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More "Reluctant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... birds or butterflies; others may surprise us by their size, as Elephants and Whales, or the still more marvellous monsters of ancient times; may fascinate us by their exquisite forms, such as many microscopic shells; or compel our reluctant attention by their similarity to us in structure; but none offer more points of interest than those which live in communities. I do not allude to the temporary assemblages of Starlings, Swallows, and other birds at certain times of year, nor even to the permanent associations of ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... She gave a reluctant shrug. "If you insist, and if Manning okays it. But is it a good idea? Direct contact ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... table to her little cousin Alec, aged seven, kissed his reluctant cheek, and sat beside him, announcing a sea appetite and great capabilities, while Evan silently broke bread. The Count de Saldar, a diminutive tawny man, just a head and neck above the tablecloth, sat sipping ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as possible past his reluctant opponent, and walked down the narrow passage into the kitchen. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... year with happiness and mirth, but that I come a guest commended to your hospitable love by the performance of all you bade me remember when I left you in the glad season of sun and flowers. And time has sped fleetly since reluctant my departing step crossed the threshold of that home whose indulgences and endearments their temporary loss has taught me to value more and more. Yet that restraint is salutary, and that self-reliance is as easily learnt as it is laudable, the propriety of my conduct and the readiness of my services ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... most quiet, the most passive, the most timid of the human race rose up in an universal insurrection; and, what will always happen in popular tumults, the effects of the fury of the people fell on the meaner and sometimes the reluctant instruments of the tyranny, who in several places were massacred. The insurrection began in Rungpore, and soon spread its fire to the neighboring provinces, which had been harassed by the same person with the same oppressions. The English Chief in that province had ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it would be easier; but the memory of pain makes me dread pain the more, the thought of past sorrow makes future sorrow still more black. I would rather have strength than tranquillity, when all is done; but life has rather taught me my weakness, and struck the garland out of my reluctant hand. ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a foreign settlement. It is renowned for the beautiful tea-houses, which attract visitors from distant places, and for the excellence of the theatres, and is the centre of the recreation and pleasure of a large district. It is so beautifully clean that, as at Nikko, I should feel reluctant to walk upon its well-swept streets in muddy boots. It would afford a good lesson to the Edinburgh authorities, for every vagrant bit of straw, stick, or paper, is at once pounced upon and removed, and no rubbish may stand for an instant in its streets ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... of the Government and its commissioners will not have gone far. The Land Law of 1881 has, as I now write, been at work for twelve months, and the results hitherto accomplished have been very small. It may be doubted whether a single reluctant tenant,—a single tenant who would have been unwilling to leave his holding,—has been preserved from American exile by having his L10 or L20 or L30 of rent reduced to L8 or L16 or L24. The commissioners ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... her second best dress, and purposely dallied until the very last moment before entering the drawing-room. She wished and expected to annoy Dreda by slighting her hospitality, but Dreda was too much absorbed in the excitement of the moment to remember past differences, so that the reluctant Norah found herself greeted with the most radiant of smiles, and was promptly escorted across the room and introduced ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... friends to make head against it, the repeal of the embargo was absolutely necessary. I expressed a just sense of the merit of this information, and of the importance of the disclosure to the safety and even the salvation of our country: and however reluctant I was to abandon the measure (a measure which persevered in a little longer, we had subsequent and satisfactory assurance would have effected its object completely), from that moment, and influenced by that information, I saw the necessity of abandoning it, and instead of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... advance, or when losing it, England is regarded with a searching gaze that might seem governed by the fabulous fascination of the rattlesnake. Does she ascend on her proper line of advance? There is heard the murmur of reluctant applause. Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of unprovoked aggression? All faces in Europe are illuminated with smiles ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... country with another man's money, and leave behind him the name of a thief. Parental love and the remains of self-respect writhed at this thought; and with these combined a sentiment less genuine, but by no means feeble: the love of reputation. So it was with a reluctant and sick heart he went to the shipping office, and peered at the posters to see when the next ship sailed for the United ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she suspected as the assassin of her deceased husband. These suspicions were soon justified by the indiscreet confession of Maximus himself; and he wantonly provoked the hatred of his reluctant bride, who was still conscious that she was descended from a line of emperors. From the East, however, Eudoxia could not hope to obtain any effectual assistance; her father and her aunt Pulcheria were dead; her mother languished at Jerusalem in disgrace ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... calls. The night winds sigh, the owlets cry, The moon's pale light appears, The stars are shivering in the sky— I tremble at my fears. Has then the Knight of Shadowy Dread My Leo forced away From his fond parent's loving heart In Death's grim halls astray? I bow reluctant to my fate; 'Tis mine to weep and ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... year following the appearance of Wallace's essay in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, both Hooker and Lyell urged Darwin to publish the result of his long and patient research. But he was still reluctant to do so, not having as yet satisfied himself with regard to certain conclusions which, he felt, must be stoutly maintained in face of the enormous amount of criticism which would arise immediately his theory was launched on the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... refug'd, and his train reliev'd- 'T is true- but am I sure to be receiv'd? Can gratitude in Trojan souls have place! Laomedon still lives in all his race! Then, shall I seek alone the churlish crew, Or with my fleet their flying sails pursue? What force have I but those whom scarce before I drew reluctant from their native shore? Will they again embark at my desire, Once more sustain the seas, and quit their second Tyre? Rather with steel thy guilty breast invade, And take the fortune thou thyself hast made. Your pity, sister, first seduc'd my mind, Or seconded too well what I design'd. These ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... looked guiltily at each other. "I guess we did," Mrs. Lander owned at last, with a reluctant sigh. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and lovely associations, of anxious strivings and concerns, of battles, of triumphs, and of defeats. To one who makes a garden under compulsion it is merely an inclosure of dirt and persistent weeds, a place of sun and sweat and some more or less perverse and reluctant vegetables that would be much more pleasantly obtained from the market-wagon. There is no personality in it to him, nor any poetry. I know this, because I was once that kind of a gardener myself. It was when ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the case when citizens are called from their ordinary pursuits for the purposes of war, the people of Missouri did not then realize the value of preparation in camp, and were reluctant to enroll themselves for long periods. The State, even less than the Confederate Government, could not supply them with the arms, munitions, and equipage necessary for campaigns and battles and sieges. Under all these disadvantages, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Over night the white heat of the city had scorched upon itself. By midday, when I rode forth with half a dozen of my men, the streets were packed, and more reluctant than ever were the folk to give way before me. If looks could kill I should have been a dead man that day. Openly they spat at sight of me, and, everywhere arose snarls ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... back an answer informing him whether fame and fortune are awaiting him as the possessor of the wonderful gifts his writings manifest, and whether you advise him to leave all,—the shop he sweeps out every morning, the ledger he posts, the mortar in which he pounds, the bench at which he urges the reluctant plane,—and follow his genius whithersoever it may lead him. The next correspondent wants you to mark out a whole course of life for him, and the means of judgment he gives you are about as adequate as the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... retaliation which he proposed to adopt. As the scheme was unfolded, the war-scarred chief of the Mohawks saw that he was meant to serve under this youth of small experience. Brant was ready for almost any work that might be of service to his king, but he was at first reluctant to serve under Butler. The situation between the two leaders became strained, but at last Brant gave in; their differences were patched up, and the two men came to friendly terms. Orders were issued by Brant to his motley throng of redskins, and five hundred of ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... on the seashore, that I came upon a cottage long deserted, its door hanging by one hinge, and all the glass gone from the windows. In the empty rooms numerous swallows were rearing twittering broods in roofless nests. No doubt the birds realised that they had nothing to fear from rain, and were reluctant to waste time and labour in covering their homes ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... sad and sallow day of the late autumn. Slow processions of sad clouds were passing over a cold blue sky; the hues of earth were dull, and gray, and brown, with sickly struggles of late green here and there; sometimes a moaning gust of wind drove late, reluctant leaves across the path;—there was no life else. In the sweetness of my present peace, such days seem to me made to tell man the worst of his lot; but still that November wind can bring a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... cheeks still tingling, felt that the moment had come when he must seek his partner. It would be difficult to define the contending feelings that made him reluctant to do so. Nera Boccarini had taken no pains to conceal how much she liked him. This was flattering; perhaps he felt it was too flattering. There was a determination about Nera, a power of eye and tongue, an exuberance of sensuous youth, that repelled while it allured him. