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Doorstep   Listen
noun
Doorstep  n.  The stone or plank forming a step before an outer door.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Doorstep" Quotes from Famous Books



... any bird near your home, you may know its nest and eggs, its song and its young; but begin at the beginning again and watch their wings and their feet and their bills and you will find that there are new and wonderful truths at your very doorstep. Try bringing home from your walk a list of bill-uses or feet-functions. Remember that a familiar object, looked at from a new point of view, will take to itself ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... her doorstep with her rifle across her knees and halfway to the fence-line Jerry paused and looked back. The rifle came up—and dropped back again as Alexander belatedly pretended that she had not seen him. At the stile O'Keefe paused to turn his head again. He even waved his hat, and this time ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... the Boulevard de la Madeleine, he stocked it with Pons' treasures, and then—after dreaming his dream in sheets of gold, after seeing millions in the blue spiral wreaths that rose from his pipe, he awoke to find himself face to face with the little tailor. Cibot was sweeping the yard, the doorstep, and the pavement just as his neighbor was taking down the shutters and displaying his wares; for since Pons fell ill, La Cibot's work had fallen ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... have of a fair understanding," retorted Mr. Kavanagh. "You'd call it a fair understanding, would you, to come here and tell me to get off my own doorstep because you claimed ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... are men—at times hear the Red Gods call them (women hear them too, you know, only they have more self-control; they find their peace in fearful innocence and household laws), and I shall be waiting on the doorstep when you return from climbing Kangchenjunga, or exploring the Bramahputra Gorges, ready to say, "Come away in, for I'm sure ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... the door startled Mrs. Breckenridge so that she cried out under her breath. Brown went to the door. A furious gust of wind hurled it wide open beneath his hand, but there was no one upon the doorstep. No one? At his feet lay a bundle, from which sounded a wailing cry. He picked it up, looked up and down a vacant street, closed the door, and came back to Sue ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... the church clock struck one, dinner time, and a convenient doorstep near, so he took the roll out of the breast of his smock-frock and sat down to eat it. As he had never been used to very luxurious meals it satisfied him pretty well; and then he watched the people passing to and fro, and wondered what he could do to earn some money. The chair-factory was hopeless ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton

... sweeping the doorstep early the next morning, a couple of ponies dashed up to the gate, in whose riders she instantly recognized Elsie ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... went quickly, and there on the doorstep stood a tiny cupid in tears, tightly clasping his scanty wardrobe ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... Ross condescended to visit her poorer neighbors, and it was, therefore, not without considerable surprise that Mrs. Gilbert called to the door about eleven o'clock, just as she had put on the potatoes to boil for dinner—recognized in the visitor on the doorstep ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... was quite contented, for he did actually carry his umbrella. The sky in the northwest was threatening, although the sun still shone fiercely in the south. She herself sat on the doorstep in the shade, and fairly panted like a corpulent old dog. Her mouth was open and her tongue even lolled a little. She was, in reality, suffering frightfully. She had both flesh and nerves, and, given these two adverse conditions to endurance, and the mercury ninety in the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... ice gorge right in front of the house [he wrote "Bamie"], the swelling mass of broken fragments having been pushed almost up to our doorstep. The current then broke through the middle, leaving on each side of the stream, for some miles, a bank of huge ice-floes, tumbled over each other in the wildest confusion. No horse could by any chance get across; ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... the hall. Lord Porthoning was preparing to leave. "Have my car called up!" he ordered the footman from the doorstep. "Mind, I'm not going to hang about on the pavement in this sun for any one. If that's the motor waiting for the young people it'll have to get out of the way. Lord Porthoning's car at once, young fellow! Hello, Paul!" he added. "Come ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and suddenly, from the open doorway, two figures reeled forth, clutching and thrusting. One was in uniform, the other was a woman. For a couple of seconds they wrenched and fought, staged before the crowd on the lighted doorstep; and then the woman broke away and ran blindly towards the spot where Lucas stood. She had, he saw suddenly, a child in ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... I doubt," he was saying, knowing well that never more would she walk to her own doorstep, when Lady Louisa ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... cabled to me to "come and have a talk" with him—that it was unbelievable that anything essentially calamitous could happen to that place and those people. I tell you it was the very spirit of peace. And Leonora, beautiful and smiling, with her coils of yellow hair, stood on the top doorstep, with a butler and footman and a maid or so behind her. And she just said: "So glad you've come," as if I'd run down to lunch from a town ten