, stout, buxom, motherly, ...
— The Real Hard Sell • William W Stuart
... well the year that Jackanapes began to walk, for it was the year that the speckled hen for the first time in all her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had been rather proud of the eggs,—they were unusually large,—but she never felt quite comfortable on them, and whether it was because she used to get cramp and go off the nest, or because the season ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... women he knew—all the mothers. There were not so many of them. Some of the professors' wives who had sons and daughters of their own? Well, they might be all well enough for their own sons and daughters, but there wasn't one who seemed likely to want to behave in a very motherly way to a stranger like his waif of a girl. They were nice to the students, polite and kind to the extent of one tea or reception apiece a year, but ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... also been a very pretty woman, and even now she retained a good deal of pleasant middle-aged comeliness. She was somewhat stout, and had grown a little inactive in consequence; but her expression was soft and motherly, and she had the unmistakable air of a gentlewoman. In her husband's eyes she was still handsomer than her daughters; and Dr. Ross flattered himself that he had made the all-important choice of his life more wisely than ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... could remember, in close and contented companionship with her father: whom indeed, especially since he had the fever which crippled him three years before, she had fed, clothed, nursed and guarded with a care almost more motherly than filial. ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... that I have heard of a good woman, that had, as this old man, a bad and ungodly son, and she prayed for him, counselled him, and carried it motherly to him for several years together; but still he remained bad. At last, upon a time, after she had been at prayer, as she was wont, for his conversion, she comes to him, and thus, or to this effect, begins again to admonish him. Son, said she, thou hast been and art a wicked child, thou ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rose. She was a stout, motherly woman. She was dressed up as if it were Sunday. Mr. Davis rose, too. You could never tell because of his beard whether he had on a cravat ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... he was not so absorbed in the paper that he failed to make a note of my presence in the room, and he shifted himself around in his chair so that he could get a better view of me, and still leave his face in the shadow. Near him sat a motherly-looking woman of fifty. She was well preserved for her age, and wore a smile on her face that was good to look at. The youngster said something to her in a low tone, and she immediately turned her attention to me. Some other words passed between the two, and then the woman ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as "motherly," though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her dealing with girls she ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... quite a number of passengers still seated at the different little tables. A soldierly looking Penguin sat at one and a few tables beyond a motherly looking Seal with a baby boy Seal at her side was just finishing some delicious looking pink ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... state of affairs," burst out Mrs. Rover, and tears stood in her motherly eyes. "We cannot imagine what ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... consumptive "fence" who had pleaded inability to work and necessity for supporting wife and children, and who had received a year at hard labour, when a young boy of about twenty appeared in the dock. "Alfred Freeman," I caught his name, but failed to catch the charge. A stout and motherly-looking woman bobbed up in the witness-box and began her testimony. Wife of the Britannia lock-keeper, I learned she was. Time, night; a splash; she ran to the lock and found the prisoner in ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Flo', with her industry and skill in 'translating' old boots and shoes, her motherly instincts and efforts to keep her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... and drew the things up about her neck in a half-tender, motherly way, looking at the girl's face. Then she hesitated before putting ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... frankly interested by Jim. For one thing, she had helped him to get well and this gave her a motherly curiosity. Then his remarks seemed to promise a clue to something she had found puzzling. In a way, Jim was different from the young men she knew. The difference was elusive, but she felt ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... three young men, at least two of whom seemed to hover near the two girls who were innocently unaware of their beauty; a bustling gentleman who seemed nervous lest some of the party get lost, a motherly-looking woman, with two children who were here, there and everywhere; another man who looked as though all the milk and cream in the world had turned sour, and finally one on whose round German face there was ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... came at the head of his tribe. Ma Brandon, white-haired and motherly and respected by all, was possessed of a queer past known to the whole community. Forty years before Lafe Brandon had stopped at a sod hut on the Republican and found a girl wife with both eyes discolored from blows of her heavy-handed spouse. Lafe ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... chastening influence upon the young man's somewhat picturesque style of language and exuberance of metaphor. But with Mrs. Dunn he felt quite at ease, for with that gentle, kindly soul, her boys' friends were her friends and without question she took them to her motherly heart. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... and with her face fully tamed to me, was a kindly-looking, fat motherly woman, with light-coloured hair, not in the best order. She was hot and scarlet with exercise, being perhaps too stout for the steep steps of the fortress; and in one hand she held a handkerchief, with which from time to time she wiped her brow. In the other hand she held one of the extremities ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... Winifred and Marion Thorold. I have met their father several times at the Manners' flat, and have likewise—low be it spoken—received two evening calls from him in my own domain. He says it is such a comfort to find a kind, motherly woman with whom to talk over his difficulties! He hesitates to trouble Mrs Manners, who is already overworked. Winifred holds one shoulder a little higher than the other. Does that mean anything wrong with the spine? Ought ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... performed without any inconvenience to any one. It is very right that you should go to town; I would have every young woman of your condition in life acquainted with the manners and amusements of London. You will be under the care of a motherly good sort of woman, of whose kindness to you I can have no doubt. And in all probability you will see your brother, and whatever may be his faults, or the faults of his wife, when I consider whose son he is, I cannot bear to have you so wholly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... no right ones," he blubbered. Harum-scarum Bob, who was a trump, had him in her motherly arms immediately, and the upshot of it was that a blue suit she had worn when she was Sam Something changed owners. Mrs. Sandys "made it up," and that is how ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... them books of yours," said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly interest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no account of time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time for it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ruination to a ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... them; but all the world agreed in saying that he was a scamp, that he was one of the wildest young men in London, and that he was ruining his career with both hands. Lady Locke hardly knew why she should mind, and yet she did mind. She found herself thinking often of him, and in a queer sort of motherly way that the slight difference in their ages did not certainly justify. After all, he was nearly twenty-five and she was only twenty-eight, but then he looked twenty, and she felt—well, a considerable age. She had married at seventeen. She had travelled, had seen something of rough life, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... midst of all this, Carry Nation was announced, and she stepped upon the stage, unattended by any glare of colored lights or fanfare of music. A quiet, motherly looking woman, plainly dressed, with a Bible in her hand, she commanded almost immediately the respect of that large crowd—from the men in the orchestra stalls to the gallery gods. One half intoxicated fellow began to scoff at her, but was ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... tears for one moment. The Duncan girls were her best friends, and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... But her loneliness was o'er; Bound her soul a motherly patience Clasped its arms forevermore; From her heart ebbed back the sorrow, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... memory hardly reached farther back than the advent of my uncle at Lake Adieno, and all my early associations were connected with the cottage and its surroundings. I had a glimmering and indistinct idea of something before our coming to Parkville. It seemed to me that I had once known a motherly lady with a sweet and lovely expression on her face; and I had a faint recollection of looking out upon a dreary waste of waters; but I could not fix the idea distinctly in my mind. I supposed that the lady was my mother. I made several vain efforts to induce my uncle to tell ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... Shinte's town in canoes: she insisted that they should march by land, and ordered her people to shoulder his baggage in spite of him. "My men succumbed, and left me powerless. I was moving off in high dudgeon to the canoes, when she kindly placed her hand on my shoulder, and with a motherly look said, 'Now, my little man, just do as the rest have done.' My feeling of annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try for some meat. My men, in admiration of her pedestrian powers, kept remarking, 'Manenko is a soldier,' and we were all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine. Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there which only hens can understand. Or it may be that she, too, had built a little house and hidden it away so that no one should ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the ferryboat, beaming smiles of motherly fondness upon her children. She wore a riding-habit of scarlet cloth embroidered with thread of gold, and a snow-white hat, adorned with long plumes of ostrich feather. The rich attire did not blind Plutarch to the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... spring-time holiday, Rosamond made the acquaintance of her husband's aunt. Susan Jernam was pleased with the bright-eyed, pure-minded, modest girl, and in the few days they were together, learned to regard her with a motherly feeling, which was destined to be of priceless value to Rosy at an unforeseen crisis of the new life that began ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... becomes responsible for its prompt and almost inevitable destruction. [Footnote: The scandals that occasionally arise in connection with that saintly institution, the Foundling Hospital at Naples, are enough to make humanity shudder. Of 856 children living under its motherly care during 1895, 853 "died" in the course of that one year-only three survived; a wholesale massacre. These 853 murdered children were carried forward in the books as still living, and the institution, which has a yearly revenue of over 600,000 francs, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... hotly muttered something that made me think I must of misunderstood her, because no lady actress would say it, let alone a kind old mother. However, she backs off and for the third time has this medicine dropper worked on her smarting eyes. Once more she comes forward with streaming eyes of motherly love, and I'm darned if this grouch ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... have heard of a good woman, that had, as this old man, a bad and ungodly son, and she prayed for him, counselled him, and carried it motherly to him for several years together; but still he remained bad. At last, upon a time, after she had been at prayer, as she was wont, for his conversion, she comes to him, and thus, or to this effect, begins again to admonish him. Son, said she, thou hast been and art a wicked child, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... submitted, and dropped asleep as soon as her head was fairly on the pillow. Motherly Mrs. Sharpe "tucked her in" and kissed her, and then, with the remains of the supper, went down-stairs to partake of her own ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... a sunstroke, poor young man!" exclaimed Mrs. McNabb, bustling about with motherly anxiety. "I'm going to run home and see, and if he isn't any better I'll not come back. Liza, you and Mrs. Johnstone'll have to 'tend to those sandwiches. Dear, dear, isn't it a ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... the motherly Esmeralda. She, too, was happy, for was she not returning to her beloved Maryland? Already she could see dimly through the fog of smoke the murky headlight of the oncoming engine. The men began to gather up the hand baggage. Suddenly ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... voice. Lucy took her hand cordially. "I was sure it was you, ma'am," Melissa went on, with pretty confidence, looking up into her face, "because Mrs. Wade told me you'd be as kind to me as a mother; and the moment I saw you I just said to myself, 'That MUST be Mrs. Hancock; she's so sweetly motherly.' How good of you to burden yourself with a stranger like me! I hope, indeed, I ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... nothing of the rubbish. The yellow wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent about all the rest,—has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbor to. Alas, is not this the history of all highest Truth that comes or ever came into the ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... myself; there I obtained that for which I was thirsty. You will learn for yourself all that you have unconsciously been to me, to me a toiler who was misunderstood, overwhelmed for so long under misery, both physical and moral. Ah! I do not forget your motherly goodness, your divine sympathy for those who suffer. . . . Well, then as soon as you wish to come to Paris, you will come without even letting us know. You will come to the Rue Fortunee exactly as to your own house, absolutely as I used to go to Frapesle. I claim this as ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... barracks; the sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned as she walked home through ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... the fact disclosed by the Governor at Walker's, that she had conducted a fence in Chicago and was prone to view precious stones with a covetous eye, bore all the marks of respectability. She entered the dining-room briskly, her motherly face heated from the range, and placed a large platter of fried ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... suggested she be snapped with a little black "Pom," who had found his way into the room and was now an interested spectator, on his vantage ground, a big sofa. So little "Joy" was gathered up and held in affectionate, motherly arms, close against his mistress' face. It was all very human and natural, and gave another side to the singer's character from the side ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... of her three sons, who had grown into strong lads, had given to the crew of the section house the same motherly care that characterized those days when yet her husband's presence and praises spurred her on to make her best efforts. Every school day she saw her boys ride off to the school house in the early morning upon ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... steep field. At the bottom a bubbling, noisy little brook went tumbling and bustling merrily over the stones, filling the sweet, warm air with a cheery song of its own. A plank served as a bridge across the stream; and as Susie walked steadily over it she noticed a fat, motherly old duck nestling down amongst the ferns and dock-leaves on the bank. Mother Duck uttered a startled and indignant "Quack, quack," as Gypsy jumped over her head and dashed headlong ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... was surprised to find that the "child" was as tall as his wife, who, with abounding motherly kindness, had received the girl into open arms. Scarcely less demonstrative and affectionate was the greeting of old Mr. Clifford, and the orphan felt, almost from the first, that she had found ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... intimate terms. The most probable explanation seemed to me that she was some elderly lady artist who darned his socks for him, and shed tears in secret over the state of his wardrobe. There was a magnificent uncouthness about Tommy which would appeal irresistibly to a certain type of motherly woman. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even while talking to George ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Unitarianism is at the present day. Whether or not the three-cornered hat was considered as an emblem of Trinitarianism, I am not able to determine. Our hair was worn in a queue, bound with black ribbon, and reached to the small of the back, in the shape of the tail of that motherly animal which furnishes ungrateful bipeds of the human race with milk, butter, and cheese. Where nature had not bestowed a sufficiency of this ornamental appendage, the living and the dead contributed ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... seventy years of age, with snowy hair and gentle face, was deputed by the town authorities to do our cooking. Her relatives live in Juchitan, and why she had chosen to live among these people I do not know. She took a motherly interest in all our party. Nothing was too good for us. She spent her whole time in hunting supplies and cooking and serving food. Not only did she insist on all our purchases being supplied at cheapest rates, but her own charge for help and service was ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... glorying in her good sense and in her stout shoes; speaking of things which she called "neat" with a devotional admiration and expressing the extremest height of her disapprobation when she said anything was "very untidy." A motherly woman, a practical woman, a good housekeeper and a good wife, careful of small things because generally only small things came in her way, devotedly attached to her husband, whom she regarded with perfect justice as the best man of her ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... at her half-averted face and was suddenly confronted by the realization that this grey, motherly woman must have been young once, like Alix, and pretty. As it is with the young, he could not think of her except as old. He had always thought of his mother as old; it was impossible to think of her as having once been young and gay like the girls he knew. Yes, Mrs. Strong must ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Empress, which Miss Wolfe had given the Metropolitan Museum at New York; and in reply to my congratulations upon a recent successful public speech of her eldest son, a student at Bonn, she had dwelt, in a motherly way, upon the difficulties which environ a future sovereign at a great university. In more recent days, and especially during the years before her death, she had been, at her table in Berlin and at her castle ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of our old servant, so tender, so motherly, seemed to heal my sorrow. When I became calmer she told me some of the details of the tragedy. Paula had, dashed in front of the horses just in time to throw the child out of danger but had been unable to escape ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... Hill," said Mrs. Jardine, and turned to the fire. The tutor joined her there. He had for her liking and admiration, and she for him almost a motherly affection. Now she ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... whole lot of persons not conspicuous for conversational powers: men who have lived much out-of-doors, with gun or rod; shy country neighbours, cross old scholars, simple motherly little housewives; and, if one get at their reality, peasants and even servants. For we have within ourselves memories and fancies; and it depends on our companion, on a word, a glance, a gesture, that only the sweet and profitable ones, thoughts ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant, and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus made provision for everything, the Count, for ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... was arranging a tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into a charming state ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... other patrons to hover about their table like a stout, presiding goddess, guiding them gently to the best dishes on the menu, and occasionally putting aside their own selection with a hasty, "Mon-non; you vill not like that one to-day." She patted Cecilia in a motherly fashion at parting, and their bill was only about half ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... was opened by a motherly looking colored woman, and Abe, taking Calhoun once more in his arms, carried him into the house. Aunt Liza, as the wife of Abe was called, seeing Calhoun looking so pale and thin, put her fat, black hand on his forehead, and said, "Po' chile, po' chile, don't yo' worry. Aunt Liza take good ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... the first place, Wilfred was in no shape to be the party of the second part in a motherly clinch act. It's messy work, loadin' garbage cans, and he's peeled down for it. He was costumed in a pair of overalls that would have stood in the corner all by themselves, and an army undershirt with ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... his head, and speaking his name more tenderly than before, she told him not to be afraid, not to grieve any more, and he should go home soon. She made her harsh, commanding voice sound so sweet and motherly that the child turned a little, and clasped that large brown hand, and held it against his lips and his eyes, while he wept and sobbed, till his heavy heart grew lighter. When Grace drew away her hand, and found it all wet with ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... not long ere the gentle Sister made her appearance. She was a friendly, motherly-looking woman, on whose gray hair was placed a cap with a pink bow, the badge of the unmarried Sisters. She greeted the visitors with ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... by which this decayed citizen, proficient only in the lore of vice and scorned by the whole populace, had gained his end; above all, how it came about that these two never wearied of their infatuation. Had he struck some latent and hideously defective chord in her motherly breast, that began to throb in response to his amorous complexities—was that their ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... children, used to be sent by Gordon to me. They used to arrive in an almost perfect state of comfort, with all the necessary papers enabling me to disperse them among their different villages in Egypt. One of the first messages the General sent to me was this, 'Do try and find a motherly European woman to receive these poor women and children, for they have never been in Egypt yet before.' With the regularity of clockwork over 2000 refugees arrived, all the arrangements for their transport from Khartoum to Berber having been made by Gordon.... Two thousand five hundred men, women, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... young Ptolemy, afterwards called Epiphanes. He began his speech, "Ye men of Macedonia," as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He wiped his eyes in well-feigned grief, and showed them the new king, who had been trusted, he said, by his father, to the motherly care of Agathoclea and to their loyalty. He then accused Tlepolemus of aiming at the throne, and brought forward a creature of his own to prove the truth of the charge. But his voice was soon drowned in the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... sweet; when it came to lifting them out of the car after her, the public had to help. One's heart must go with these holiday-makers as they began to leave the train after the last suburban stations, where they could feel themselves fairly in the country, and really enter upon their joy. It was such motherly looking country, and yet young with springtime, and of a breath that came balmily in at the open car-windows; and the trees stood about in the meadows near the hedge-rows as if they knew what a good thing it was to be meadow-trees in England, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... he took action it was too late. Miss Sherwood naively declared that she had not known her own heart, and that she did not care for Frank any more. She wept a little, and was soothed by motherly Mrs. Armour, who was inwardly glad, though she knew the matter would cause Frank pain; and even General Armour could not help showing slight satisfaction, though he was innocent of any deliberate action to separate the two. Straightway Miss Sherwood despatched a letter to the wilds of Canada, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful peril in the passage of the flames—peril to his eyes and face and clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was the means of saving him, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to understand ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... accord. Womanlike, they sought relief from their high tension in light, irrelevant talk and care for the trifling details of their surroundings. Aunt Debby brought water and towels for Rachel's toilet, and fluttered around her, solicitous, helpful and motherly, and Rachel, weary of long companionship with men, delighted in the restfulness of association once more with a ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... done, half his body sinking in the water, and his great eyes looking around to see if any one would help him. I went back to the barge (they had stayed, too, to see the sight), and the woman, a nice, clean, motherly body with two babies clinging to her, was much excited over the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... our suggestions eagerly. The environment of our simple home, the ministrations of motherly hands touched hidden chords. He did not hide his enjoyment, but talked well and entertainingly of everything—except himself. At times he was boyishly gay; then, seemingly without cause, the expectant look of his eyes would fade into one of ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... the doctor's wife, full of motherly vanity, and desirous to appear genteel. She could read without much spelling, prided herself on her housewifery, especially on her gooseberry wine, and was really proud of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... marriage faithfully. If she ever felt in her heart any jealousy as she saw Polly growing up a pretty bright little maiden, as different to the usual child product of Varley as could well be, she was wise enough never to express her thoughts, and behaved with motherly kindness to her in the evening hours spent at home. She would perhaps have felt the task a harder one had her own elder children been girls; but three boys came first, and a girl was not born until she had ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... Robert, shaving his shingle attentively, 'so long as Canadians look back to England as home, and speak of it as home, there's little fear of annexation or revolt. Mother country has only to keep up the motherly relation, and patiently loosen the leading strings, according as her colonies grow ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... with something that thrills me. I saw how this little, red-bearded pedlar was like a cake of yeast in the big, heavy dough of humanity: how he travelled about trying to fulfil in his own way his ideals of beauty. I felt almost motherly toward him: I wanted to tell him that I understood him. And in a way I felt ashamed of having run away from my own homely tasks, my kitchen and my hen yard and dear old, hot-tempered, absent-minded Andrew. I fell into a sober ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... many of them. Some of the professors' wives who had sons and daughters of their own? Well, they might be all well enough for their own sons and daughters, but there wasn't one who seemed likely to want to behave in a very motherly way to a stranger like his waif of a girl. They were nice to the students, polite and kind to the extent of one tea or reception apiece a year, but ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... looking into the fire. The light of the blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs. Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a tenderness quite foreign to the vindictive creed which she had pronounced against the nesters but a little ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... "My boys, I feared that you were lost!" exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door. But the silent father, standing back of her in the glow of the lamplight, sees what the pole is bearing, and in his eye there is a smile. After that, motherly reproach, fatherly inquiry, plenteous bread and milk, many eager explanations and much descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager both to ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... not a condition of indenture, but was a kind of usual or customary present to the tradesman's wife to engage her to be kind to the youth, and take a motherly care of him, being supposed to be ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... Harlow Martha had a queer motherly kind of friendship, and it was really by her advice the ladies had been led to think of a return to Harlow House. For she saw that the elder woman was unhappy for want of some interest in life, and she was sure that the ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... a better place. Mr. and Mrs. Lanham were quiet people, who gave them an excellent room and a fine supper. Mrs. Lanham showed a motherly solicitude, and when she heard that they were going to the Curtis ball on the following night she demanded that their spare and best uniforms ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... said the woman, whose motherly sympathies were much aroused; "I'm re'lly consarned for ye. Solomon!" she called, from the window, towards a small back building. A man, in leather apron and very dirty ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... she have known how true that prophetic instinct was, would she not have gone counter to all her own inclinations, and disregarded all Jack's wishes and prayers, rather than have run the risk of introducing strife into her peaceful household? As it was, the motherly pity she felt for the baby was stronger at the moment than the foreboding light which had flashed across the distant ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... of passion; but as soon as she had yielded to it she despised herself. Even in the excitement of pleasure she could not entirely forget and lose herself. The image of mademoiselle always arose before her, with her stern, motherly face. Germinie did not become immodest in the same degree that she abandoned herself to her passions and sank lower and lower in vice. The degrading depths to which she descended did not fortify her against her disgust and horror of herself. Habit did ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... previously, "If a congregation is to have the peaceful, comforting feeling that their souls are well cared for, they should have the example of a peaceful, homely life before their eyes, in the form of a motherly wife at the rectory, and even better still, a ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Hilmer always dimpled with wholesome pleasure. Well, she did look sweet, in a motherly, bovine way, Fred admitted, when the note of insincerity in his wife's ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... brushed crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because there was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tightly folded arms, and darkly frowning brows was felt to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer period. The brief interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to look around her in her usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and uttered a cry. In the excitement of the descent she had quite overlooked her doll, and was now regarding ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... was a great shock to her, my attraction for her had gone—I was just "poor darling Nicholas," and she began to be motherly—Nina motherly!—She would have been furious at the very idea once. Nina is thirty-nine years old, her boy has just gone into the flying corps, she is so glad the ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... was fresh to the city, as four years ago she had been. In those days she had dreamed of such a man as Pendleton—a dream that she was sure she had long since forgotten. Four years was a long while. It gave her rather a motherly feeling as she thought of Pendleton from that distance. And she rather enjoyed that. It left her freer to continue thinking of him. This she did until she was ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... audience began their noisy business of getting out of their seats. Missy glanced about, suspicious yet alertly inquisitive. Would the women rush up and kiss him? Her eyes rested on prim Mrs. Siddons, on silly Miss Lightner, on fat, motherly Mrs. Allen, Kitty's mother. Poor Kitty, if her mother should so disgrace herself!—Missy felt a moment's thankfulness that her own mother was safely ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... a good time," said another woman with a kind, motherly face. "They will soon grow up, and then they will have to work hard to get ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade