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... The others were reluctant, each claiming the happiness of demolishing the countryman; but the tallest, who was called Rutherford, at last secured their pledge that they would keep their hands off and allow him to have all the ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... seemed anxious to direct David in the landing though she was most willing to trust it entirely to him. After hurrying Phoebe to the top rail he vaulted lightly to the side of David and departed in haste, taking the reluctant widow with him ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... them as they disappeared, going into the ballroom, Karl evidently reluctant to be taken away. Then she turned ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... chap. xi. For absolutely convincing proofs that the Jews derived the Babel and other legends of their sacred books fro the Chaldeans, see George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, passim; but especially for a most candid though somewhat reluctant summing up, see ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... across the desk, each reluctant to express his confused thoughts. Dr. Winters finally broke the silence. "It must be, Mr. Hastings," he said, "—it must be that this woman—this utterly alien person—is simply not your wife, Alice. Somehow, somewhere, there must ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... lonely woman without friends? I am afraid you over-estimate my powers," said Rachel, with a reluctant air. It was as if she did not fancy his advising her ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... her young modesty seem a mere trifling and impertinence. Eleanor had slid to her knees. Her face had grown tremulous and sweet. A strange dignity quivered in the smile that transformed her mouth as she caught the girl's reluctant hands and drew them ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... regard the case of her sister. She had but of late ceased to suppose herself in the wrong when Hester was unhappy: and though she was now relieved from the responsibility of her sister's peace, she was slow to blame—reluctant to class the case lower than as one of infirmity. Her last waking thoughts (and they were very late) were ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... set his teeth and nerved himself for a last desperate rally. If they could cut their way through the ranks of the foes and gain the town, they might be safe at least for the moment; and that was the object of himself and his servants. Placing the reluctant prince in the midst, so as if possible to save at least him from steel or lead, the gallant little band with axes and pikes commenced hewing its way through the living wall which surrounded it. And so gallantly did the good steeds respond to the urging of their ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of Paddington Green. He might have escaped this neighbourhood by way of Westbourne Terrace; but his walks constantly led him in an easterly direction; and whether in an unconscious hugging of his chains, or, as was more probable, from the desire to save time, he would drag his aching heart and reluctant body through the sordidness or the squalor of this short cut, rather than seek the pleasanter thoroughfares which were open to him. Even the prettiness of Warwick Crescent was neutralized for him by the atmosphere of low or ugly life which encompassed it on almost every side. His haunting ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... had given her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him, her eyes still dancing. "Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute ago. And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing up ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... glittering blade deep into the heart of the Indian, who, relinquishing his grasp, fell dead at the feet of his intended victim. The devoted officer then threw his left arm round her waist, and, parrying with his sword-arm the blows of those who sought to intercept his flight, dragged his reluctant burden towards the door. Hotly pressed by the remaining officers, nearly equal in number, the Indians were now compelled to turn and defend themselves in front, when Captain Baynton took that opportunity of getting once more into the corridor, not, however, without having received ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... told when the whole nation was hopeful that a John Wilkes Booth lurked reluctant in the body politic to cut down the wisest and the most humane and the most lovable of all the Presidents? Ah, my friends, you can't protect the President of the United States from the assassin, and leave unprotected in any corner ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... liked another better: and the same holds good with regard to the other sex. Even when marriage has been promised, and that, too, in the most solemn manner, it is better for both parties to break off, than to be coupled together with the reluctant assent of either; and I have always thought, that actions for damages, on this score, if brought by the girl, show a want of delicacy as well as of spirit; and, if brought by the man, excessive meanness. Some ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... lad,' said James Wyley, smiling a slow, reluctant smile, as Stephen drew near to them with his cap in his hand. 'So you buried your father yesterday, I hear. Poor fellow! there was not a better collier at ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... its resting place for a second, as though it was reluctant to be disturbed—then it yielded, and Croyden swung ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... influence of such schemes to get men in khaki, the recruiting efforts of the political colonels had a serious effect in delaying the training of new men. With their personal reputations as organizers involved, the commanding officers were reluctant to admit inability to fill up the ranks of their units, and ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... most improbable causes will increase the disease. Snaffle, of course, was too shrewd to ask his companion to buy Princeton Platinum stock, and indeed declared that although he had charge of putting it upon the market, he was reluctant to part with a single share of it. He added with magnanimous frankness, that all mining stock was dangerous, especially for one who did ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... such apparent earnestness and sincerity, that the stratagem succeeded, and the enemy immediately fled to the woods, taking away the twin-lads as prisoners. Setting the best provisions they had before their reluctant guest. Shell and his family lost no time in repairing to Fort Dayton, which they reached in safety—leaving McDonald in the quiet possession of the castle he had been striving to capture in vain. Some two or three of McDonald's Indians lingered about the premises to ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... her cave," he thought to himself. "Shall AEneas pursue?" He made for a moment as if to advance and force his company upon the seeming reluctant damsel. Then his volatile thoughts flickered back to the girl who had entered the Inn. "Methinks," he reflected, "I would as soon play Paris to yonder Helen. But I must not keep his Majesty waiting. No wonder he seeks ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... its most lovely aspects, is the Trumpet. The scene is a cottage interior, in which a young mother, with a babe in her arms, sits beside a cradle containing another little one, and turns to quiet her roguish boy, who stands somewhat sulkily by her chair, reluctant to forego the pleasure of blowing on his trumpet. "Silence! do not awaken him!" is what the mother seems to say; and these words form the title under which the ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... lawyer asked questions about the Dry Valley irrigation project. He wanted to know why there was dissatisfaction among the farmers, and from a reluctant witness drew the information that the water supply was entirely inadequate for the needs of ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... estate are under obligation by the tenure on which they hold their land to fish for you?