miles away, instead of having come half the world over at the ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... passeth therefrom is in eternal peril and, to return to this vital and terrible subject of Mormonism—and as I say, it is terrible to realize how little attention is given to this evil right here in our midst and on our very doorstep, as it were—it's a shame and a disgrace that the Congress of these United States spends all its time talking about inconsequential financial matters that ought to be left to the Treasury Department, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... descent to the road except for one shelving bit of level ground upon which rested, as if it had alighted there, a one-room cabin, for which an end of a tree trunk served as a doorstep. A loosely-hung wooden door provided the only light by day, except that given by the flickering of the flames from the burning logs on ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... forgot her head?" said the Captain from the rear, pressing the charge home; whereupon, they all, Mrs Gilmour included, halted on the doorstep and roared with laughter. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... he was going off for a week or two. No letters need be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn at the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts. Presently he stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient tweeds, with a bulging pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel stick in his hand. A passer-by would have remarked an elderly shopkeeper bent apparently on a day in the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... and glared sharply at them for several minutes. In his face one could see the strong play of his thoughts. Afterwards he turned away from them, sat down on the doorstep of the Chinese house and for a long time was buried in thought. Then he rose, walked over to them and, with an evident show of decisiveness in his movements, touched all the prisoners on the shoulder with ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... Upon the doorstep Bell sat down, crying quietly, for she had loved the little child, and she listened anxiously while Morris repeated the particulars of its illness and then spoke of Katy's reproaching herself so bitterly for having brought it from New London. "She seems entirely crushed," he continued, when they ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... in the morning. Tired of doing nothing I take out my note-book, seat myself on a doorstep opposite the Restaurant Catelain, and jet down my memoranda by the light ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... I shouted, When I saw his hateful leer; 'Tell me what this means, Jim Johnson. Where is Billy? Ain't he here?' He was standing on the doorstep, And the light that shone within Seemed to twist his wrinkled features In a sort of wonder-grin. 'Well! well! Nancy! sure's I'm livin'! Out there in the pouring wet! Sure I'll care for you, Miss Nancy, ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... troubled with ants in your pantry and kitchen pour kerosene around on the edge of your shelves and on your doorstep. They will ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... angered at Gabriel, the bishop gave him the living, he would let the bishop settle his account with his conscience, but if Dr Pendle refused, he would then go up to London and hire a bloodhound to follow the trail of Dr Pendle's crime even to his very doorstep. In thus giving his patron an alternative, Cargrim thought himself a very virtuous person indeed. Yet, so far as he knew, he might be compounding a felony; but that knowledge did not ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... under the doorstep," said the cart man; "folks do hereabouts." He took the lantern ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... always prayed the Lord to open a door to us for preaching. And as I now recall that time, never once did we return home without being invited into some home to preach, or at least being asked to sit on a doorstep and tell of a ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth

... is a thing by itself, and all that touches it makes people bereft of their senses or some other good thing. Here has come news of Thora Ragnor's hurried marriage, but no one knows or cares about the strange things happening at our doorstep. Such haste is ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... come upon a group of little children seated about a doorstep, black-eyed, chubby little urchins, who are cutting oranges into little bits, and playing "party," as children do on the other side of the Atlantic. The instant we stop to speak to them, the skinny hand of an old woman is stretched out of a window just above our heads, the wrinkled ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... hat and hurried to the office. Mr. Ferguson, who seldom left much before that time, was on the doorstep. While he was getting into his dog-cart Percival hastily explained that he had been summoned on a matter of life and death. "Sorry to hear it," said the lawyer as he took the reins—"hope you may find things better than you expect. We shall see you again when you come back." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... "copy," haunted Half Moon Street all day long. They were never off her doorstep. "Town gossip," declared one of them, "is in full swing; and the general public are all agog to catch a glimpse of the latest 'lioness.' Lola Montez is on every lip and in everybody's eye. She is causing an even bigger sensation ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... after she had washed the supper dishes, Alexandra sat down on the kitchen doorstep, while her mother was mixing the bread. It was a still, deep-breathing summer night, full of the smell of the hay fields. Sounds of laughter and splashing came up from the pasture, and when the moon rose rapidly above the bare rim of the prairie, the pond glittered like polished metal, and she ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... word he turned also, but instead of going direct to the door came and touched the broken shutter and the dark stain on one corner with a delicate forefinger. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her on the doorstep, looking intently. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the old woman slid open the screens which form the sides of all Japanese houses, she saw, on the doorstep, a poor little sparrow. She took him up gently and fed him. Then she held him in the bright morning sunshine until the cold dew was dried from his wings. Afterward she let him go, so that he might fly home to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... remainder of his coffee and as his heavy boots clumped noisily across the rough wooden floor he ventured to look again timidly at the very pretty young lady who sat beside the stove. Her friendly nod and smile sent him stumbling clumsily out over the doorstep with reddened face and a huge grin ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... showed, not exactly, though consternation was not lacking in their aspect, so strangely similar in all, whether they were men or women, or whether they stood in groups in the street or came out singly on the doorstep to glance about and listen, though there seemed to be nothing to listen to, for the ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... preparing to go out, when the bell sounded. The words of grateful acceptance were on her very lips when her front-door bell rang too, very long and insistently and had hardly left off when it began again. Olga opened the door herself and there was Mrs Quantock on the doorstep with her invitation for Saturday night. She was obliged to refuse, but promised to look in, if she was not very late in getting away from Mrs Lucas's (and pop went the cat out of the bag). Another romp would ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... him quickly. She was sitting on her doorstep and the August sunlight was on her hair. There were wonderful glints of gold ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... to the printed sheet. "Your paper says 2370 veniremen were called into court. That's what money can do. If he'd been some poor devil charged with stealing a bottle of milk from the doorstep, how long would it take to ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... for the condition of his family, and shrank from being seen of men's eyes; every one they met must know they had not a place to lay their heads! The world was like a sea before them—a prospect of ceaseless motion through the night, with the hope of an occasional rest on a doorstep or the edge of the curb-stone when the policeman's back was turned. They set out to go nowhither—to tramp on and on. Is it any wonder—does it imply wickedness beyond that lack of trust in God which is at the root of all wickedness, if the thought of ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... if such it might be termed, ran an uneventful course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tell where is fancy bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw the drabbled little worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and open the conversation according to ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... It was still quite early, still almost twilight—not more than eight o'clock. Back there, on that squalid doorstep where the old woman and the old man had stood, it had still been quite light. The long summer evening had served at least to sear, somehow, those two faces upon her mind. It was singular that they should intrude themselves at this ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... word to Jacobus. I haunted his home. He was perpetually finding me there of an afternoon when he popped in for a moment from the "store." The sound of my voice talking to his Alice greeted him on his doorstep; and when he returned for good in the evening, ten to one he would hear it still going on in the verandah. I just nodded to him; he would sit down heavily and gently, and watch with a sort of approving anxiety my efforts to make his ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... on a doorstep unbeknown", like the child referred to by DICKENS'S Sairey. Come! Here's the Babby, and there's the Bottle! I'm no monopolist—quite contrairy. Without its Bottle I couldn't leave it; the babe might 'unger, wich Evins forbid of it! But, havin' purvided for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various

... seems to me that they often convey the actual need of some soul whose cry for comfort has gone out into the vast, perhaps to meet with an answer, perhaps to hear only silence. I will supply an instance. I see a child, a curious, delicate little thing, seated on the doorstep of a house. It is an alley in some great city; there is a gloom of evening and vapour over the sky; I see the child is bending over the path; he is picking cinders and arranging them, and, growing closer, as I ponder, I become aware that he is laying down in gritty lines the walls of a house, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... than you, because I keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again to your customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and send them off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he works it up, the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew all this very well when he advised every literary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... supplements their labors and prepares for the actual trial itself. But the press he has always with him, and from the first moment after the crime up to the execution of the sentence or the liberation of the accused, the reporters dog his footsteps, sit on his doorstep, and deluge him ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... night, Tatiana