... child. This man of the world from the city was but the barefooted six-year-old whom she had borne and loved and fed and guarded in the years that were past. She must care for him now. And so she told him that he must have supper, and that he must let her go; and there was a sweet tinge of motherly authority in her words—unconsciously to her, arbitrary and unconsciously to him, submissive—and she left him to smoke upon the broad porch, and dawdle in the chair he remembered so well, and talk with ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Alicia found a letter written to Robert by his mother. It was an unerudite letter, full of crops and motherly love and farm notes. It chronicled the health of the pig and the recent red calf, and asked concerning Robert's in return. It was a letter direct from the soil, straight from home, full of biographies of bees, tales of turnips, paeans of new-laid eggs, neglected parents ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... arose a sudden clamour and a crying. From each little sparred enclosure rushed forth a woman who snatched a baby here and there and drove a herd of children before her indoors, glancing around and behind her as she did so with the anxious look of a motherly barn-door fowl when the hawk hangs poised in ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... mystic. The enigmatical figure of Kundry is not the impersonation of one woman, she is woman herself. The incarnation of everything female, she embodies the sensuous, seductive and destructive element together with the contempt of the man who falls under her spell, as well as the motherly, and finally the humbly-administrative principle, which so far had not yet become a part of the erotic ideal. She is both positive and negative, a blind tool of the element of evil which prompts man to forget his higher mission (reminiscent of the second mediaeval period), and ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... distracted with the abundance and violence of her requests. It came to pass that in the excitement the old couple quite forgot Marjory. It was not until Mrs. Wainwright, then feeling splendidly, was dressed for dinner, that she thought to open Marjory's door and go to render a usual motherly supervision of the ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... blush with Brother Michel. Our new parents were kind, gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a most motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with his employers. Enough has been said to show why Moipu should be deposed; and in Paaaeua the French had found a reputable substitute. He went always ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... afterwards received at the Library with imperial honours and given to understand by kotowing sub-mandarins that she might have the whole red-star library sent home to her house if she so desired. There was no other result. The rest of reading Boston remained under the motherly but autocratic care of ces dames. Those skilled in the artistic records of Boston may remember that the management of the same Library once refused the offered gift of a statue of a woman holding a baby, on the sole ground that the woman ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... the place her father won in her affections was somewhat like to Rake's. She made him her servant and tyrannised over him, but at the same time followed and imitated him as if she had been a young spaniel he was training. The life the child led, it would have broken a motherly woman's heart to hear about; but there was no good woman near her, her mother's relatives, and even Sir Jeoffry's own, having cut themselves off early from them—Wildairs Hall and its master being no great credit to those having the misfortune to be connected ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thou shalt come into thy kingdom.' And Jesus made answer, 'Amen, I say to thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' Magdalen, Mary of Cleophas, and John stood near the Cross of our Lord and looked at him, while the Blessed Virgin, filled with intense feelings of motherly love, entreated her Son to permit her to die with him; but he, casting a look of ineffable tenderness upon her, turned to John and said, 'Woman, behold thy son;' then he said to John, 'Behold thy mother.' John looked at his dying Redeemer, and saluted this ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... your own baby?" said I, struck with the absence of motherly tenderness in spite of the woman's compassionate ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... friends of ours. The cock, who is a brave, spirited bird, wakes us up in the morning by crowing; the hen lays us eggs for breakfast, and when the wee chicks are big enough, they are very good food, as roast chicken. The cock teaches us watchfulness; the hen, motherly love. ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging to her in sole right, with which she did and would ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... at all objected to crying away some of her sorrow on kind Mrs. Fry's motherly breast; Primrose could have had some really interesting talk which would have done her good with the Misses Price; they were very religious people, and their brother was a clergyman, and they might have said some things which would comfort the sore hearts of ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... coffee with a motherly tenderness that was perfectly touching. She looked at me with the eyes of Solicitude, and spoke with the lips of culminating Respect; and once, in a burst of confidence, she told me that she had six orphan sons, ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of her heart, she planned that even this sacrifice to her motherly affection might be turned to some account in the way of trade. Accordingly, there appeared in the Nottingham Herald an advertisement, extending across two columns, headed with imposing capitals, by which the public were informed that Mrs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... and before the boy knew it he was telling the President and his wife all about his precious Encyclopedia, his evening with General Grant, and his efforts to become something more than an office boy. No boy had ever so gracious a listener before; no mother could have been more tenderly motherly than the woman who sat opposite him and seemed so honestly interested in all that he told. Not for a moment during all those two hours was he allowed to remember that his host and hostess were the President of the United States and the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... arms and hurried to the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feeling very sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all she had ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... All the better for us. It makes her wonderfully patient with our troublesome brats. It was only to day, when that horrid little Jacky Smith hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the kitchen, wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, quite motherly. ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... in the inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snow-plants of the California woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly weather. ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... ever refused to listen to you, my son?" and a softer and more motherly expression came ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... said du Portail, "that she is an angel,—never the least ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a feeling of motherly solicitude. That is what first gave the doctors the idea that if reality could take the place of her constant hallucination she might recover her reason. Well, this is the girl that fool of a Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... out his position somewhat to this effect, his landlady appeared to clear away the breakfast things; she was a landlady of the better class, a motherly old soul who prided herself upon making her lodgers comfortable, and had higher views than many of her kind on the subjects of cookery and attendance. She had come to entertain a great respect for Caffyn, although at first, when she had discovered that he was 'one of them play-actors,' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... I forget to speak of Mrs. Poor. The big, raw-boned woman's hard-favored countenance was lit up with motherly solicitude, as she lifted, rather than assisted, Zadkiel, down the steps of ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... with half-grown grandchildren when their magnificent home was finally broken up, you can imagine the change to Mary of living with newly married people, engaged in their first struggle with the world. But ours was just the problem which appealed to the motherly heart of our spinster Mary, for she yearned over us with an exceeding great yearning, and of her value to us you yourselves shall be ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... knew nothing of motherly tears and fatherly anxieties; she lived on peacefully in the room ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to have been a certain air of pathos which Mrs. Partington herself cast around him, which affected her the most, and I imagine her feeling to have been largely motherly. There was, however, another element very obviously visible, which, in anyone but Mrs. Partington, I should call reverence.... She told me that she could not imagine why he was traveling with the Major and Gertie, so she at ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... with the Giants, Joe?" asked Mrs. Matson, her motherly instincts taking alarm at anything ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... her arm; her eyes were raised to her nurse's face wonderingly but complacently, and, though quite conscious, Mistress Fiddy involuntarily sighed out "mother." Very motherly was the elder woman's assurance: "Yes, my dear, I'll serve as madam your mother in her absence, till madam herself comes; and she'll laugh at our confusion and clumsiness, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... through the doorway, an elderly woman, buxom, comely, and of motherly aspect, whom he easily divined to be the tire-woman of whom the Knight had spoken, came forward ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... a dear old motherly creature, declared that she knew exactly what Clarence needed; and concocted such delicious broths, made such strengthening gruels, that Clarence could not avoid eating, and in a day or two he declared himself better than he had been for a month, and felt quite equal ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... and motherly about her, that became her, and warmed Lane's cold heart. He remembered that she had always preferred boys to girls, and regretted she had not been the mother of boys. So Lane talked to her, glad to find that the most ordinary news of the service and his comrades interested her very much. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... He hit my father right in the eye, raising a black and blue spot as large as a hen's egg." The painful recollection of this part of the dream so overpowered the witness, that she burst into tears, but was soon quieted by the motherly ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... occasionally glance up from her needlework, though always but for a moment and that, too, furtively, because she did not wish to show how fascinating she considered her own child, although in this feeling of motherly pride she was fully justified. Effi wore a blue and white striped linen dress, a sort of smock-frock, which would have shown no waist line at all but for the bronze-colored leather belt which she drew up tight. Her neck was bare and a broad sailor collar fell over her shoulders ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the carriage as soon as it drew up. She was a handsome woman of middle age and was richly dressed. She was now in a panic of motherly solicitude. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... all comes out of your pocket—that, of course, I needn't ask,' said Lucy. But her sarcasm was not bitter, and she had a motherly eye the while to the way in which Sandy was stuffing himself with his bread ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "A good motherly lady, but as to love, that is a matter of taste. A few years younger, with deference to her prudence and experience, would ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... And then, as the motherly Irish woman, with a quizzical smile on her face, started to the house for the liniment, Mr. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... girls bade Tom good-night, and he went back to Mr. Hallam, and they, feeling very cold and sleepy and drenched, were glad enough to be taken care of, and put to bed like babies, after Mrs. Fisher's good, motherly fashion. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... had my mother set her table to rights than she, with an air of motherly watchfulness, drew her chair beside the damsels, with whom I was exchanging the gossip of the Cape, and entered cheerfully into ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... furnished. Tode looked around admiringly as Dick threw open the door and led the way in. Tode had never been in rooms like these before. Nan—after one quick glance about the place—looked earnestly and longingly into Mrs. Hunt's kind motherly ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... right motherly body. The meal over, she recommended a nap; and upon our waking much refreshed, she led us to the doorway, and pointed down among the trees; through which we saw the gleam of water. Taking the hint, we repaired ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... other hand, I could soon put you into good humour with me, if I chose. I know well enough what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the better or ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... grow no corn hyar, and we'm clean run out ov flour; hev ter make out on taters 's best we kin." I sincerely sympathized with him on the lack of bread-stuff among them, and wondered no longer at the avidity with which they had munched our flinty biscuits on first coming aboard. His wife, a buxom, motherly woman of about fifty, of dark, olive complexion, but good features, was kindness itself; and their three youngest children, who were at home, could not, in spite of repeated warnings and threats, keep their eyes off me, as if I had ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... this kind. Let one pass in absence from childhood to maturity, and who that had not seen him in the mean time could tell that it was he? The trouble arising thence is finely illustrated by Shakspeare in the motherly solicitude of Constance, who, on learning that her young son has been imprisoned by his uncle, King John, and will probably be kept until he pines to death, cries in anguish to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... children, besides examining over 120,000 boys and girls as to their fitness for factory labor, states (British Medical Journal, October 14, 1905) that "fifty years ago the slum mother was much more sober, cleanly, domestic, and motherly than she is to-day; she was herself better nourished and she almost always suckled her children, and after weaning they received more nutritious bone-making food, and she was able to prepare more wholesome food at home." The system of compulsory education has had an unfortunate ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... will go on being happy, darling. He is a splendid fellow—and a good man, too. Nothing shall happen to prevent your being the happiest pair alive," comforted Mrs. Ozanne, and, with crooning, motherly words, herded Rosalie to bed. But she herself stayed sleepless ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... a little bit for me too, uncle, till I go and put my dolly babe to bed; for she might take the measles if I keep her up too long," said motherly Fannie. ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... best spirits. Ducks were paddling off to the pond; geese to the meadow; and meek gray guinea-hens tripping away to hunt bugs in the garden. A splendid cock stood on the wall, and crowed so loud and clear that all the neighboring chanticleers replied. The motherly hens clucked and scratched with their busy broods about them, or sat and scolded in the coops because the chicks would gad abroad. Doves cooed on the sunny roof, and smoothed their gleaming feathers. Daisy's donkey ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... in vain. To Beethoven—young, rough, and almost untutored in the usages of society, but with his commanding genius and his equally remarkable personality—the Lichnowskys were kindness itself. The Princess saw to his comforts, and arranged his engagements in the same motherly fashion as Madame Breuning had done after his mother's death, whilst the Prince even went so far in his consideration for Beethoven's sensitiveness as to direct his servants to attend to the musician's bell before answering his own. Extreme sensibility to ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... jolly children danced round with joy when they heard the wonderful story of our deliverance. Every one, from the charming and dignified head of police who heard our story and examined our passports, to the humblest village child, rejoiced at our escape. The good motherly folk at the lighthouse fairly bubbled over with joy as they chattered and poured out sympathy and busied themselves with attending to our ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... boys, I feared that you were lost!" exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door. But the silent father, standing back of her in the glow of the lamplight, sees what the pole is bearing, and in his eye there is a smile. After that, motherly reproach, fatherly inquiry, plenteous bread and milk, many eager explanations and much descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager both to eat and ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... such children as I have," she said; and she gave Polly a motherly little pat that the little daughter felt clear to the tips of her toes with a ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... degree, or had anybody else been unduly favored, there would have been a pretext for an outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her discontent. But it was not so. The matron dispensed even-handed justice and motherly kindness impartially all round. And if the lassie Grant's excellences were somewhat obtrusively contrasted with Baubie's shortcomings, it was because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to rouse thereby a spark of emulation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... a kind, motherly woman, she might have done much to reconcile the boy to his new home; but she was a tall, gaunt, bony woman, more masculine than feminine, not unlike Miss Sally Brass, whom all readers ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... fired with motherly emulation, awoke her own little girl; and the two children were confronted. Master Gilliard looked at her for a moment, very much as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror before he turns away. He was ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... leaning against the lintel. Her mother had begun to prepare the evening meal; fresh fish were frying on the fire, and the oat cakes toasting before it. Yet, as she moved rapidly about, she was watching her daughter and very soon she gave words to the thoughts troubling and perplexing her motherly speculations. ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... puffy hand eagerly through her arm. She would have liked to say outright how welcome the motherly presence and the honest voice were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... supposed my father must have perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two—Dora and I—were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... to the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feeling very sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... ever.. that made my lover jealous, he believed that I could not bring myself to leave my husband. But if my husband were out of the way then I would keep my children, and my lover would see in my crime a striking proof of my devotion." A curious farrago of slavish passion, motherly love and murder.(6) ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Alaric's wife. And he was right in his thoughts. The world would now have called Linda the more lovely of the two, and certainly the more feminine in the ladylike sense of the word. If, however, devotion be feminine, and truth to one selected life's companion, if motherly care be so, and an indomitable sense of the duties due to one's own household, then Gertrude was not deficient ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... episode Mliss did not come to school. Noon came, but not Mliss. Questioning Clytie on the subject, it appeared that they had left the school together, but the willful Mliss had taken another road. The afternoon brought her not. In the evening he called on Mrs. Morpher, whose motherly heart was really alarmed. Mr. Morpher had spent all day in search of her, without discovering a trace that might lead to her discovery. Aristides was summoned as a probable accomplice, but that equitable infant succeeded ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... me, my dear," she said with real kindness—her motherly heart had warmed to the girl's beauty and innocence,—"I knew Philip when he was quite a boy. He will tell you what a dreadfully old woman I am! You must try to like me ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... by his side, the living copy of the great man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr. Copperhead did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement. He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods and chattels. When he looked at ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... me to leave them alone before the fire, and to go out on the quay to dream, leaning on the parapet and looking at the water. When they spoke of their life at N———, and when Brigitte, almost cheerful, assumed a motherly air to recall some incident of their childhood days, it seemed to me that I suffered, and yet took pleasure in it. I asked questions; I spoke to Smith of his mother, of his plans and his prospects; I gave him an opportunity to show himself in a favorable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Beryl feed him, sitting on a stool beside his chair and being unnecessarily motherly ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel
... world together. Her eye was still round, and her cheek red, and her bust full,—there had certainly been no falling off there; nor will I say that her lip had lost its freshness. But the bloom of her charms had passed away, and she was now a solid, stout, motherly woman, not bright in converse, but by no means deficient in mother-wit, recognizing well the duties which she owed to others, but recognizing equally well those which others owed to her. All the charms of her youth—had they not been given to him, and also all her ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... were served at the meal. Motherly Mrs. Bentley laid aside her motoring dust coat and marshaled the girls for the various tasks to ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... The wedding went off very well, and the bride and bridegroom were bowled away to the nearest station with four grey post-horses from Reading in a manner that was truly delightful to Lady Eardham's motherly feelings. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... cemetery, and she was trying to gather herself together, and adjust her life to his loss. This would have been easier with a younger person, for she had been her father's pet so long, and then had taken care of his helplessness with a devotion which was finally so motherly, that it was like losing at once a parent and a child when he died, and she remained with the habit of giving herself when there was no longer any one to receive the sacrifice. He had married late, and in her thirty-first year he was seventy-eight; but the disparity of their ages, increasing toward ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... her. She had offered her services to Mrs. Hopkins in the Alabama hospital. He sent in his card and she refused to see him. He asked an interview with Mrs. Hopkins and begged her to help. Her motherly heart went out to him in sympathy. His utter misery was so plainly ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... my early associations were connected with the cottage and its surroundings. I had a glimmering and indistinct idea of something before our coming to Parkville. It seemed to me that I had once known a motherly lady with a sweet and lovely expression on her face; and I had a faint recollection of looking out upon a dreary waste of waters; but I could not fix the idea distinctly in my mind. I supposed that the lady was my mother. I made several vain efforts to induce ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... to Belasez that her mother was being rebuked for want of motherly tenderness, and, as she doubted not, towards Anegay. This mysterious person, then, must have been a sister of whom she had never ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... tell the master, for one reason: it took a long time for so stupendous an idea to penetrate the good lady's brain; and for another: her motherly heart was touched by another story than this Aladdin's lamp of Joel's wherein burned petroleum. She watched from her window until she saw Holmes crossing the icy road: there was a little bitterness, I confess, in the thought that he had taken her child from her; but the prayer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... lead in my breast at the thought of giving up yer bit of things, Miss Winnie. But now,—now come along, Molly girl, and we'll be fixing the rooms, this minute. What's the good of yer going back to the Sisters at all?" And Mrs. Mulligan put a motherly arm around Aunt Winnie's trembling form. "Give her another cup of tea, Molly; for she's all done up with joy at having her own home and her own boy again, thank God for ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... the ladies included the fat, motherly looking ones, several of whom were spinsters; the young, too-smartly dressed daughters of farmers, possessing very little beauty, but of good height and figure; one person clothed entirely in black silk and very conscious of a new kind of watch, of gold and colours and small, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... and kept to a far higher degree than seems to be the case with those who court affection by caresses and indulgence. We knew that her approval was of a generous kind, we prized enthusiastically her rare betrayals of her motherly tenderness, and we depended on her in a manner we only realised in the desolation, dreariness, and helplessness that fell upon us, when we knew that she was gone. She had not, nor had any of us, understood that she was dying, and she ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the counter, which she caught for support. One of the girls ran to her, but Mrs. Trubus, standing close by, placed a motherly ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... of yours," said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly interest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no account of time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time for it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ruination to a ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... having hastily dismounted, a most touching scene of motherly affection ensued, for, as the old man explained to me, he was her son. The poor shrivelled creature threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fondly, first on one cheek and then upon the other, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... minutes Lady Eileen Meredith, in charge of a doctor and a motherly-looking matron hastily summoned from the adjoining police station in Cannon Row, was being taken back to her home in a state of semi-stupor. Foyle picked up the dainty little revolver from the floor and, jerking the cartridges out, placed it on ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Sketches of Paris, observes:—"The motherly virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, is not entitled to unqualified praise. There is no country in which maternal care is so assiduous; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious tenderness are so frequent." This I believe ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ground-floor flat with a fine front door; a large well-furnished sitting room with two windows looking out on to the street, and an equally large double-bedded room at the back of the sitting room. Our landlady, a kind, motherly, canny Scotchwoman, looked after us well and favoured us with many a bit of good advice: "You must be guid laddies, and tak care o' the bawbees; you maun na eat butchers' meat twice the week; tak plenty o' parritch and dinna be extravagant." ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... goes—" He could not say more, and, turning, put his arms down upon the back of the seat and his head upon them. Great, tearless sobs shook him. Mrs. Gray laid her kind hand upon his shoulder, and spoke gentle, motherly words—a few words, not many—and kept her hand there until he had himself ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... silly questions, Eveley, I am so nervous anyhow I hardly know what I am saying. You remember my laundress, don't you? She is so nice and motherly and a Methodist and respectable and all that,—only old and hard up. She is coming to live with us,—she will have the den for her room, and is closing her cottage. She is to keep house and look after the babies while I am at work. She only charges twenty-five ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... of the men paid off, Agnes installed in the best of three little cottages in care of the motherly old cook, Barry Houston approached the door of Ba'tiste's cabin, the wolf-dog, who had picked him up a hundred yards away, trotting beside him. There was a light within; in the shadows by the grave, a form moved,—old ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... her hostess with her sweet, motherly smile. "Aren't girls the dearest things?" she whispered. "I love to see them so young, and full of their own little affairs. I think it's dreadful nowadays how so many of them are allowed ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... water, you'll take cold, child; here swallow this,' and mingling spirituous with spiritual comfort, the good old lady poured a fiery glass of brandy down my throat, and I poured out my sorrowful story into her motherly ear, as I had done when an orphan boy, and all my life since, waxing warm with anger and contempt as I told it, while her benignant face showed no symptom of the indignation that glowed in mine; she pitied and soothed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... gathering flowers in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... L. Warner of Roca was the only person actively engaged in the last canvass who had been connected with the effort of 1871. As vice-president of her judicial district, she spoke at many places, organizing wherever practicable. Her motherly face, and persuasive but humorous argument, made her a favorite at conventions. Coming to Nebraska in its early days, a widow with a large family, she purchased a large farm and devoted herself ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... thinking—well, Mrs. McComas knew of a charming one, an old-established one, one in which the head-master's wife, a delightful, motherly soul.... And it was just within the Wisconsin line, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... my coffee with a motherly tenderness that was perfectly touching. She looked at me with the eyes of Solicitude, and spoke with the lips of culminating Respect; and once, in a burst of confidence, she told me that she had six orphan sons, ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had been. She never left the room where Rhoda was lying; for Rhoda could not bear her to go out of sight, and only seemed content while she could watch her nursing the baby, in her old-fashioned, motherly manner. As Joan sat on a low rocking-chair, lulling him to sleep with snatches of hymns, and soothing him tenderly if he began to cry, Rhoda's eyes shone with a tender light, though the tears dimmed them ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... a superintendent that is worthwhile! She is just lovely! The matron is nice, too, so motherly. And what do you think! They have a trained nurse—all the time—and they are going to fix up an infirmary on the top floor, so those that are sick can be quiet without the well ones having to be whist. Dr. Temple has been appointed House Physician—oh, I tell you, things are mightily ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... out!" ejaculated