-Yes, if they fish at Skerries. Mr. Bell has booths and beaches there; and seventeen years ago he applied to me about them. I was very reluctant to go into the matter at all, but he asked me to assist him, and I agreed to do it, and we have been dealing in that way ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... by a visit. She could not mean to break off all acquaintance with him for so slight a cause. She would relent and see him again, and then he would put over on the other tack. He had made a mistake—very naturally, too—because she was always so reluctant to give her own individual views about anything. A mistake could be repaired, he thought, without any ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... disappeared, Kennedy filled his lungs with air as if reluctant to leave the drive. "Our constitutional," he remarked, "is abruptly ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... was going to dine with Rokeby at his club he told Marie about it just as she was stretching a reluctant foot out of her bed into the cold of a grey December morning, and an extraordinary rebellion rose in her with sirocco-like fierceness. She got out of bed without replying, clutched at her dressing-gown and ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... settlement thus made constituting a kind of advance guard, through which an Indian enemy would have to penetrate, before they could reach the interior, others were less reluctant to occupy the country between them and the Alleghany mountains. Accordingly various establishments were soon made in it by adventurers from different parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and those places in which settlements had been previously effected, received considerable ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... The reasons of such an order I think I may attribute to other motives. The same Hazen confesses we are not strong enough to think of the expedition in this moment. As to the troops, they are disgusted, and (if you except some Hazen's Canadians) reluctant, to the utmost degree, to begin a winter incursion in a so cold country. I have consulted everybody, and everybody answers me that it would be ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... whether she may not by a less alarming treatment be prevailed upon, or whether [day, I have done with thee!] she may not yield to nightly surprises? This is still the burden of my song, I can marry her when I will. And if I do, after prevailing (whether by surprise, or by reluctant consent) whom but myself ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... was carefully restored to its hiding place and securely locked away, and then the kindly uncle took from his own pocket a small purse and put it into the reluctant hands ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... again, more or less. Professor Smawl complained of the cooking, demanded my resignation, and finally marched out to explore, lugging the reluctant William with her. Dorothy and I sat down behind the ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... burning sense of regret, the anguish of nostalgia, the relinquishment of an accustomed sphere, its prospects and ideals, the revolt against the uncouth and rude conditions of the new status, the gradual reluctant naturalization to a new world,—these were forgotten save as the picturesque elements of sorrow and despair that balanced the joys, the interest, the devil-may-care joviality, the adventure, the strange wild companionship,—all that made the tale worth rehearsing ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... like him, like him very much. In this case they take an interest in him after his departure; wish him to be sure of employment, speak of him as the gem of gondoliers and tell their friends to be certain to "secure" him. There is usually no difficulty in securing him; there is nothing elusive or reluctant about a gondolier. Nothing would induce me not to believe them for the most part excellent fellows, and the sentimental tourist must always have a kindness for them. More than the rest of the population, of course, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... as if reluctant to give up her prey, the bow of the mighty liner swung off, and the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... be entreated; and the reluctant child was half led, half dragged from the room, screaming and resisting. Her mother looked after her, weary and helpless, and the baby on her lap sent up a whimpering cry. Mrs Lee leaned back on her chair, and pressed her hands over ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... I conclude that Wilkinson's 'Tour to the Highlands' was shown in manuscript to his friends soon after his return;—that he was not only willing to show it, but even to allow it to be copied, though reluctant to publish it;—that there was sufficient intimacy between him and the Wordsworths to account for his showing or lending the manuscript to them, especially as they had travelled over much of the same ground, and would therefore be more interested in it; and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Fort Reading seemed reluctant to let me go on to relieve Lieutenant Hood, as the country to be passed over was infested by the Pit River Indians, known to be hostile to white people and especially to small parties. I was very anxious to proceed, however, and willing to take the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... had closed behind her friend, she stood looking through the window until she saw her pass slowly, as though she were reluctant to go, down Sycamore Street in the direction of her home. "I am glad she has gone," she thought coldly. "Susan is good, but I am glad she has gone." Then, turning back to the fire, she took up the piece of embroidery and mechanically folded it before she laid it away. While ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... this country, do you arm your hook this ways? Give me leave;" taking the whip from Williamson's reluctant hand, "this ways, laying the outermost part of your feather this fashion next to your hook, and the point next to your shank, this wise, and that wise; and then, sir,—count, you take the hackle of a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... applies the language to angels, living men, and the dead. At all events, it appears to include all moral beings, and to declare that the whole human race shall bow to Christ, and accept him as Master. But this cannot mean a merely outward submission, for such a forced and reluctant homage would bring little honor to God, nor be worth such admiration on the part of the apostle. It must therefore mean that all men, not only all who now live, but all who have lived, shall finally become Christians and enter into the ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... the warning, and King, Bishops, and the Chapter of Canterbury unanimously chose Becket as Archbishop, with only one reluctant voice, that of Gilbert Folliot, Bishop of London, who expected the same promotion himself. On Whit-Sunday Thomas received priest's orders, and shortly after was consecrated Bishop by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, and brother of King Stephen. John of Salisbury, a priest of Becket's ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... an old priest, whose countenance bore the impress of genuine kindness of heart. She soon found him again among the travellers sleeping on the straw; but the old man's slumber was so sound that she felt reluctant to wake him. Among the Dominicans from Cologne, most of whom were also asleep, there were none she would have trusted, nay, she even thought that one was the very person who, shortly before her fall from the rope, had pursued her with persistent importunity. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... closed, fell upon the unlucky index of my left hand, which was thoughtlessly reposing upon the arm of the causeuse, and nearly knocked off the first joint, by way of reward for my reluctant ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... female, save little Francis, and still of tender years. Of gardeners, keepers, cow-men, chauffeurs, footmen, stablemen—full twenty were supported on those fifteen hundred acres that formed the little Becket demesne. Of agricultural laborers proper—that vexed individual so much in the air, so reluctant to stay on 'the Land,' and so difficult to house when he was there, there were fortunately none, so that it was possible for Stanley, whose wife meant him to 'put up' for the Division, and his guests, who were frequently in Parliament, to hold entirely unbiassed and impersonal views upon the whole ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Jocelyn Wray was no better than an arrant coquette, but the next moment questioned this conclusion. Had she not really been a little taken by the fellow? Certainly she seemed not averse to his company; when she willed, and she willed often, she summoned him to her aide. Nor did he now appear reluctant to come at her bidding; self-assertive though he had shown himself to be he obeyed, sans demur, the wave of my lady's little hand. Was it a certain largeness and reserve about him that had awakened her curiosity? From her ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... hemisphere in which he lived. A Bourbon still reigns on the throne of France, and it is not for us to scrutinize the title by which he reigns. The principles of elective and hereditary power, blended in reluctant union in his person, like the red and white roses of York and Lancaster, may postpone to aftertime the last conflict to which they must ultimately come. The life of the patriarch was not long enough for the development ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... reluctant to undertake such a risky adventure, but Betsy at once grasped the value of the suggestion and began jumping up and down until she found herself bounding almost as high as Polychrome had done. Then she suddenly leaned forward and the next bound took her easily across the brook, where ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... you, my Lord of Lindesay," said the Queen, while she curtsied with dignity in answer to his reluctant obeisance; "but a female does not willingly receive her visiters without some minutes spent at the toilette. Men, my lord, are less ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... think that the Indians had their god as the whites had theirs." And again, "nothing will eventually be gained to the great cause by colouring and mis-statement," alluding to the practice of the missionaries; "and however reluctant we may be to receive it, the real state of things will eventually be known to us. We have heard of the imperishable labours of an Elliott and a Brainard, in other days. But in these times it is a melancholy truth, that Protestant exertions ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... Joe was never a reluctant convert to anything. When he saw the new way, his instinct was for immediate action. "Let's go over to Mr. Drury's," he proposed, "and see if we can't settle this thing to-day. I hope Marcia's right," and he looked into her eyes with ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... agreeably, and I am delighted with the very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the poem,—passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and disparagingly of Cowper's Homer? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and "does"? They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or rather become blemishes when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... I am reluctant to say anything whatever about President Wilson at the outset of his Administration unless I can speak of him with praise. I have scrupulously refrained from saying or doing one thing since election that could put the slightest obstacle, even of misinterpretation, in his path. It is ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the public spirit is so high that it is probable a very large part would readily concur in a similar proposition, yet there would certainly be many individuals, and perhaps some bodies among them, who would be reluctant to alter their original terms of service. These persons would hardly be placed in a fair situation, because although the option would still nominally be left to them; yet that would be attended with so much odium, and would so much carry the appearance ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... opposite corner in which Sir Patrick and his niece were sitting. Blanche's self-possession, resolutely as she struggled to preserve it, was not strong enough to keep her eyes from turning toward Geoffrey with an expression which betrayed the reluctant interest that she now felt in him. He stopped, noticing something entirely new in the look with which the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... door, till he has given him something in the shape of charity: the merest trifle, however, is sufficient to authorize the forcible expulsion of the applicant. I have seen as little as a tea-spoonful of rice given on such occasions, when the sulky and grumbling mendicant took his reluctant departure towards the next door, where he would, perhaps, meet similar treatment with a repetition of "curses ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... disgusted. She said little more, but soon persuaded the reluctant Win to postpone his investigations and come down again into the ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... his bishopric of Beauvais, on account of his rebellion and his adoption of Protestant sentiments. All such judicial proceedings had indeed been declared null and void by the terms of the pacification, but the parliaments showed themselves very reluctant to regard the royal edict. In October, 1570, Charles the Ninth happening to be a guest of Marshal Montmorency at his palace of Ecouen, a few leagues north of Paris, sent orders to Christopher de Thou, the first president, to wait upon him with the parliamentary ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... to Lola's breast. Jane had faltered in the trust which she had assumed, and now, confronted with the embarrassment of facing Lola's father in a plain confession of her delinquency, she hesitated and was miserable and afraid and reluctant. Rather than state her situation she would even ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... few days before. She had thought of these draft men, when she had thought of them at all, only when she saw mention of them in the newspapers, and then as a lot of workingmen or farmers' boys who were reluctant to leave their homes and had to be forced into patriotism in this way. It had not occurred to her that there were many honorable young men who would take this way of putting themselves at the disposal of their country in her time of need, without attempting to feather a nice little nest ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... ended, he waited until the Indians had consulted one another. Then their chief speaker stepped forward, and declared that from henceforth he and the Indians with him would be loyal to King George and make no more trouble. The Acadians also gave a reluctant assent. But as these latter were few, and were by no means representative of the loyal Acadians in the land, Davidson was little concerned about what they said. He was chiefly anxious to have the Indians on his side. The slashers were becoming very troublesome up river, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... alike he shared; All loved the man, all venerate the bard: E'en Prejudice his fate afflicted hears, And lettered Envy sheds reluctant tears. Such worth the laurel could alone repay, Profaned by Cibber, and contemned by Gray; Yet hence its Breath shall new distinction claim, And, though it gave not, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up some refreshments for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... better proceed with our breakfast? If the poor child is sleeping, it were a pity to disturb her," observed the doctor; for, besides his sympathy with Ellen's feelings, he was reluctant, as if he were the guilty one, to ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fifty years afterwards, when Methodius was solemnly declared by pope Nicolas II. a heretic, and the Romish mass again introduced, the attachment to their own language was too deeply rooted to be taken away at once. Hence the Old Slavic idiom, with the pope's reluctant permission, continued to be the language of the Church service. It appears, however, that the alphabet which their priests employed for writing their ecclesiastic documents, was not the same with that used by other Slavi of the oriental church: but was of a different character, ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... borders, and was not intended to bring to the test of a decision of this Court every ruling made in the course of a State trial. Consistently with the preservation of constitutional balance between State and federal sovereignty, this Court must respect and is reluctant to interfere with the States' determination of local social policy."[822] One year later, the Court made another inconclusive observation in Smith v. O'Grady,[823] in which it stated that if true, allegations ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Terrace. The American preliminaries are necessarily startling, and, to a gentleman of my temperament, destroy rest, sleep, appetite, and work, unless definitely arranged.[42] Macready has quite decided me in respect of time and so forth. The instant I have wrung a reluctant consent from Kate, I shall take our joint passage in the mail-packet for next January. I never loved my friends so well as now." We had all discountenanced his first thought of taking the children; and, upon this and other ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the Empire seem reluctant to admit the natural excellence of our food productions and to accept the evidence we constantly tender of the care with which their purity is guarded by rigid inspection from the farm, through the slaughterhouse and the packing establishments, to the port of shipment. Our system of control ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... mistake to confuse aims with methods: however little we may agree with the proposal to force the millennium on a reluctant community by starvation, we may yet agree that much of what the Syndicalists desire to ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... the secret of instant transformation, which required no tools or powders or other chemicals or herbs and always worked perfectly, was reluctant to have such a wonderful discovery entirely unknown or lost to all human knowledge. He decided not to use it again, since Ozma had forbidden him to do so, but he reflected that Ozma was a girl and some time might change her mind and allow her subjects to practice magic, in which case ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... needed the excitement of wine when engaged in composition. 'If an idea be reluctant,' he would sometimes say, 'a glass of port ripens it, and it bursts forth; if it come freely, a glass of port is a glorious reward for it.' He usually wrote at night, with several candles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... concerned, including the Camp Commandant, myself and the Sergeant, were in fact the persons we were represented to be. Indeed the last lingering doubt was removed from the mind of the Field Cashier as to his own identity, and (hats off, gentlemen!) England had done her Bit. It was a reluctant bit, but somehow or other it had been done. The money was there. The Command Paymaster could authorise its payment; the Field Cashier could pay it; the Camp Commandant could receive it; I could obtain it; and the Sergeant could get it. May the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... about, watching, the Australians reluctant to interfere in a quarrel they did not understand. It was Done who seized the stranger, tearing him off his victim, and then Mike and a teamster laid hands upon him, while Stony was writhing and panting on the ground. The digger offered no resistance; ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... in England as the repealed act had been in America. It was brought about by no sense of justice, by no good will toward the colonists, but solely by reason of the injury which the law was causing in England, and which was forced upon the reluctant consideration of Parliament by the urgent clamor of the suffering merchants; also perhaps in some degree by a disinclination to send an army across the Atlantic, and by the awkward difficulty suggested by Franklin when he said ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... watched and waited on by the new inhabitants of that ancient portage—Mushrat, whose destinies were soon to be so splendid, and whose skies were to be rocked and rent by the thunders of men struggling with reluctant nature, monkeying ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... after the young fellow's retreating form with reluctant admiration. "He moves like a trained athlete and he hasn't got a bad face," he admitted. "I pray he does not prove to be ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and on this occasion there was at hand a man who had carefully prepared the way for an abiding form of political union; his diplomatic campaign of the last seven years had secured Russia's friendship and consequently Austria's reluctant neutrality; as for the dislike of the Southern States to unite with the North, that feeling waned for a few weeks amidst the enthusiasm caused by the German triumphs. The opportunity was unexampled: it had not occurred even in 1814; it might never ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... to