had said no word, nor had she moved from her doorstep: it was only when they brought back the dripping body to the village that she stirred, and when she saw it she laughed a dreadful laugh, and the spirit went from her ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... to the auld mill, an' the minister gaed in to see blin' Maggie Affleck, an' when he cam' oot I'm sure as daith that he left something that jingled on the kitchen table. On the doorstep he says, wi' a bricht face on him, 'Marget, it's me that needs to thank you, for I get a lesson frae ye every time that I come here.' Though hoo blind Mag Affleck can learn a minister wi' lang white hair, is ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... succeed and did not even wish to give any character to Hamlet, did not even understand that this was necessary. And learned critics continue to investigate and extol this puzzling production, which reminds one of the famous stone with an inscription which Pickwick found near a cottage doorstep, and which divided the scientific world ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... Mandeville, and in great spirits he carried his cakes out of doors, and was presently busily engaged in playing conductor on the doorstep, calling out in stentorian tones at intervals, "All ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... should say; and to this mute question Monsieur de Frejus not only made a sign with his head signifying that it was necessary to receive his royal highness, but rose and went himself to open the door. The regent stopped a minute on the doorstep to thank Fleury, then having assured himself by a rapid glance round the room that the Marshal de Villeroy had not yet arrived, he advanced toward ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... package. This time, it being a fine, sunny, summerlike day almost as warm as September, he went clad in careful dress with only a light motoring coat on over all to preserve the integrity of his attire. He left this in the car when he leaped out of it, and appeared upon the doorstep looking not at all like his own chauffeur, but quite ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... lifetime had gone since the day before, when he had first seen what he called to himself "the captive maid." He had never been so happy in his life; and yet he knew that he had not the faintest right to be happy. The girl who had so upset his self-control as to make him stumble on her doorstep was the wife of another man. It was, of course, silly to call him "another man," because he seemed a million miles away from any sphere in which Orlando lived. Yet he was another man; and he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... reply, but stood still at the window, watching Mercy's light and literally joyful movements, as she helped her mother out of, and down from, the antiquated old carriage, and carried parcel after parcel and laid them on the doorstep. ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... "that woman was in this house last night. You can see her footprints as plain as day on the doorstep. And what's more, she stole the cat and let out your mother's ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... your master,' I exclaimed with some heat, thrusting my card into her hand. 'He should know my name at any rate, though he seems to have trained you in strange notions of hospitality to keep a guest standing on the doorstep on a bitter evening ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... a galley with two of the Hong merchants and no less a person than Mr. '—', the Chief of the H.E.I.C.'s factory. He brought serious news. The boat had drifted up the river and had been recovered by a crowd of Chinese, who took out the dead man and laid him on the doorstep of the factory, clamouring that he had been killed, the day before, by an Englishwoman; and threatening, unless she were given up, to seize the first supercargo that came out and carry him off to ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... prisoners sell hats, fans, toys, and other articles of their own manufacture as they go along. One of these industrious gentlemen has entered, chains and all, into a private house opposite, and while he stands bargaining with a highly respectable white, his keeper sits, like Patience, on the doorstep smoking a cigar. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... and the spray was dashing right over the fisher-hut. In all his life Matte had never remembered such a night. To launch the boat and put to sea to rescue the net was a thing not to be thought of. The fisherman and his wife stood aghast on the doorstep, holding on fast by the doorpost, while the foam splashed over ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... that we'll do things to him to make him act crazy, and we'll tell her that he's dangerous, and then you can tell him, says he, that she's turned witch, and is doin' them things to him; ''cause a man that has got his first wife buried in front of his doorstep is fool enough to believe most anything,' ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... try a spell. I've been over lookin' 'round their place. You never see such a place! Why, their front doorstep's big as ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... as I passed under the ruined walls of the castle. In the little town itself, early as was the hour, many people were stirring. One gave me good-morning—a man of singular character, for here, in the very peep of day, he was sitting on a doorstep, idle, lazy and contented, as though it was full noon. Another was yoking oxen; a third going out singing to work in ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... announce their arrival with three cracks of his whip. The servants had long been watching at the doors and windows for their master and mistress, and even before the carriage stopped all the inmates of the house were grouped upon the stone doorstep, which took up the whole width of the sidewalk. In front of them was Rollo, who, the moment the carriage stopped, began to circle around it. Innstetten first of all helped his young wife to alight. Then, offering her ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... silent dawn, shadowed in a lonely archway or on an abandoned doorstep the wet, bedraggled body of a hapless moth is sometimes found, her iridescent wings flattened in the mud. Then for a brief moment a cry of protest, or scorn, or pity goes up. The passers-by raise their hands in ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... with a crestfallen air, but her husband and daughter stalked forth with their most military stride, and exchanged glances of kindling irritation on the doorstep. ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... So she was not sorry when the sound of footsteps broke the stillness, and she was pleased, for quite other reasons, when Mr Snow appeared at the open door. He did not accept her invitation to enter, but seated himself on the doorstep. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... out to us two pails of water behind the street-door. "Voila de l'eau pour vous debarbouiller," says she. And so there we made a shift to wash ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged some small goods for the day's campaign in a portable chest of drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were protected, but she saw children dashed against trees, and her neighbors struck down and scalped before she could plead for them. And little good pleading would have done. An Indian seized Paul. His father and the old servant lay dead across the doorstep. His mother would not let him go. The Indian dragged her on her knees and struck her on the head. Madame Jordan ran out at the risk of being scalped herself, and got the poor girl into her cabin. The Indian came back for Madeleine's scalp. Madeleine did ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... exiled for ever from the city which he had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark of his spirit animated the dust which it was the first care of liberated Venice to welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep on which, according to a Venetian custom, his name was engraved. Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... that; but how much will you give to paint my pootty darter?" sez I. "P'raps I'd better come in," sez he. "P'raps you 'ad, if we're a-comin' to bisniss," sez I; "so jest make a long leg an' step over them dirty-nosed child'n o' Mrs. Mix's, a-settin' on my doorstep, an' I dessay we sha'n't quarrel over a 'undud p'un' or two," sez I. An' then I bust out a-larfin' agin—I shall die a-larfin'.' And then she added suddenly in the same tone of sadness, 'if ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... homeward with his sister. No one of the party noticed a young negro, with a handkerchief bound around his head, who followed them until the carriage turned into the gate and swept up the wide drive that led to Warwick's doorstep. ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... Markham turned without another word, and lurched past the assistant, who flattened himself against a bookshelf to give him room. Jim followed him through the shop; saw him cross the doorstep and turn away down the pavement to the left; stared in his wake until the darkness and the traffic swallowed him; and returned, softly whistling, to ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... to-day?' He bowed again, like a mechanical figure, and said, 'Mr Vanburgh charges me to say, madam, that as he is unable to return visits, he must deprive himself of the pleasure of receiving them while in Waybourne.' I never felt so small in my life. Dismissed on the doorstep, and sent away like a child! I don't know how I looked, or what I said. My one idea was to get out of the man's sight as quickly as possible; and the door had no sooner closed on him than I began dreading Kit's disappointment. It was a most trying experience! ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... that perhaps dad had found that one of the dogs could be spared after all, and had told it to go home, went to the door and opened it. I had been right and wrong too, for on the doorstep there was ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... himself of the permission. He regarded Mr. Jobson with dilated eyeballs, and, as the party approached, sank slowly into a sitting position on his doorstep, and as the door opened behind him rolled slowly over onto his back and presented an enormous pair of hobnailed soles to the gaze of an ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... poor widow at Dymchurch under the Wall, which, lacking man or property, she had the more time for feeling; and she come to feel there was a Trouble outside her doorstep bigger an' heavier than aught she'd ever carried over it. She had two sons—one born blind, and t'other struck dumb through fallin' off the Wall when he was liddle. They was men grown, but not wage-earnin', an' she worked for 'em, keepin' ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... my hat, too, Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo, In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say; Then, without going through the form of a bow, Found myself in the entry—I hardly know how, On doorstep and sidewalk, past lamp-post and square, At home and upstairs, in my own easy-chair; Poked my feet into slippers, my fire into blaze, And said to myself, as I lit my cigar, "Supposing a man had the wealth of the Czar Of the Russias to boot, for the rest of his days, On the whole, do you think he ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... bolts before the servants could help her. "Where is Charlotte?" she cried; seeing Percy alone on the doorstep. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... cat eleven years old who had lived with Ed since he was a kitten. Not having any feline companionship to distract him, his only interest was hunting mice. Generally he killed a lot more than he could eat, racking the surplus in neat piles beside the trail, on the doorstep, or on a slab in the cellar. He was the best mouser ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams

... picture of Lincoln. The Hindu, who was in America during the Civil War years, conceived such an admiration for Lincoln that he was unwilling to return to India until he had obtained a portrait of the Great Emancipator. Planting himself adamantly on Lincoln's doorstep, the merchant refused to leave until the astonished President permitted him to engage the services of Daniel Huntington, the famous New York artist. When the portrait was finished, the Hindu carried it ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray splashed over its very doorstep, seemed deserted. Miss Rosetta pounded lustily on the front door. This producing no result, she marched around to the back door and knocked. No answer. Miss Rosetta tried ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... wound through the western side of the estate towards misty rolling country, in the folds of which lay countless lakes, and at length they caught sight of an unpainted farmhouse set amidst a white cloud of apple trees in bloom. On the doorstep, whittling, sat a bearded, unkempt farmer with a huge frame. In answer to Hugh's question he admitted that he had a horse for sale, stuck his knife in the step, rose, and went off towards the barn ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... as far as Stanhope Gate. Our sense of doom oppressed us. "And yet," I said, turning to her, as we left the doorstep, "I don't doubt Mrs. Le Geyt really believes she IS ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... you get the money for your debauchery? For the love of God be more careful of yourself, or you will be ruined. How shameful, how abominable of you! So the landlady would not admit you last night, and you spent the night on the doorstep? Oh, I know all about it. Yet if only you could have seen my agony when I heard the news! . . . Come and see me, Makar Alexievitch, and we will once more be happy together. Yes, we will read together, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... they were. The Rev. Webster Whistler, of Hastings, records that he was awakened one night to receive a votive cask of brandy as his share of the spoil which, to his surprise, his church tower had been harbouring. A commoner method was to leave the gift—the tithe—silently on the doorstep. Revenue officers have perhaps been placated in ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... road which passed by our dwelling. Soon I heard the wheels of a light buckboard, and Dawee's familiar "Ho!" to his pony. He alighted upon the bare ground in front of our house. Tying his pony to one of the projecting corner logs of the low-roofed cottage, he stepped upon the wooden doorstep. ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don't ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no," I cried, thinking of Rachel's words. He looked so encouraged that I am afraid I have sent him post-haste to the Flossy girl, and gotten him into life-long trouble. But I had gone ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a doorstep, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... said, melting in spite of herself as she looked down from the doorstep into his dark, smiling eyes. His strong, tanned face was beardless, his teeth were white, his abundant brown hair tousled and boyishly awry,—and there were mud splashes on his cheek and chin. He was tall and straight and his figure was shapely, despite the thick blue cape that hung from his ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... my lord," exclaimed Mrs. Dowson, waspishly; "anybody might think the 'ouse belonged to him. And now he's dancing on my clean doorstep." ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... had helped them out, by their own doorstep, Mary Jane seemed to feel that something must be said so she remarked, "Would you ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson

... and in half an hour were opposite the hut, and, riding across to it to ask a few questions, found the poor mother sitting on the doorstep, with her apron over her head, rocking ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... Midnight on the Great Western Honeymoon Time at an Inn The Robin "I rose and went to Rou'tor town" The Nettles In a Waiting-room The Clock-winder Old Excursions The Masked Face In a Whispering Gallery The Something that saved Him The Enemy's Portrait Imaginings On the Doorstep Signs and Tokens Paths of Former Time The Clock of the Years At the Piano The Shadow on the Stone In the Garden The Tree and the Lady An Upbraiding The Young Glass-stainer Looking at a Picture on an Anniversary The Choirmaster's Burial The Man ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... almost forgot to chatter. The case of the working man was the most striking of all—he forgot he was the working man. The very dogs forgot themselves, though that, to be sure, was no novelty, as the Irish writer demonstrated in his terrific outburst: 'On my doorstep.' But time went on, and hens in their turn forgot to lay, ships to return to port, cows to give enough milk, and Governments to look ahead, till the first flush of self-forgetfulness which ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... been there a full minute and had not knocked. Every movement, to-day, came only after an inward struggle. Many associations crowded his mind on this doorstep. Six years before, almost on this spot, a mere brier-patch then, he and Maximian Roussel had risen from the grassy earth and given the first two welcoming hand-grasps to the schoolmaster. And now, as one result, Claude, who did not know his letters ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... gentleman