Fraser, retreating in alarm. "I never had no measles." But Chakawana went on cuddling the infant in a motherly fashion while Cherry ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... That's repartee, that is. With the accent on the rap, too. Never you mind; I think old 1812 and I will get on all right after this. It doesn't seem to bother him any, so I don't see why it should worry me. Nice motherly old lady, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... out of the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think nobody's felt like you before about a young ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... were dying out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himself ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... must not sadden your enjoyment of your pleasant visit to the Engadine, by writing at any length of the sorrow that I am suffering. You know how I love my aunt, and how gratefully I have always felt her motherly goodness to me. The doctor does not conceal the truth. At her age, there is no hope: my father's last-left relation, my one dearest friend, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... other, as my dear Dora. Now bestir yourself, Mr. Haverley, and make Miriam look at this thing as she ought to. I don't pretend to deny that I have spoken to you very much for Dora's sake, for whom I have an almost motherly feeling; but you should act for your sister's sake. And please don't forget what I have said, young man, and ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... arch ways? And do they pout, and have pet names? Well, then, are not these of the very essence of cookery, all the dry books to the contrary notwithstanding? Some day some one will publish a real cook-book for young housekeepers, but it will be a wise husband with the proper sense of things, not a motherly person at all, who will write it. They make things that are good enough to eat, but that is not the best part ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... assembled, and Ober-Superintendent Genzler addressed us very kindly—a very young-looking man for his age, for he married mamma to my father, and christened and confirmed Albert and Ernest." Neither was the motherly presence of her whose marriage vow the Ober- Superintendent had blessed, who had done so much to contribute to the triumph of this day, wanting to its complete realization of all that such a day should have been. The Duchess of Kent was already on a visit to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... was Meg who caught the other in her arms and under pretense of smoothing tumbled curls, hugged the child in motherly yearning over her; then she gave her a very clean-smelling, sudsy kiss and pushed her toward ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... a tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into a charming state ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... discussion amongst the young ladies, for she was very pretty, and her blue cloth suit was cut after the newest city fashion, and the one young man seemed in danger of presenting himself, and begging to be allowed to fetch and carry for her also. Several of the older women, with motherly hearts, had spoken to her, but she had continued to sit aloof, discouraging all advances. It was not because she was of an unsociable nature, but the struggle to keep back the tears of homesickness took ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... her husband's more than because it is her own, and because it is God's more than either's. I saw in the papers the other day, that a woman was brought before the Recorder of London for stealing a baby, when the judge himself said that there was no imaginable motive for her action but a motherly passion to possess the child. It is the need of a child that makes so many women take to poor miserable, broken-nosed lap-dogs; for they are self-indulgent, and cannot face the troubles and dangers of adopting a ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... send her to college and you thought you would come over and let me give her a little motherly counsel while you borrowed the money of Tom Adams to pay her college bills. Is ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... reserve were melted away by her friend's effusive sympathy, and the weary heart lightened its burdens, as many another had done before, by confessing them to the all-motherly Mrs. Frankland. Phillida told the story of her lover, of his dislike to the notoriety of her faith-cures. She told of her own struggles and of the grave questions she might soon have to settle. Should she ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... poor Desire, in the chimney corner, sobbing and wringing her hands, and rocking her body to and fro. She wouldn't eat, though good, kind, motherly Mrs. Moore, baked, on purpose for her, some of her most tempting cakes; she wouldn't drink, though Mrs. Moore handed her a nice hot cup of tea. She did nothing but cry fit to break her heart; while sensible ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... entered her own palace of the Tranquil Motherly Virtues, she caused the Lady A-Kuei to be summoned to her presence, who came, habited in a purple robe and with pins of jade and coral in her hair. And the Pearl Empress considered her attentively, recalling the perfect features of the White Jade Concubine, the ambrosial ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... from Argentan to Caen I found myself seated between a stout motherly person from Auvergne, and a little dark man from whose direction was wafted so strong an odour of garlic that I had no difficulty discerning from what region he hailed. Next to him were a bourgeois couple whose mourning attire, red eyes and ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... how Hildreth has grown so fond of you," and she patted me on the head as if I were a schoolboy, in motherly fashion. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... The motherly woman received the babe instinctively and cast aside the travelling-rug in which he was enveloped. Then she ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... hurriedly to perceive the deeper, better part of mankind; he had floated on the surface with the scum and froth, and could recall no one whom he could trust. At last, away back in the years of his childhood, he saw a face—that of a young but motherly Irishwoman, who had lived in his father's family as a faithful servant, and had been a fond partisan of his in his fickle troubles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... to some extent explained, a few days later, when Wetherell found himself gazing across the counter at the motherly figure of Mrs. Moses Hatch, who held the well-deserved honor of being the best cook ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and did press Polly's hand very warmly, and the earnestness of the wishes he breathed in her ear called a bright colour to her cheek. Then came good-night, and the young American's heart grew strangely soft when he found himself included in Mrs. Connolly's motherly blessing. He thought he had never seen a happier, a ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... to think so," answered Phoebe gravely. "But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare,—an odd kind of motherly sentiment,—which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you wish ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with a fair and hopeful son, she was desirous to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent. "Wherefore," the instrument proceeded, "we, of the motherly affection we bear to our said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our letters of free good-will, renounce and demit, the Crown, government, and guiding of the realm of Scotland, in favour of our said ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... [Footnote 15: Motherly woman.] [Footnote 16: Not grace before and after meat, nor their graces the duchesses, but the Graces which attended ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... and Mr. Taylor, shocked at the poet's appearance, procured for him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible advice as to personal habits and diet. At another time hot-house grapes ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... I am so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried a ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... thrilling adventures in Colorado, as told in "The Rover Boys Out West," had taxed them severely, and their father, Mr. Anderson Rover, felt that they needed the recreation. At first he had wished them to remain at the farm, and so had their Uncle Randolph Rover and their motherly Aunt Martha, but this had been voted "too slow" by the three brothers, and it was decided that they should go to Buffalo, charter a small yacht, and do as they pleased until the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... other's calves is certainly erroneous. During the catching of elephants many cases occur in which young ones, after losing their mothers by death or separation, are refused assistance by the other females, and are buffeted about as outcasts. I have only known one instance of a very gentle, motherly elephant in captivity, allowing a motherless calf to suck along with her own young one. When a calf is born the mother and the herd usually remain in that place for two days. The calf is then capable of marching. Even at this tender age calves are no encumbrance to the herd's movement; ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... her charming gravity and her refined way of speaking place her above the younger children. She was thoughtful and gentle and never joined us in our rather loud conversation. Of course, I had been the one member of the family who had caused the greatest anxieties both to my mother and to my motherly sister, and during my life as a student the strained relations between us had made a terrible impression on me. When therefore they tried to believe in me again, and once more showed some interest in my work, I was full of gratitude and happiness. The thought of getting this sister to look kindly ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... expectation, I have but to request that she favor me with a little singing, and soon the air is vocal with every note of the village songsters. After this, Mrs. Walters usually begins to flutter in a motherly way around the subject of ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... exclaimed a motherly-looking woman, coming to the door behind her husband. "Bring them in, every one, and I'll give them some bread and milk. I have cookies, too, for ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... very pale; look at me,' she went on, with that motherly solicitude in which there is none the less audible a note of parental authority: 'there, now, your eyes look heavy too. You're not ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... five weeping figures on the platform, and then threw himself back in his seat and gave free vent to his own feelings. Two girls sitting beside him sniggered at the sight of the strong-built young fellow giving way to tears, but a motherly-looking woman opposite presently put her ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... told just how it had happened, and talked and kept on talking, until she suddenly discovered that David was looking a little weary—though he insisted that he was not tired. But in her motherly way, that was the delight of the ward, she bade him shut his eyes and "go right to sleep," giving his hand a final caressing pat, and then running away to let him have a chance ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... to the damp shoes and socks before going to bed. Boo lay with his round face turned up to hers, stroking her cheek while the sleepy blue eyes blinked lovingly at her as she sang her lullaby with a motherly patience sweet to see. They made a pretty little picture, and Mr. Bemis looked at it with pleasure, having a leisure moment in which to discover, as all parents do sooner or later, that his ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... with the thermometer indicating three figures in the shade. To him the small boy opens his heart; the "hobo" passes the time of day with a merry jest thrown in; the good housewife brings a glass of cold water or milk, adding womanlike, a little motherly advice; the passing teamster, or even stage-driver—that autocrat of the "ribbons"—shouts a cheery "How many miles today, Captain?" or, "Where did you start from this morning, Colonel?"—these titles perhaps due to the battered old ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... upheld. And what more? It savoured of heresy to suggest that the Mother of God was blind to anything that happened on earth. Doubtless She saw this particular scene; doubtless She approved; doubtless She smiled, like everyone else. She loved her people in true motherly fashion. She was not born in the Central Provinces. She was fond of children, whether they wore clothes or not. The players enjoyed themselves. So did the audience. The Mother of God liked them to make a cheerful show in honour of that good old man, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... and had come to Dr. Shonjen to be treated. During the course of her visits there, she and Anna had learned to like each other very well. There was no fever in this friendship, it was just the interchange of two hard working, worrying women, the one large and motherly, with the pleasant, patient, soft, worn, tolerant face, that comes with a german husband to obey, and seven solid girls and boys to bear and rear, and the other was our good Anna with her spinster body, her firm jaw, her humorous, light, clean eyes and ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... reflected, as Mrs. Ispenlove, with an almost motherly accent, urged me to have another cup of tea, 'if you knew me, if you knew me, what would you say to me? Would your charity be strong enough to overcome your instincts?' And as I had felt older than my aunt, so I felt older than ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... the evening of December 31, 1862—Barty hailed a hansom, and went first to summon his good friend Dr. Knight, in Orchard Street; and then he drove to Brixton, and woke up and brought back with him a very respectable, middle-aged, and motherly woman whose name was Jones; and next morning, which was a very sunny, frosty one, my dear little god-daughter was ushered into this sinful world, a fact which was chronicled the very next day in Leah's diary by ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Beckwith"—the sound of his own name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "He is coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest for him—for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden," she said, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled. "It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come over to Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I will certainly give you all the flowers you want." The sweet and masterful apparition looked with a ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... be prepared (for an honorarium) to give his son private lessons? Could she afford the time? "I shrink from exposing him to influences, so often malign, of a boarding-school. What I should most of all desire for him is a steady, sympathetic home influence, a—may I say it?—a motherly influence." ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... floor; a room which, with its heavy-looking, old-fashioned furniture, seemed gloomy to them on coming in from the bright sunshine. Mrs. Churton was rather large, approaching stoutness in her figure, grey- haired with colourless face, and a somewhat anxious expression; but she seemed very gentle and motherly, and greeted Fan with a kindliness in her voice and manner which served in a great measure to remove the girl's nervousness on coming for the first time as ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... to complete the shack, and finds Annie overseeing some "Siwashes" put a pole roof on it. Of course he promotes a race-war immediate, playing the white "open" and the red to lose, so to speak, when she up an' spanks his face, addressing expurgated, motherly cuss-words at him like he'd been a bad boy and swallered his spoon, or dug an eye out of the kitten. Bat realizes he's against a strange system and draws out ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... thing so exact—every motion and tone. He had pulled the curls over his eyes, and tied up his face with a great handkerchief over the cap, as Gruffy has been doing lately when she had the face-ache, and he went about among the little chaps in such a motherly, bustling way, it was quite affecting. Sally, who helped him, hadn't the least idea it wasn't Gruffy. However, the best of it is to come," said Salisbury, pausing a moment to recover the mirth which the recollection ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... appeared. She took Tommy up in her strong, motherly arms, soothing him in practised fashion. "There, there, honey! Yo's goin' have yo' mother pretty soon. What yo' wants now's yo' supper, ain't it, honey? I reckon ain't no one had de sense ter gib yo' chillens a ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... teaching. At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined round the fancied image of a brother born ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Taylor, shocked at the poet's appearance, procured for him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... to lifting them out of the car after her, the public had to help. One's heart must go with these holiday-makers as they began to leave the train after the last suburban stations, where they could feel themselves fairly in the country, and really enter upon their joy. It was such motherly looking country, and yet young with springtime, and of a breath that came balmily in at the open car-windows; and the trees stood about in the meadows near the hedge-rows as if they knew what a good thing it was to be meadow-trees in England, where not being much good for fuel or lumber they ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... week before the actual proclamation of war, the wildest rumours were afloat here. A motherly lady assured me with a smile that the German fleet might be expected at any moment. "The British fleet," she told me, "has been overwhelmed and sunk in the North Sea. The Germans have determined to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... interesting to the little girl, and when Mrs. Noah looked over at her and said, in a motherly way, "I always wanted a little girl of my own," Marjorie felt quite ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... to camp, he sent his wife out with a horse to bring in the meat. When the Indian woman arrived at the spot, she found the two cubs cuddled up against the dressed meat of their mother, and crying as if their poor hearts would break. Their affectionate behaviour so touched the motherly heart of the old woman that, after loading the meat aboard the travois—a framework of poles stretched out behind the horse—she picked up the sobbing children and, wrapping them in a blanket to keep them ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... flowers she had in the front yard, anyhow. I remember looking out and seeing an old green plaid shawl of hers over the verbena bed. There was a fire in my little wood-stove. Mrs. Bird made it, I know. She was a real motherly sort of woman; she always seemed to be the happiest when she was doing something to make other folks happy and comfortable. Mrs. Dennison told me she had always been so. She said she had coddled her husband within an inch of his life. 'It's lucky Abby never had any children,' she said, ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... garden, and, above all, the stream and the glade made a very pleasant setting for the school life of the forty-eight pupils at The Woodlands. The two principals worked together in perfect harmony. Each had her own department. Miss Bowes, who was short, stout, grey-haired, and motherly, looked after the housekeeping, the hygiene, and the business side. She wrote letters to parents, kept the accounts, interviewed tradespeople, superintended the mending, and was the final referee in all matters ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... expectancy, the very plough-boys going about their labours without boisterous laughter, the children playing quietly, and the good wives in their kitchens and dairies bustling less than usual and modulating the sharpness of their voices, the most motherly among them in truth finding themselves falling into whispering as they gossiped of the great ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... just about what she'll like to think, Father," said Mrs. Trowbridge, with her smile that was so motherly and friendly at the same time. "Miss Woodburn would have been over to see you if she could; she was just ready to jump for joy when Patty ran across to tell her you were coming; but Mis' Randal is pretty sick, and Sally felt she couldn't ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the good woman struck me as greatly to be desired. With all her simplicity she had the true Wisdom: and her good motherly face went with me long after ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... said, in a motherly sort of tone; 'the mistress may be out some time yet. I hope you didn't find the open trap cold. John, he will have his way sometimes, but I said to him you would have been better with the closed wagonette. I hope John didn't make ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... ordinary lunch, and the things had come late. Louise said, Yes, she understood that; and went back to Maxwell, whom she found walking up and down the room in a famine very uncommon for him. She felt the motherly joy a woman has in being able to appease the hunger of the man she loves, and now she was glad that she had not postponed the fillet till dinner as she had thought of doing. Everything was turning out so entirely for the best that she was beginning to experience some revival of an ancestral ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... no!" Dinah was tenderly caressing the snowy hair; she spoke with an almost motherly fondness. "I happened to be awake, and I ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... arranging a tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into a charming state ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... would tremble and grow faint at the cruelty of drivers to over-loaded horses. I was timid and did not dare speak to them. Very often, I ran home and flung myself in my mother's arms with a burst of tears, and asked her if nothing could be done to help the poor animals. With mistaken, motherly kindness, she tried to put the subject out of my thoughts. I was carefully guarded from seeing or hearing of any instances of cruelty. But the animals went on suffering just the same, and when I became a woman, I saw my cowardice. I agitated the matter among my friends, and told them that our whole ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... had come to depend upon Lady Sellingworth. His mother was dead. He certainly did not think of Lady Sellingworth as what is sometimes called "a second mother." There was nothing maternal about her, and he was fully aware of that. Besides, she did not fascinate him in the motherly way. No; but owing to the great difference in their ages he felt that he could talk to her as he could talk to nobody else. For he was in no intimate relation with any other woman so much older than himself. And to young ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... that Harriet Shelley hired a wet-nurse, that commonplace fact gets turned into a dancing-master, who does his professional bow before us in pumps and knee-breeches, with his fiddle under one arm and his crush-hat under the other, thus: "The beauty of Harriet's motherly relation to her babe was marred in Shelley's eyes by the introduction into his house of a hireling nurse to whom was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mrs. Batty was an early caller. She arrived, rather wheezy, compressed by her tailor into an expensive gown, a basket of spring flowers on her head. She and Henrietta took to each other, as Mrs. Batty said, at once. Here was a motherly person, and Henrietta knew that if she could have Mrs. Batty to herself she would be able to talk more freely than she had done since her arrival in Radstowe. There would be no criticism from her, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... A big, motherly looking woman invariably stood guard at the door during the entire operation and counted the admissible number. The men moved up in solemn order. There was no haste and no eagerness displayed. It was almost a dumb procession. In the bitterest weather this line was to be found here. Under an icy ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Burl! Please don't; it hurts me so—it nearly kills me!" And with the loved pictures of home—the motherly face, with its white cap; the mother's bed, with his own little trundle-bed underneath; the table, with its white cloth folded and laid upon it; the hickory-bound cedar water-bucket, with its crooked handled gourd; the red corner-cupboard, with its store of Johnny-cakes ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... fond motherly caress she patted the two small flaming heads that now snuggled boisterously against her on ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... arms of the Dowager Lady Le Despenser. And in every sense, from the lightest to the deepest, the words were true. The wanderer had come home. Home to the Castle of Cardiff, which she was never to leave any more; home to the warm motherly arms of Elizabeth Le Despenser, who cast all her worn-out theories to the winds, and took her dead son's hapless darling to her heart of hearts; home to the great heart of God. And the ear of the elder woman was open to a sound ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... and admit his wrong in the presence of the whole company, so that everything will be properly settled. But were you now, ma, to begin making much of this occurrence, and telling every one, it would, on the contrary, look as if you had, in your motherly partiality and fond love for him, indulged him to stir up a row and provoke people! He has, on this occasion, had unawares to eat humble pie, but will you, ma, put people to all this trouble and inconvenience and make use of the prestige enjoyed by your ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... silence and rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care—the sick man full of pain—the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover—like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently soothe us off ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... They were on the platform. Mr. Graham led Hilda up to a stout, motherly-looking woman, who held out her hand with a ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... wife, was a right motherly body. The meal over, she recommended a nap; and upon our waking much refreshed, she led us to the doorway, and pointed down among the trees; through which we saw the gleam of water. Taking the hint, we repaired thither; and finding a deep shaded pool, bathed, and returned to the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... boy sat by her, and begged her to give him a kiss. He looked quite nice and pretty for the moment, and Kaethe thought she had better do as he wished, or he might begin his antics again. So she gave him a motherly kiss, just as she would give to her baby brother, smack! on the cheek. Immediately the queer look went out of his eyes, and a more human expression took ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... country, quite a retired life, and appeared to be more the motherly woman, and the domestic wife, than the ambitious Court lady, or royal sycophant. She was easy of access, and elegantly plain in her dress ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... emperor is appeased; the heavy fault Hath heavily been expiated—nothing Descended from the father to the daughter, Except his glory and his services. The empress honors your adversity, Takes part in your afflictions, opens to you Her motherly arms. Therefore no further fears. Yield yourself up in hope and confidence ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... was almost as flowery as Madame Chouteau's, but she was as warm and cordial in her manner as the other was stern and forbidding. She greeted my captain first, of course, but she was as cordial to me as to him, and in her motherly way she called me "My son," which, after my icy reception from another lady, went straight to my heart. I was grateful to her in spite of the fear I felt that it was my very youthful appearance had called forth ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... one who was there; "I will not trust myself to describe the sensation which this news, 'Friedrich in Bohemia again!' produced among all ranks of people." [Cogniazzo, iv. 316, 320, 321; Preuss, iv. 101, &c.] Maria Theresa, with her fine motherly heart, in alarm for her Country, and trembling "for my two Sons [Joseph and Leopold] and dear Son-in-Law [of Sachsen-Teschen], who are in the Army," overcomes all scruples of pride; instantly despatches ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a secret!" Mrs. Meldrum humorously declared. She went up to poor Dawling and laid a motherly hand upon him. "It's all right—it's just as it ought to be: don't think about her ever any more." Then as he met this adjuration with a dismal stare in which the thought of her was as abnormally vivid as the colour of the pupil, the excellent woman put up her funny face and ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... recreation of today, but we most earnestly urge that if dancing must be done, it be done under proper chaperonage, and if young people must meet in public dance halls let them be municipal dance halls, where motherly matrons are in charge. Many of the social dances which bring the participants into such close physical contact are to be discouraged and stricken off the list; and while dancing is a splendid form of exercise—let us add that it is also ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... but in the light of the window he stood, reading the letter; and Mrs. Cranceford, sitting down, gave him the attention of a motherly fondness, smiling upon him; and he, looking up from the letter which a pleasurable excitement caused to shake in his hand, wondered why any one should ever have charged this kindly matron with a cold lack of sympathy. So interested in his affairs ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because there was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... meeting with a grandfatherly air, until an earth-coloured nondescript emerged from the ground and led him off towards the house. After our embraces, we followed, Paragot dancing the delighted infant, Blanquette with her great motherly arm around my shoulders, and Narcisse soberly sniffing for adventure, after the manner ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient. But that is what they demand. And that is why—do you see?—we HAVE to regard your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss Pembroke will be able to help you. Or I don't know whether if ever—" He left the sentence unfinished. Two days ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... not the man to rest upon his laurels. Shortly after his visit to Paris in 1842, he began to compose his Martha the Innocent, which we have already briefly described. Two years later he composed Les Deux Freres Jumeaux—a story of paternal and motherly affection. This was followed by his Ma Bigno ('My Vineyard'), and La Semaine d'un Fils ('The Week's Work of a Son'), which a foot-note tells us is historical, the event having recently occurred in the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... lonely out of the undulating immensity that spread away from its foundations. At his heels frisked the darling of his bachelor estate, his terrier "Fan," a creature no larger than a squirrel. The main part of his daily life was occupied in looking after "Fan," in a motherly way, and doctoring her for a hundred ailments which existed only ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... went down to the basement, where she had been told dinner would be served, and where she found no one save Mary and Sarah, the cook, who proved to be a good-natured woman of about thirty-five years, and who at once manifested a motherly interest in the pretty and ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... little later Beulah came down to the corral with her milk-pails, and the cows, comfortably chewing where they rested on their warm spots of earth, rose slowly and with evident great reluctance at her approach. A spar of light blue smoke ascended in a perpendicular column from the kitchen chimney; motherly hens led their broods forth to forage; pigs grunted with rising enthusiasm from near-by pens, and calves voiced insistent demands from their quarters. The Harris farm, like fifty thousand ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... precision on Ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... to-day, I think," Judy decided almost tenderly. Behind her thought was a caring, generous impulse; the motherly instinct sent her mind to the collection for the clergyman's comfort. But romance stirred too; she wanted to look her best. Her two main tendencies seemed very much alive this Sunday morning. The hat and the sixpence— both ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... round to the housekeeper's room. She had found Mrs. Hawksley "partaking" of a cup of tea, in which Nell was easily induced to join, and Mrs. Hawksley chatted in the stately way which thinly hid a wealth of motherly kindness. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... hardly required any change from the epic Kanva. It was a happy thought to place beside him the staid, motherly Gautami. The small boy in the last act has magically become an individual in Kalidasa's hands. In this act too are the creatures of a higher world, their majesty not ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... standpoint, but none higher. And in the inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snowplants of the California woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly weather. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... I remember," replied the Countess, in a matter-of-fact tone; but her motherly eye was sharp, and already it began to look on the highly eligible Rudolph ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "He is coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest for him—for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden," she said, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled. "It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come over to Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I will certainly give you all the flowers you want." The sweet and masterful ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Mr. Moffat undertook a visit to Mosilikatse, while a box of goods and comforts was sent to Linyanti to await his return, should that ever take place. A letter from Mrs. Moffat accompanied the box. It is amusing to read her motherly explanations about the white shirts, and the blue waistcoat, the woolen socks, lemon juice, quince jam, and tea and coffee, some of which had come all the way from Hamilton; but there are passages in that little note that make one's heart ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... surprised at this fresh proof of your motherly love, I have felt an ardent remembrance reawaken of the happy life that we spent gently together. Joy and grief, desire and sacrifice, agitate my heart violently, and I have had to weigh these various impulses one against the other, and with the force of reason, in order to resume mastery ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... no offence to Park-place, but the bitterness of the weather makes me wonder how you can find the country tolerable now. This is a May-day for the latitude of Siberia! The milkmaids should be wrapped in @the motherly comforts of a swanskin petticoat. In short, such hard words have passed between me and the north wind to-day, that, according to the language of the times, I was very near abusing it for coming from Scotland, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... included) for eighteen shillings per week; she generally took the first week in advance. We asked him to have a beer—for the want of somebody else to ask—and after that he said that Mrs Jones was a kind, motherly body, and understood young fellows; and that we'd be even more comfortable than in our own home; that we'd be allowed to do as we liked—she wasn't particular; she wouldn't mind it a bit if we came home late once in a way—she was used to that, in fact; ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... mustn't do that," said Toinette, in a motherly tone, "else you'll tear it yourself, you know." She broke off the thorn as she spoke, and gently drew it out. The elf anxiously examined the stuff. A tiny puncture only was visible and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... as she warmed his little bare feet, having learned to guard against croup by attending to the damp shoes and socks before going to bed. Boo lay with his round face turned up to hers, stroking her cheek while the sleepy blue eyes blinked lovingly at her as she sang her lullaby with a motherly patience sweet to see. They made a pretty little picture, and Mr. Bemis looked at it with pleasure, having a leisure moment in which to discover, as all parents do sooner or later, that his children were ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... time should be spent in attending to its wants; but it is necessary that so much of the time should be spent, that nothing should be neglected which could add to the child's comfort and happiness. And not only is it needful that a woman should show a motherly fondness for her child, so that she should attend to its wants and be solicitous for its welfare; it is also necessary that she should know how those wants are best to be provided for, and how that ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... Miss Ellis. He called a cab, when she was ready to go, asked for permission to escort her home, and was driven in her company to an old-fashioned house downtown, near Washington Square. There he left her, with a nice old motherly person, and bade her good-by with no expectation of ever beholding her again, despite the murmured thanks she gave him and the half-timid offer of ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... our party dresses were equal to those which Mrs. C. and Mrs. D. provided for their girls, and that our bonnets were fashionable enough for Fourth Street? Could she find time for anything more? Yes,—on our bodily ailments she always found time to bestow motherly care, watchfulness, and sympathy; of our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... be a pleasant, motherly-looking lady, who received him kindly. He felt that he should like it very much if she was his aunt, instead of Mrs. Stanton, whom he had never seen, and did not think he should ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... the Major was carried upstairs to his own room in the Castle, and laid gently upon the old four-poster bed. Hilliard had ridden on in advance to prepare the young mistress, and there she stood at the doorway, white to the lips, but smiling still, a smile of almost motherly tenderness as she bent over the ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the fat, motherly looking ones, several of whom were spinsters; the young, too-smartly dressed daughters of farmers, possessing very little beauty, but of good height and figure; one person clothed entirely in black silk and very conscious of a new kind of watch, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... went again, Mr. Norton still carrying Becky, and Mr. Backhouse helping his wife along. Mrs. Norton had got the baby safe in her motherly arms, and so they all toiled up the hill to the farmhouse. What a difference from the merry party that ran down the hill only ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... knowledge of Henderson's accumulating millions, lent an interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. "You act, child," she said, "as if youth would ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... flinging out of the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think nobody's felt like you before about a young man, ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... little creature of his own blood that was then daily expected into the world? To Mrs. Powell, however, this expected event was of more consequence. She was a person of some temper and spirit; and, even in her troubles, there was some spur upon her in her present motherly duty. And so, when, on the 29th of July, 1646, being Wednesday, and the day of the monthly Fast, Milton's first-born child saw the light, at about half-past six in the morning, and was reported to be a daughter, what could they do but agree to name the little thing ANNE ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of children younger than herself, and a baby invariably calls forth all the motherly instincts of her nature. She will handle the baby as tenderly as the most careful nurse could desire. It is pleasant, too, to note her thoughtfulness for little children, and her readiness ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... which takes place immediately after death, they are taken into heaven and confided to angel women who in the life of the body tenderly loved little children and at the same time loved God. Because these during their life in the world loved all children with a kind of motherly tenderness, they receive them as their own; while the children, from an implanted instinct, love them as their own mothers. There are as many children in each one's care as she desires from a spiritual ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... eyes with darker lashes sweeping the warm ivory of her cheeks, sweet true lips for ever parting in kind words, the white surplice and apron, and the rememberable steel fillet. She had a little child in her lap (she generally had, by the way), and there were other tots clinging fondly to her motherly skirts. Marm Lisa stood at the foot of the steps, a twin glued to each side. She stared at Mistress Mary with open-mouthed wonder not unmixed ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... named by Theodore Burton, he found himself at the door in Onslow Crescent, and was at once shown up into the drawing-room. He knew that Mr. Burton had a family, and he had pictured to himself an untidy, ugly house, with an untidy, motherly woman going about with a baby in her arms. Such would naturally be the home of a man who dusted his shoes with his pocket-handkerchief. But to his surprise he found himself in as pretty a drawing-room as he remembered to have seen; and seated on a sofa, was almost ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... Duncan girls were her best friends, and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always hostess and the ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... with a basin of goat's milk. The draught refreshed my body as her gentle words of comfort soothed my troubled soul. Seated there, her stout arm about my shoulders, my head pillowed upon her ample, motherly breast, I was very near to tears, loosened in my overwrought state by the sweet touch of sympathy, for which may God ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... eleven ounces of meat or salt-fish, four ounces of bread, and farinaceous vegetables equal to six plantains; besides this, they are bound to give them two suits of clothes—all specified—yearly. Alas! how appropriate is the slang phrase "Don't you wish you may get 'em?" So beautifully motherly is Spain regarding her slaves, that the very substance of infants' clothes under three years of age is prescribed; another substance from three to six; then comes an injunction that from six to fourteen the girls are to be shirted and the boys breeched. I am sure ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... a bottle and made a good profit. None of her other guests drank wine, and some of them did not even drink beer. Neither did she wish to lose Fraulein Cacilie, whose parents were in business in South America and paid well for the Frau Professor's motherly care; and she knew that if she wrote to the girl's uncle, who lived in Berlin, he would immediately take her away. The Frau Professor contented herself with giving them both severe looks at table and, though she dared not be rude to the Chinaman, got a certain satisfaction out of incivility to ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... though painful at the moment, it would be happiness for both hereafter to recall! Their hands clasped in each other, her head leaning on his young shoulder, her tears kissed so soothingly away, and soft words of kindly motherly counsel, sweet promises of filial performances. Happy, thrice happy, as an after remembrance, be the final parting between hopeful son and fearful parent at the foot of that mystic bridge, which starts ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they met a motherly old hen, who was busy in scratching up food for her chickens; and White-paw asked, "Please, ma'am, are you a mouse?" "We don't mind what folks call us," said the old hen, ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... good as gold," said the little creature, oh, in such a motherly, womanly way. "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle, and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... flare All purple and gold. And have I no poultry? Oh, come When the Equinox lulls; The air is a-flash and a-hum With the tumult of gulls; They whirl in a shimmering cloud Sun-bright on the breeze; They perch on my chimneys and crowd To nest at my knees, And set their dun chickens to rock on the motherly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... the gambrels. "My boys, I feared that you were lost!" exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door. But the silent father, standing back of her in the glow of the lamplight, sees what the pole is bearing, and in his eye there is a smile. After that, motherly reproach, fatherly inquiry, plenteous bread and milk, many eager explanations and much descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager both to ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... had slipped the ring on Donna's finger and plighted his troth for aye, all of his troubles and worries vanished. The minister and his gardener shook hands with them, and the minister's wife kissed Donna and gave her a motherly hug—primarily because she looked so sweet and again on general feminine principles. Bob, not desiring to appear cheap on this, the greatest day in history, gave the minister a fee of twenty dollars, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... still swinging the pail. And we, following, came at length to a comfortable-looking farmhouse. As we stopped at the doorway a stout, motherly woman filled it. She held her knitting in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... such as crosses the mind in moments of perplexity and distress; but no one else could be so welcome to my poor Bertha, nor be the motherly friend they all require. Forgive me, Miss Charlecote; but I have seen what you made of Phoebe, in spite of me and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of hearty, joyous, healthily constituted men, who subsist upon daily newspapers, and find the world a most comfortable place to live in. As to Olivia, she was in the warm noon of life, and a picture of vitality and enjoyment. A plump, firm cheek, a dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother, the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the lip had something of earthly pride blended with womanly sweetness,—the pride of one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... last words, intending that they should have so strong an effect on the mind of your correspondent, that you were telling a—tarradiddle? Was it not the case that you had said to your son, in your own dear, kind, motherly way: "Ludovic, we shall see something of you in Bruton Street this year, shall we not? Griselda Grantly will be with me, and we must not let her be dull—must we?" And then had he not answered, "Oh, of course, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Pew—happened to be unusually amiable. That morning's post had brought her the promise of three new pupils, daughters of a mighty sheep farmer lately returned from Australia, and supposed to be a millionaire. He was a widower, and wanted motherly care for his orphans. They were to be clothed as well as fed at Mauleverer; they were to have all those tender cares and indulgences which a loving mother could give them. This kind of transaction was eminently profitable to the Miss Pews. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Nevertheless the German, with that dull faith of his in mere "Will," persisted along his line. He knew instinctively that he could not produce aviators to meet the Western European; all his social instincts made him cling to the idea of a great motherly, almost sow-like bag of wind above him. At an enormous waste of resources Germany has produced these futile monsters, that drift in the darkness over England promiscuously dropping bombs on fields and houses. They are now meeting the fate that was demonstrably certain ten years ago. If they found ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... a quite eventful day," she said with an air of motherly solicitude, turning to the distrait girl by her side. "I am sure you are tired. What between an extra amount of sightseeing and poor Count Edouard's unfortunate mistake, we have been in the car nearly ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Mrs. Dean's assistance as she alighted, while Kate Underwood ran down the steps to meet her father. Both greeted Darrell warmly, but Mrs. Dean retained his hand a moment as she looked at him with genuine motherly interest. ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... man; praises his heart, and his excellent gifts as a preceptor, and prays us to receive him cordially, with all parental tenderness, into our family. We shall soon see whether he be deserving of such hearty sympathy. For my part, I must confess that my motherly tenderness for him is as ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... in a motherly fashion at Eric, as he hung his hat on the white-washed wall and took his place at the table. Outside of the window behind him was a birch grove which, in the westering sun, was a tremulous splendour, with a sea ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... circulation of the blood. She would roll up her eyes and complain of how the treatments, which consisted of laying her fingers on a person's temples and wrists, exhausted her, and at first I thought she really meant it, and when her good, old motherly face was turned away, many was the time I laughed. And finally, when I began to see that most of her patients improved and some were cured, I stopped laughing, for there was the evidence before my eyes ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... and influential; (2) good and cautious—so good as to be almost noble; (3) a more beautiful number than 10, from the many multiples that make it up—in other words, its kindly relations to so many small numbers; (4) a great love for 12, a large-hearted motherly person because of the number of little ones that it takes, as it were, under its protection. The decimal system seemed to me treason against this motherly 12.—All this concurs with the importance assigned for other reasons to the number 12 in ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Mrs. Schuyler's own maid, her name is Tibbetts, is the sort you read about in English novels. A nice, motherly woman, with gray hair and a black silk apron. I liked her, but the maid who looks after the old sisters, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... His French! Charmian trembled for it, for him because of it. If Mrs. Mansfield could have known how solicitous, how tender, how motherly, the girl felt at that moment under her mask of shining, radiant hardness! But Mrs. Mansfield was glancing about the house with grave and even ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn't tell which remedy ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... that you are working too hard, Bensie, and it's quite true," Polly gave him another pat, this time a motherly one; "and so you ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... miserable, after all, and how family love goes along with them. Soon the boat arrived at the pier, and we all went on board; and as I sat in the cabin, looking up through a broken pane in the skylight, I saw the woman's thin face, with its anxious, motherly aspect; and the youngest child in her arms, shrinking from the chill wind, but yet not impatiently; and the eldest of the girls standing close by with her expression of childish endurance, but yet so bright and intelligent ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Solange, it was inviting and homelike, much more so than the rather cold luxury of hotels and Pullman staterooms. And this feeling of homeliness was enhanced when she was smilingly and cordially welcomed by a big, gray-bearded, bronzed man and a white-haired, motherly woman, the parents of ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... her half-averted face and was suddenly confronted by the realization that this grey, motherly woman must have been young once, like Alix, and pretty. As it is with the young, he could not think of her except as old. He had always thought of his mother as old; it was impossible to think of her as having once been young ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... you thought I was foolish to put those two in a room together," she said to Mrs. Farnham, the motherly housekeeper, whom Eleanor had known since, as a little girl, she had ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... a vast difference then," Richard rejoined, "but 'tis not then I dread. 'Tis now, the next twenty-five years, during which I shall be slowly decaying, while you will be ripening into a matured, motherly beauty, dearer to your husband than all your girlish loveliness. 'Tis then that I dread the contrast in you; not when both are old; and, Edith, remember this, you can never be old to me, inasmuch as I can never see you. I may ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... was in time," she said, in her old firm motherly voice, with her comforting arms about the small and tearful girl. "Daddy and Mother were both rushing home as fast as they could come, that's what mothers and fathers are for. And now we're all safe and sound together, and you mustn't ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... stood at the closed gate for some time with moist eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of motherly tenderness and pity for ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... ranch Mrs. Powell came out on the veranda to greet her son and his chums. She was a round-faced, motherly woman, and she immediately did all she could to make the ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... empty, with that placid emptiness of the nursing mother—to mark the change that my not-to-be-deceived scrutiny soon discovered. We left the sleepy Mary slowly patrolling the brick walks in a pompous perambulator propelled by a motherly English nurse under Miss Jencks's watchful eye, and strolled, in our customary hand-in-hand, to the boat-house, a low, artfully concealed structure, all but hidden under a jagged cliff, and faced wherever necessary ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... but however long it was, Miss Russell did not try to stop or check her, only stood by with her hand on the girl's shoulder, patting it now and then, or putting back with the other hand—such a soft, firm, motherly hand it was!—the stray locks which kept falling over Peggy's face as the sobs shook her ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... foremost came the plan of sandwiching seniors and juniors together in their bedrooms. She hoped the influence of the elder girls would work like leaven in the school, and that putting them with younger ones would give them the chance of developing and exercising their motherly instincts. She tapped her book with her pencil as she mentally ran over the list of her seniors, and considered how—to the outside view of a head mistress—each seemed to ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... he would not notice, or, at least, not comment upon the change, Mrs. Gerhardt did not know what to say. She looked up at him weakly in her innocent, motherly way, and said, "She ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... said, in a tone he might have used to Nina. He laid his warm, fine hand on hers, and patted it soothingly. "My dear girl, if you feel that you would like to go to that motherly sister of yours—if you feel that it would ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... thoughts. The world would now have called Linda the more lovely of the two, and certainly the more feminine in the ladylike sense of the word. If, however, devotion be feminine, and truth to one selected life's companion, if motherly care be so, and an indomitable sense of the duties due to one's own household, then Gertrude was not deficient in ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... a dream she followed the old man down the stairs, was aware of his ushering her through the crowd of women and children who thronged about the big car. As one in a dream she found herself seated beside Mrs. Trapes, whose motherly solicitude she heeded no more than the bustle and traffic of the streets through which the swift car whirled her on and on until, turning, it swung in between massive gates and pulled up before a great, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... who claimed to represent the sentiments of a considerable number of people. It was proposed to grant L30,000 and an annuity of L6,000. The Premier stated that the Queen in marrying her daughter to one of her own subjects, had followed her womanly and motherly instincts. He dwelt upon the political importance of supporting the dignity of the crown in a suitable manner; upon the value of a stable dynasty; and the unwisdom of making minute pecuniary calculations upon such occasions. It was carried by ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... only five rooms, and these were furnished in the plainest manner. In the sitting room were his mother and aunt. Mrs. Harding was a motherly-looking woman, with a pleasant face, the prevailing expression of which was a serene cheerfulness, though of late it had been harder than usual to preserve this, in the straits to which the family had been reduced. She was ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... one of his kisses with a pleasure, at which Nuttie wondered, her motherly affection prompting her to ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her little children has to go through a thousand tiresome actions which would be intolerable if they were meaningless, but which compose a beautiful life if they are held together by the aim which the motherly love sees before it. Whatever work a human being may perform, force on his mind the treacherous suggestion that it is meaningless, that it is slavery, that others seize the profit, and he must hate it ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... I told him so, "is the best of housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without her motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no relation in ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... to extort as much money as possible. Her benefits were given, not sold; and, when once given, they were never withdrawn. She gave them too with a frankness, an effusion of heart, a princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, which enhanced their value. They were received by the sturdy country gentlemen who had come up to Westminster full of resentment, with tears of joy, and shouts of "God save the Queen." Charles the First gave up half ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... shake, and the thing went—where I know not. The what and the where are the knotty points in the whole question! No sooner had it gone than I was seized with repentance not to have examined it more closely; not to have ascertained what the creature was. It might have been an earwig,—a very large, motherly earwig; an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs; I firmly believe that they do get into the ear. That is a subject on which it is useless ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... girl's education is carried on at home, by means of lectures or private arrangements. These, of course, are not as inflexible as the rigid rules of a technical school, and admit of easy adjustment to the periodical demands of the female constitution. The second is the traditional motherly supervision and careful regimen of the catamenial week. Evidently the notion that a boy's education and a girl's education should be the same, and that the same means the boy's, has not yet penetrated the German mind. This has not yet ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... the broken form and carried it out from the hospital's deadly air, into the golden sunshine and away to a clean little cot in a humble home where a good doctor treated him and a kind motherly nurse hung over him and soothed his feverish brain for many a weary hour. For days it seemed that every breath would be his last and for months his sufferings wrung ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... of the Morning Glory Club will furnish genuine amusement to the reader. Originally formed to "elevate" the village, it quickly develops into an exchange for town gossip. It has a saving grace, however, in the person of motherly Mrs. Stout, the uncultured but sweet-natured and pure-minded village philosopher, who pours the oil of her saneness and charity on the troubled waters ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... brotherly, Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed: Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... his father. Mozart was making the journey from Mannheim to Munich in the carriage of a prelate. The parting with his Mannheim friends, especially with Frau Cannabich, his motherly friend, was hard. "For me, who never made a more painful parting than this, the journey was only half pleasant—it would even have been a bore, if from childhood I had not been accustomed to leave people, countries ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... he was well enough to leave his room; but Mrs. Belding would not permit him to do so. She was kind, soft-handed, motherly, and she was always coming in to minister to his comfort. This attention was sincere, not in the least forced; yet Gale felt that the friendliness so manifest in the others of the household did not extend to her. He was conscious of something that a little thought ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... at the door caused Elsie to turn from the cot. A sweet motherly woman of fifty, in an old faded black dress, was pleading with the guard to be ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... to her. So she passed on. In truth her mother had nothing to say to her. She was sitting there alone, with her head resting on her hand, with that sternness at her heart and a cloud upon her brow, but she was not thinking of her daughter. Had she not, with her skill and motherly care, provided well for Clara? Had she not saved her daughter from all the perils which beset the path of a young girl? Had she not so brought her child up and put her forth into the world, that, portionless as that child was, all the best things of the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Her motherly ambitions for Franz knew no bounds. One of the few diversions she allowed herself was a visit to the theatre—when Franz had tickets given to him; when one of her favourite operas was performed; or on the anniversary of her husband's ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the little gravelled path, and reaching the door, found herself folded in Aunt Debby's motherly embrace, with Aunt Debby's arms round her, and Aunt Debby's round, rosy face pressed close ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... and with a view over the lake—with beautiful marble statuettes adorning the walls; and on the table she placed a vase of flowers, and the whole room was most prettily furnished, so that Rico stood still on the threshold when, at Mrs. Menotti's request, Stineli led him up there. And when the kind, motherly woman took his hand and led him to the window, and he looked down in the shimmering lake, and over at the purple mountains in the distance, his heart filled to overflowing with thankfulness, and ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... ill endured, the day before, to be called BOY; but now the motherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like a boy indeed, I burst into tears. She soothed me right gently; and, leading me into a room, made me lie down on a settle, while she went to find me some refreshment. She soon returned with food, but I could not eat. She almost compelled me to ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... children are slain before her eyes. The children, already feeling the arrows of the gods, are flying to her for protection. She tries in vain to shield her youngest born beneath her mantle, and turns as if to hide her face with its motherly pride just giving place to despair and agony. The whole group is free from contortion and grandly tragic. The original exists no longer, but copies of parts of the group are found in the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... the settee, and arranged her head comfortably on its pillows. Then, giving her a motherly kiss, she said, "Rest, darling, while Tulee and I look after ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... two friends on Mars; a young woman who watched over me with motherly solicitude, and a dumb brute which, as I later came to know, held in its poor ugly carcass more love, more loyalty, more gratitude than could have been found in the entire five million green Martians who rove the deserted cities and ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... temporarily left him for his own sake, to accept a position as wet-nurse, is inspired by a hungry maternal longing, which drags her irresistibly from warmth and comfort to a poverty whose bitterness has but a single solace—the joy of satisfied motherly love. There are writers who have not a hundredth part of Mr. Moore's industry who would have moved the reader deeply with such a scene. But, if Mr. Moore feels at all, he is ashamed to show it. This mother-hunger is apparently just as affecting a ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... Rosalie timidly added the dear, for there was something so great-hearted in Mrs. Flynn that she longed to clasp her round the neck, longed as she had never done in her life to lay her head upon some motherly breast and pour out her heart. But it was not to be now. Secrecy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to escape even in company with his redoutable brother-in-law. When he and Jim had gone Mrs. Knight addressed Lorelei with motherly candor. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
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