go for the tambourine. When he came to the words, "Me will tell all," he made a sign that he wished to tell it to his master alone. Belinda and the little boy walked on, to leave him at liberty to speak; and then, though with a sort of reluctant horror, he told that the figure of an old woman, all in flames, had appeared to him in his bedchamber at Harrowgate every night, and that he was sure she was one of the obeah-women of his own country, who had pursued him to Europe to revenge his having once, when he was a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Inasmuch as reluctant heretics were imprisoned for life, it seems certain that the severer penalty reserved for obstinate heretics must have been the death penalty of the stake, for that was the mode of punishment decreed by the imperial law of 1224, which had just been ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... everywhere held, and that he begged to be allowed to wait upon him next day at nine o’clock in the morning, if this would not inconvenience him, whom he knew to be an invalid. When M. de Montigny proposed this, I felt hindered from giving a definite answer, because I knew that my brother was reluctant to force himself to conversation, especially in the morning. Nevertheless, I did not think it right to refuse, so we arranged that he should come at half-past ten next day. Along with M. Habert and M. de Montigny there were also a young man in the dress of a priest, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... spirits, evidently a welcome friend of Mrs. Clover's; his name was Nelson. On his arrival Minnie joined the company, and it would have been remarked by anyone with an interest in the affairs of the family that Mrs. Clover was not at all reluctant to see her daughter and this young man amiably conversing. Mr. Nelson had something not unlike the carriage and tone of a gentleman; he talked quietly, though light-heartedly, and from remarks he let fall it appeared that he was somehow connected with the decorative ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... the man's remorse and shame were something pitiable. Of him, as an impartial historian, it is difficult to write, since long association with Stannard had forcibly impressed his views as to Rallston's character. Perhaps we were as reluctant to hear of his subsequent behavior and to believe in his contrition as Mrs. Whaling with all her meek and lowly piety was to conceive of Ray's innocence of the various charges laid at his door; but, in the absence of proof ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... ride in the wagon Sam never became quite clear. In his mind ran vague notions of a wild carousal in a country tavern, of himself acting as bartender, and a huge red-faced woman rushing here and there under the direction of a tiny man, dragging reluctant rustics to the bar and commanding them to keep on drinking the beer that Sam drew until the last of the ten dollars given to the man of the wagon should have gone into her cash drawer. Also, he thought that ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... navigation and exclusion laws that will keep her poor and powerless and out of mischief so long as her vice remains in her. But these considerations of the essential innocence of the German do make all this systematic hostility, which the British have had forced upon them, a very uncongenial and reluctant hostility. Pro-civilisation, and not Anti-German, is the purpose of the Allies. And the speculation of just how relentlessly and for how long this ring of suspicion and precaution need be maintained about Germany, of how soon the German may decide to become once more ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... after all. She is certainly very delicate, and greatly needs a change of air and scene to renovate her constitution. And then your going with me before the end of May, is apparently out of the question, unless you are disappointed in your visitors; but I should be reluctant to wait till then, if the weather would at all permit an earlier departure. You say May is a trying month, and so say others. The earlier part is often cold enough, I acknowledge, but, according to my experience, we are almost certain of some fine warm days ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of their help as the others had been. And then he just lets a glimpse of his pained heart peep out in the words of my text. 'I seek not yours, but you.' There speaks a disinterested love which feels obliged, and yet reluctant, to stoop to say that it is love, and that it is disinterested. Where did Paul learn this passionate desire to possess these people, and this entire suppression of self in the desire? It was a spark ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... glorification of the Eternal and in supplication for peace upon the House of Israel. But its significance has been gradually transformed; human nature, driven away with a pitchfork, has avenged itself by regarding the prayer as a mass, not without purgatorial efficacy, and so the Jew is reluctant to die without leaving some one qualified to say Kaddish after him every day for a year, and then one day a year. That is one reason why sons are of such ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... The bird seemed reluctant to satisfy the princess in this point, and indeed made some difficulty to comply. "Bird," said the princess, "remember you told me that you were my slave. You are so; and your life is in my disposal." "That I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... difficult line of advance, or when losing it, England is regarded with a searching gaze that might seem governed by the fabulous fascination of the rattlesnake. Does she ascend on her proper line of advance? There is heard the murmur of reluctant applause. Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... vice, and incitements to goodness and sense, delivered in the name of one Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain. [1] The new paper ran but for seventy-two numbers; perhaps for all the wit and learning, the fire and zest of its columns, the public were reluctant to buy their own lashings. But it may be doubted whether, except in the pages of his three great novels, Henry Fielding ever revealed himself more completely than in these his last informal 'lucubrations.' Here, the active ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... necessary for him to assert his position. It is only some hapless stranger ignorant of his standing that will occasionally provoke him to a display of those fighting qualities he grows more and more reluctant to employ. Even with such he is comparatively merciful; stern, but never brutal. Usually all that is necessary is for him to look at them steadfastly for a few moments in a peculiar way. This seems to convince them that, after all, discretion is the better part, and slowly and ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... returned to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant as ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... seemed to be reluctant to permit the escape of a word, so firmly were they pressed together during the intervals between his slowly spoken words. His slight figure, "too thin to cast a shadow," in the vigorous terms of the young freshman, was irritating in the extreme, and ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... heavy purple shadow indicated the deep basin through which ran the ill-famed Suburra, and the "Wicked-Street", so named from the tradition, that therein Tullia compelled her trembling charioteer to lash his reluctant steeds over the yet warm body of her murdered father. And beyond this again the lofty ridge of the Quirinal mount stood out in fair relief with all its gorgeous load of palaces and columns; and the great temple of the city's founder, the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of her life. Men's lust is a necessity to her very existence. Starving nations do not so eagerly await the coming of the food-laden ships which will keep them alive as the prostitute watches for the rising of the male desire. The dismay when it is reluctant to quicken is as sincere as it is disquieting to acknowledge. In the final result the woman may be the victim, but at the start she is the controller of the assault. She directs a continuous attack; her relation to men is comparable ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... it," said she, with her most decided nod, "by affinity. There is more affinity between you and brutes. It is the sons of God who find the daughters of men fair. We draw angels from the skies;—even your jealous, reluctant sex has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... and the floor fluttered with anxious labelled committeemen dashing to and fro. There was nothing for them to do, but they were nervous. By half-past eight the first arrivals could be seen hesitating at the outer door, as though reluctant to make a plunge; herded finally to the right and left of men's and women's dressing-rooms. After a long, chattering interval, encouraged by the slow accumulation of numbers, a little group debouched on the main, floor. Its members all talked and laughed ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... even to a comparatively late period in his professional career, was afflicted with the usual bashfulness about having his work published. We well remember the solicitations, the refusals, the renewed appeals, and, finally, the reluctant and conditional assent to have a single gelatine print from one of his perspectives published. This was the drawing, we think, of the Woburn Library, and was accompanied by a plan. Finding that he had suffered no severe injury ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... (as she seems to have been known in those days) a different fate was reserved. Her red lips, saucy eyes, and opulent figure were too seductive a spoil to part with, General Sheremetief decided, and she was left behind, a by no means reluctant hostage. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... his knee, alike proclaimed him to be English; yet as he gazed upon the noble face, and looked into the clear depths of the calm and fearless eyes, Wendot felt no hostility towards the representative of the hostile race, but rather a sort of reluctant admiration. ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... all the tears had been shed and the sobs had ceased, all the flowers strewn and the reluctant feet had left the silent city, I went over behind the tall cedars into a corner and knelt beside Martha Ensley, who had flung herself down across the new-made grave that held all that was left of Jacob ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and founded the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something from her. These considerations may have first prompted and then fortified Henry's very slow and reluctant steps in the work of founding Witham, in substance and not in shadow. It is also quite possible that he had not entirely given up the notion of going ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... Lambton, and wished to revisit her old friends there; and as Pemberley—Mr. Darcy's seat—was only five miles off, and was a show-place, the Gardiners determined to see it, though their niece was reluctant to accompany them until she had learned that its owner was not at home. As they were being shown over the place, Elizabeth could not help reflecting that she might have been mistress of it, and she listened with surprise as the old housekeeper ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... other fellow than Mr. Lloyd George, and he has mastered a dodge of at such moments sinking his voice to a wheedling pitch calculated to coax the most suspicious and recalcitrant of listeners into reluctant concurrence. M. Mantoux would reproduce that smile to admiration, and his tones when translating Mr. Lloyd George's seductive blandishments into French were enough to cajole ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... is tabooed in the front room of the house. The "damp dignity" of the best-room has been well described: "Musty smells, stiffness, angles, absence of sunlight. What is there to talk about in a room dark as the Domdaniel, except where one crack in a reluctant shutter reveals a stand of wax flowers under glass, and a dimly descried hostess who evidently waits only your departure to ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... The brave fellow was reluctant to remain inactive; but he had been, for some time, seriously unwell, having been laid up for a time with a severe attack of dysentery; and was really unfit for any continued exertion, although he had made light of his ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... for the shocks he had given her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him, her eyes still dancing. "Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute ago. And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the feelings of his little sister, he became exceedingly agitated and was unable to proceed. Clarendon, who had finished reading his papers, came to the side of the boat where we were sitting, and told me that he was going to turn in, and that it was quite time for me to be asleep too. I was very reluctant to go, but when brother was out of hearing, Dick said,—"It is as well. I find I have not self-command enough to go over the sad story of my own folly. If you will give me a pencil and some paper, to-morrow I will write such ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... the Gadfly placed himself in the required position, only turning his head to glance up for a moment at the red and yellow splendour of the sunrise. He had repeated the request that his eyes might not be bandaged, and his defiant face had wrung from the colonel a reluctant consent. They had both forgotten what they ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... and the treat was ravished from their longing lips. Scarlet with shame and anger, Amy went to and fro six dreadful times, and as each doomed couple, looking oh, so plump and juicy, fell from her reluctant hands, a shout from the street completed the anguish of the girls, for it told them that their feast was being exulted over by the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. This—this was too much. All flashed indignant or appealing glances at the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... between the banished Duke and the Usurper, or between Orlando and Oliver. There is not even the conflict, if so it can be called, which nominally brings so many hundreds of plays under the Brunetiere canon—the conflict between an eager lover and a more or less reluctant maid. Or take, again, Ibsen's Ghosts—in what valid sense can it be said that that tragedy shows us will struggling against obstacles? Oswald, doubtless, wishes to live, and his mother desires that he should live; but this mere will for life cannot be the differentia ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... family, where each individual atom goes off by itself and absolutely refuses to unite even temporarily with any other atom. The nitrogen atoms will pair off with each other and stick together, but they are reluctant to associate with other elements and when they do the combination is likely to break up any moment. You all know people like that, good enough when by themselves but sure to break up any club, church or society they get into. Now, the value of nitrogen in warfare ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... her persistence, and somewhat reluctant, Muriel rose to comply. As she was about to pass her, with a swift movement Daisy caught her ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... it, and the two sat and looked off across the darkened water and at the pale, reluctant stars, beholding, for that night at least, the passionate inner sense of the universe. They ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... thus made constituting a kind of advance guard, through which an Indian enemy would have to penetrate, before they could reach the interior, others were less reluctant to occupy the country between them and the Alleghany mountains. Accordingly various establishments were soon made in it by adventurers from different parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and those places in which settlements had been previously effected, received considerable accessions ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... grass beneath and the sky above" for a more settled, more confining, and more materially remunerative way of life. Some of the old-time cowboys were little more adaptable to change than the Plains Indians; few were less reluctant to plow or work in houses. Heaven in their dreams was a range better watered than the one they knew, with grass never stricken by drought, plenty of fat cattle, the best horses and comrades of their experience, more of women than they ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... property to Ovin, her steward, and retired to Ely for the purpose of religious meditation, for which it was well adapted, as being surrounded by fens and waters it was difficult of access. She was again solicited to enter the marriage state, and, although for some time reluctant, she was induced by her uncle Ethelwold, then king of East Anglia, to give her hand to Egfrid, son of Oswy, king of Northumberland, and she afterwards became queen by the accession of her husband to his father's ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... charged Flora, during his absence, to inquire for a female servant, to accompany them to Canada, and take care of the baby during the voyage. Flora was very reluctant to obey this command, though she knew that it was entirely on her account that the request was made. Her health was still very bad, and her kind husband was anxious to spare her any additional fatigue and trouble. She much doubted, however, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... general feeling, but men were reluctant to acknowledge so disappointing a conclusion, and the preparations for departure were slow and lingering. They had not fairly begun before Mr. Kilshaw's entrance abruptly checked them. Instantly he became ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... enable its friends to make head against it, the repeal of the embargo was absolutely necessary. I expressed a just sense of the merit of this information, and of the importance of the disclosure to the safety and even the salvation of our country: and however reluctant I was to abandon the measure (a measure which persevered in a little longer, we had subsequent and satisfactory assurance would have effected its object completely), from that moment, and influenced by that information, I saw the necessity of abandoning it, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the great—surely a most barbarous and unwholesome country. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here in the house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply that the foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... shorter one of the stairway on the cliff, up which Fayette had once forced the reluctant Pepita, but around by the sloping wagon track and into the lower rooms of the great building. Already the lad knew most of these by the descriptions his sister had given him, but no description could equal the facts. As she had done, so he experienced that thrill ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the 'Sunbeam;' our ensigns were duly dipped, we steamed away on our respective courses, and in less than an hour we were out of sight of each other. It is a sudden change for the 'Monkshaven' men, who were all very reluctant to leave the yacht. Many of them broke down at the last moment, particularly when it came to saying good-bye to Tom and me, at the gangway of the steamer. They had seemed thoroughly to appreciate any kindnesses they received while with us, and were anxious to show their ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... formidable. He knows that our kinship with him must always prevent us from summoning the law to protect us against his persecutions; and though he cannot injure us as seriously as he flatters himself, he can at least cause us a thousand annoyances, which I am reluctant to face. Throw him gold and let him take himself off. But do not leave me again, Bernard; you see you have become absolutely necessary to me; brood no more over the wrong you pretend to have ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... unsuspicious to question or understand the forms essential to legality. One stormy night we were driven across the country to a railway station, hurried aboard the train, and next morning reached the town of V——. At the parsonage you know so well we found Mr. Hargrove, who appeared very reluctant to accede to our wishes. I was only fifteen, a simple-hearted child, and Cuthbert, though well grown, was too youthful to assume the duties of the position for which he presented himself as candidate. The faithful, prudent pastor expostulated, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the day when the seven pirates were hanged at Port Royal Point. I had never seen a hanging, and a man who hadn't was rare in those days. I wanted to keep out of the way, but it was impossible to get a boatman to row me off to the Lion. They were all dying to see the show, and, half curious, half reluctant, I let myself drift ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the Bulgarian people are somewhat under a cloud, and are not standing too high in the opinion of the civilised world. Yet, to give an honest record of my observations of them, I shall have to praise them very highly in some respects. Whilst it would be going too far to say that the praise is reluctant, it is true that it has been in a way forced from me, for I went to Bulgaria with the prejudice against the Bulgarians that I have indicated. And—to make this explanation complete—I may add that I came ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... at this sudden explosion of the doctor's rhetoric; but I should have remembered, that he was under the double inspiration of new-born love and reluctant rhyme. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said Barbox Brothers, still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she never ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... sir," said I, grateful for even this semi-reluctant concession, being afraid he might refuse; and then, squeezing gingerly through the port and carefully lowering myself down by a rope which Tim Rooney hitched round the captain's bunk, I landed on the bottom boards of the boat that old Ching Wang ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... by an excellent authority that the Constitution was "extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people." The truth of the statement is very quickly recognized by even the most surface student of American politics. The struggle which began in 1774-5 was the direct outcome of the spirit of independence. Rather than submit to a degrading ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the Alexandrian remains, he will scarcely leave her, or Myrtilus either. Probably she will take both hunting with her, for, though a kind, fair-minded woman, she loves the chase, and as both have finished their work, they probably will not be reluctant to go ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Camp turned from the clerk's desk, rather relieved to find that Hambleton had not yet made his appearance. Aleck had an errand on his mind, and he reflected that Jim was apt to be impetuous and reluctant to await another man's convenience; at least, Jim wouldn't perceive that another man's convenience needed to be waited for; and Aleck had no mind to announce this errand from the housetops. It was not a business that pertained, directly, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... his resignation, which had been accepted, and the administration of affairs entrusted to Sir John Colborne, in whose judgment and abilities government felt the highest confidence. They had declared to that officer that, though they were reluctant to resort to means of extreme severity, yet, nevertheless, if he found it necessary to proclaim martial law in the province, they would take upon themselves the responsibility. Accounts of open disturbance had been recently received; and there was reason to believe that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fertile brain upon which it was cast. It is almost certain that the treatise as a whole—leaving out of account the special question of the solution of cubic equations—must have gained enormously in completeness and lucidity from the fresh knowledge revealed to the writer thereof by Tartaglia's reluctant disclosure, and, over and beyond this, it must be borne in mind that Cardan had been working for several years at Giovanni Colla's questions in conjunction with Ferrari, an algebraist as famous as Tartaglia ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... infant's tongue Reluctant information hung, Till, from a belt of woods full grown, Arose immense thy turrets brown, Majestic RAGLAND! Harvests wave Where thund'ring hosts their watch-word gave, When cavaliers, with downcast eye, Struck the last flag of loyalty[1]: [Footnote 1: This castle, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... minutes Wolf went on banging with his board and demanding his rights; then at last the weary President threatened to summon the dread order-maker. But both his manner and his words were reluctant. Evidently it grieved him to have to resort to this dire extremity. He said to Wolf, 'If this goes on, I shall feel obliged to summon the Ordner, and beg him to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heard spoken against her faith, by men who have an Inquisition which excommunicates those who ask to leave their communion in peace, and an Index Expurgatorius on which this article may possibly have the honor of figuring,—and, far worse than these, the reluctant, pharisaical confession, that it might perhaps be possible that one who so believed should be accepted of the Creator,—and then recall the sweet peace and love that show through all her looks, the price of untold sacrifices and labors,—and again recollect how thousands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... have concluded and was always starting up afresh, as if in reluctant response to spectral clapping. He called upon the repatries never to forget the crimes that had been wrought against them—to spread abroad the fire of their indignation, the story of their ravished womanhood and broken families all over France. They watched ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... declaring to Miss Melvyn that she had no other choice left her but either to resolve to marry Mr Morgan or to be exposed to shame in being publicly disclaimed by her parents, who would no longer suffer her to remain in their house, led Sir Charles out of the room; and he, though reluctant, dared ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... high: From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise, Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies, While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies. The monarch of the day I might behold, And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold, But I reluctant leave the pleasing views, Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse; Winter austere forbids me to aspire, And northern tempests damp the rising fire; They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea, Cease then, my song, ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... your palaver about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity. Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the particular form, or time, or fashion in which the question came up is utterly immaterial, and you interpose ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... if left behind, to turn his coat again and assist us in a break for liberty. If so, he was defeated by the perspicacious Tony, who observed that when he found a pal that suited him as well as Washtubs he liked to keep him under his own eye. With a spade over his reluctant shoulder, and many a dubious backward glance, Mr. Tubbs followed the file ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... These now appeared for a moment as though they meditated resistance, but the irresistible dash of the sailors seemed to change their minds, for they submitted without striking a blow, though many of them were very reluctant to give up ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... two bounds, feeling of the limp wrists, laying his ear to the grenadine bosom, lifting the reluctant lids, touching the flesh that yielded so ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... might the wife of years than a lover of her he had won so lately. Their hopes were the same and their lives, and she dwelt longest upon the sketched plans for the future of these. It brought him closer to her than anything else—put her secret and reluctant imaginations of evil, and Rosa's daring insinuations, out of sight and recollection. She read slowly, and with frequent pauses, that she might take in the exquisite flavor of this and that phrase of endearment; set before herself in beauty and distinctness the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... and until I do I'd make you miserable, dear," I whispered back as I drew myself out of his reluctant arms and went ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the new expedition, was wild to go, but his parents, remembering the great danger of the journey to the salt licks, were reluctant with their ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he and your father aren't friends. They have had some trouble. For that reason he was very reluctant ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... like a man!' Still reluctant, but it was brought out at last: 'Cousin Hugh told us about the poor sick Irish children that have no potatoes. May I give it to him to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... directly with this demurrer, let me deal with it indirectly, by pointing out that the lack of recognized evidence may be accounted for without assuming that there is not plenty of it. Inattention and reluctant attention lead to the ignoring of facts which really exist in abundance; as is well illustrated in the case of pre-historic implements. Biassed by the current belief that no traces of man were to be found on the Earth's ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... speaking quite in the style of Meg Merrilees, and very grandiloquently. "And happiness will be yours. By this and this I bless you, my precious lady," making several mystical signs, she turned away, forcing the reluctant ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... not hear to that. She said they must be fair even to a college, and Mr. Luddington would want them to look the place over thoroughly while they were there. So after breakfast the two reluctant young people went with ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... A.M. from New York, where I had gone at the suggestion of Mr. Floyd to engage Mr. G.B. Lamar, President of the Bank of the Republic, to make an offer to the Secretary for such a number