in, Oliver?" she said. "The thanks which are his due can hardly be well spoken on our doorstep," and Betty drew herself up, and waved her hand like the proud little maid she was, her eyes sparkling, her breast heaving with the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... longer in doubt whether or no he was lying on the manure-heap. Slowly he walked up to the cottage and hesitated on the doorstep; but the rain began to fall more heavily. He stood still in the passage and listened to Magda's snoring; then he cautiously opened the door ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... Charteris good-humouredly. "Now I should only have thought of securing Sher Singh, and I'd have done it if I died for it. Whereas you have left everything in inspection order, and can sit dharna[1] on his doorstep for just as long as he ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... women looked blankly, despairingly, at each other. In the sunshine-flooded street one or two shabby idlers were pausing to eye the handsome equipage with its magnificent bay horses, and the two great ladies on the doorstep of the fencing-academy. From across the way came the raucous voice of an itinerant bellows-mender raised in the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... don't know, when I thought you and Mis' Tree might meet my eyes both layin' dead in this entry. Where is he? Don't you help or harbor him now, Direxia Hawkes! I saw his evil eye as he stood on the doorstep, and I knew by the way he peeked and peered that he was after no good. Where is he? I know he didn't go out. Hush! Don't say a word! I'll slip out and round and get Hiram Sawyer. My boys is to singing-school, and it was a special ordering ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... casual observer, Hans had been very idle while they were gone. He sat absently on the doorstep, watching the grass that grew almost visibly in the warm spring sun. Occasionally he tapped his forehead with his finger tips. It helped him to think, and just ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... how Dorothy was found on the doorstep, taken in, and how she grew to be a lovable girl of twelve; and was then carried off by a person who held her for ransom. She made a warm friend of Jim, the nobody; and the adventures of the pair are as ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... with turkeys and their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked Guinea fowls, and a bright variety of pure white and purple-necked, and blue and cinnamon-plumed pigeons. Irresistible spectacle to Shirley! She runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the doorstep scattering crumbs: around her throng her eager, plump, happy, feathered vassals.... There are perhaps some little calves, some little new-yeaned lambs—it may be twins, whose mothers have rejected them: Miss Keeldar ... must permit ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... know—with the bull standing under it, waiting for her, while I skirted the lot and reached the house. When I told the old lady how we happened to be in such a fix, she threw her gingham apron over her head and sat down on the doorstep to laugh. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... On the doorstep, an indistinct figure in the fog, stood a young man, and on seeing Herrick he began at once ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... the words conjured up a vision of some sharp-visaged female marauder insinuating the tip of a very pointed nose between the great front door and the lintel. 'I only hope,' the elder woman went on, 'that I won't be here the first time Donald encounters your new friend on the doorstep. That's all!' ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... doorstep a cold rush of air met Mr. Iglesias. Above, the sky was blue-black and very clear. The road was vacant and grey with frost. The flame of the gaslamps quivered, giving off a sharp brightness in the keen atmosphere. Mr. Iglesias turned up the collar of his coat and descended ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... on her hat, and go down into the street, where the unwashed children swarmed like insects over the pavements, and the air was as hot and parched as the air of a desert. If the mother of the Jewish babies sat on her doorstep, she would stop for a little talk with her about the heat and the health of the children, and the increasing price of whatever one happened to buy in the market, or, perhaps, if the fruit stall still kept open, she would ask after the Italian's little boy, and stop to pat Archibald's friend, the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... patch of carpet used at the doorstep in his hand, and this he soused in the watering trough as he passed. Then he ran into the open barn and ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... to push her hand away, and get out into the sunlight and the air, and hear young voices, the voices of the morning, not of the twilight, and be away from wrinkled Death, that seemed sitting on the doorstep of that house huddled up like a beggar, waiting for ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... grief at leaving my native town: children love change and anything out of the common, and so I was pleased to come to Lisieux. I remember the journey quite well, and our arrival in the evening at my uncle's house, and I can still see my little cousins, Jeanne and Marie, waiting on the doorstep with my aunt. How touching was the affection all these ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... enter the hut, and coarse hands unused to dealing with small articles tremblingly lift the lid of a matchbox, which is a rarity in the Caucasus. The masculine-looking new-comer sits down on the doorstep with the evident ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... his shadow withdrawn from the doorstep, and he had his business with Honeycutt. He left the door wide open