of muskets as we might require. The Secretary at War was reluctant to dispose of them to me, preferring the intermediate agency. Mr. Lamar has consented to act accordingly, and to-day the Secretary has written to the commanding officer [at] Watervliet Arsenal to deliver five or ten thousand muskets ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... usual, exasperated by a religious feud. The King found the Church in a singular state. A short time before the commencement of the civil war, his father had given a reluctant assent to a bill, strongly supported by Falkland, which deprived the Bishops of their seats in the House of Lords: but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had never been abolished by law. The Long Parliament, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 12, Chanzy, after suggesting a fresh attempt to recover La Tuilerie, which was prevented by the demoralisation of the troops, was compelled to give a reluctant assent to Jaureguiberry's proposals of retreat. At the same time, he wished the retreat to be carried out slowly and methodically, and informed Gambetta that he intended to withdraw in the direction of Aleneon (Orne) and Pre-en-Pail (Mayenne). This meant moving into Normandy, and Gambetta pointed ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... young fellow's retreating form with reluctant admiration. "He moves like a trained athlete and he hasn't got a bad face," he admitted. "I pray he does not prove ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to them, slowly, with reluctant footsteps. He had the appearance of a man bent upon a ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon any marked or decisive path of individual and separate action. The greater number prefer to be nothings in this way, though they cannot escape the universal grinding mill,—they must be used for some purpose in the end, be they never so reluctant. Therefore, we, who study the latent powers of man, judge it wiser to meet and accept our destiny rather than fall back in the race and allow destiny to overtake US and whip us into place with rods of sharp experience. If ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... The presence and the power of this law are felt wherever the light of reason shines. They are felt in the uneasiness and conscious degradation of the slave, and in the shame and remorse which the master betrays in his reluctant and desperate efforts to defend himself. This law it is which has armed human nature against the oppressor. Wherever it is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... out of the pot That had held the pencil-stew, And held it in the air while five Reluctant ...
— Merry Words for Merry Children • A. Hoatson
... to retrieve?" he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into the other's face. "It seems you are yourself reluctant." And he laughed a trifle stridently, and looked about him ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... "The second period of a human being's life is that of his reluctant attendance at school" with Shakespeare's picture of the schoolboy in ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... in a book entitled The Guardian's Instruction, a Mr. Stephen Penton gave the world a pleasing and lifelike little narrative—superior, in my opinion, to anything in Verdant Green— telling us how a reluctant father was persuaded to send his son to Oxford; what doubts, misgivings, hesitations he had, and how they were overcome. I take the story to be fictitious. It is written in the first person, professedly by the hesitating ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... year. After we hulled all of these walnuts we had a mess of hulls on hand, and our farmers were a little reluctant to come and get them. We tried to talk them into using them for fertilizer. They are kind of like some of the boys, they have got to be shown. They have to see somebody else do it before they ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... and the deuce is in it, if a little susceptibility will not put forth, now she receives my address; especially if I can manage it so as to be allowed to live under one roof with her. What though the sensibility be at first faint and reluctant, like the appearance of an early spring-flower in frosty winter, which seems afraid of being nipt by an easterly blast! That ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the lions approaching. They were advancing slowly, turning occasionally to look back as if reluctant to quit the shelter of the hills; and Malchus could hardly resist a start of uneasiness as one of them suddenly gave vent to a deep, threatening roar, so menacing and terrible that the very leaves of the trees seemed to quiver in the light of the moon under its vibrations. The ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the horse by its forelock, and was walking in a sidewise fashion, with his back toward Dora. The horse, a rough-looking creature, seemed reluctant to approach the barn, and its leader frequently spoke to it encouragingly, and patted its ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... of the French ministry, the instructions of M. de Rochambeau prescribed to him to attach great importance to the station of Rhode Island, and to endeavour to make it the basis for his other operations. He was therefore reluctant to quit it in order to march upon New York. M. de Ternay, at the same time, considered it as impossible to enter with his ships of war into the harbour of that town, and contented himself with promising a blockade; he did not, besides, possess that naval ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... came down from the desert to the Nile out of the flat, heated air of the plain to the divine freshness by the water. Here, in the cool, golden light, they paused slow and reluctant ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... and sacred for gold. After his time there was no improvement; the Church degenerated into an instrument for the exploitation of money. Vast sums were collected in Italy; vast sums were drawn under all manner of pretenses from surrounding and reluctant countries. Of these the most nefarious was the sale of indulgences for the perpetration of sin. Italian religion had become the art ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... were ordered to knock off, and to get their breakfasts. This appeared to arouse Wallace, who had been chatting, quite agreeably to himself, with Rose, and seemed reluctant to depart, but who now became sensible that he was neglecting his duty. He called away his boat's crew, and took a civil leave of the passengers; after which he went over the side. The gig was some little distance from the Swash, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... thought he hadn't heard them. Then, as though reluctant to tear himself away, the Blue Doctor sighed, snapped off the reader, and turned ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... matter how shy and procrastinating they may be—or reluctant, for that matter—are doomed to have love affairs thrust upon them, as you will perceive if you follow the course of this ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... she spoke to him with an increasing, almost unnatural gayety. He had a new appreciation of what her charm must have been when she was a girl. The rooms were full of memories to her; many of the articles that she caressed with her fingers, and lingered over with reluctant eyes, connected themselves with days and nights of revelry and the joy of living; also with prides and ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... embers in the fire- place created a dull glow, showing the Doctor and Scip, booted and spurred, standing in the center of the room. Softly Cummings approached the picture, his finger found the spring through the canvas and, pressing it hard, the frame swung slowly forward as if reluctant to give up its ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... work again. And reluctant, and yet obviously fascinated by his French, like a bird by a snake, Mademoiselle led up the narrow stairs and into a sizeable room, clean as a pin and as naked. On the threshold Madame washed her hands ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... Allan," said Sir Percival. "And say you to my friends Launcelot and Gawaine should they prove reluctant that they will favor their comrade, Sir Percival, if they would make haste and hurry their return. Stop not to pick quarrel nor to heed any call, urgent though it may seem. Prove my true page ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... don't say I have and I don't say I haven't," he says; "but here I be, standing with reluctant feet at the parting of the ways. And who knows what might happen? I know I've had some darned close shaves from doing a whole lot ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the New England man more simple than the man of Old England. Hawthorne, on the other hand, seemed reluctant to admit that the English were a "franker and simpler people, from peer to peasant," than we are; and that they had not yet wandered so far from that "healthful and primitive simplicity in which man was created" ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... inside. Here, stuff them into your pockets! And help me break these other boards away. My! but they're rotten!" Cynthia helped, secretly very reluctant and fearful of consequences, and they soon had the little window free of obstructions. Joyce poked in her ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... and steal quietly out of the room. Then the sun got too high up in the heavens to watch little runaway orphan girls. Nobody saw her steal through the deserted playroom, down the clean bare steps, which she had helped to wear away, and out through the yard to the coal-shed. Here she got the reluctant Tommy into his clothes, and tied on his little round straw hat, ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... just when you did," he said. "I was just about to let this man go because of his services in showing us where the parade ground was. I know now why he was so reluctant to do it." "He did it to save his own skin," answered Tom. "He's a coward as well as a murderer. He's been responsible for other executions that have taken place here in the last few days. He's been one of the bloodiest of the lot, and whenever he saw one ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
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