so that no one might come suddenly upon them and turned to the ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... perfumers to the Court, well known for their faithfulness to the royal family, and employed by the Vendeens as a channel of communication with the princes and royal committees in Paris. The abbe, dressed as the times required, was leaving the doorstep of the shop, situated between the church of Saint-Roch and the Rue des Fondeurs, when a great crowd coming down the Rue Saint-Honore hindered him ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... slowly and thoughtfully returned to his quarters after witnessing the departure of his son, he found sitting on the doorstep, and patiently awaiting his coming, a Canadian woman. Beside her stood her stolid-looking husband, whom the major recognized as a well-to-do farmer of the settlement, to whom he had granted some trifling favors while in command of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... shop kept by the sacristan's sisters and then came out quietly, without harming the seven women, who knelt on the doorstep praying. ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... insolent boy," said Sir Godfrey, sternly, "you are safe— your character of messenger makes you so—but if you stay where you are in front of this my doorstep another five minutes, one of the men shall beat you away with a ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... dressed in a bright pink costume, with a large hat all smothered in pink feathers. I thought of the Queen of Sheba, and felt alarmed. Mrs. Polter told me afterwards she was 'just a lady,' rolling in recently acquired wealth, and 'as hard to please as if she had never washed her own doorstep.' It was then I learnt the difference between 'a ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... have done enough, Rosy!" cried Hildegarde. "Sit down on the doorstep and make a posy, ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... father's house. The nurse went with him, and informed Messer Paolo of what had happened. Doctors were sent for, and the whole family gathered round Gerardo's bed. After a while he revived a little; and thinking himself still upon the doorstep of Pietro's palace, called again, "Nurse, Nurse!" She was near at hand, and would have spoken to him. But while he summoned his senses to his aid, he became gradually aware of his own kinsfolk and dissembled the secret of his grief. They beholding him in better cheer, departed on ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... sweet-peas, that came floating out from the gardens, contending sometimes with those of the grocers' and chemists' shops. Now and then too he came in for a small feed of strawberries, which were very plentiful in their season. Sitting then on a hospitable doorstep, with the feet and faces of friends passing him in both directions, and love embodied in the warmth of summer all about him, he would eat his strawberries, and ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... added, with one foot on the doorstep, "you haven't seen anything more of that man Briggs, ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... to the door; but Tumbu on the doorstep refused to come in; he barked, bounced off, and returned the next minute to whine ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... against the rough and broken laths, his knees as high as his chin, was a big slovenly boy of about seventeen, looking lazily out from under an old ragged hat-rim, pushed over his eyes. Another big, slovenly boy, a year or two younger, sat on the doorstep, whittling quite as much for his own amusement as for that of a little ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... long without a rude awakening. It was in the gloaming when he drew near the doorstep of the lighted house, and was aware of the figure of his father approaching from the opposite side. Little daylight lingered; but on the door being opened, the strong yellow shine of the lamp gushed out upon the landing and shone full on Archie, as he stood, in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to the kitchen and open the door. You look across the still white fields. Your barn looms black in the near distance, the white mound close at hand is your wood-pile, the great trees stand like sentinels in the moonlight; snow has drifted upon the doorstep and lies there untracked. It is, indeed, a dim and untracked world: coldly beautiful but silent—and of a strange unreality! You close the door with half a shiver and take the real world with you up to bed. For ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... in a high state of excitement was making an inflammatory speech from a doorstep. He was urging the mob to charge the police, to trample them under.... Bonbright leaned far over the railing so he could look down the street where the main body of the mob was assembled. There was another speaker. Bonbright recognized Dulac—and Dulac, with all his eloquence, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... 1896 Mr. McKinley announced that he would make no electioneering tour. But the people were determined to hear him, and they went to Canton in large delegations and excursions from all parts of the country. From his doorstep he made more than three hundred addresses, speaking thus to three-quarters of a million persons. There was scarcely any repetition, yet every speech was an admirable specimen of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at my own doorstep," said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of smoke. "I could do it if I pleased, but I'm tired of doing marvelous things, and so I'll keep within the bounds of everyday business just for variety's sake. Besides, there is no use in scaring the little ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... commented Miss Terry. And sure enough, she did. She stopped at the doorstep, drew her skirts aside, and bent over to look at the strange-shaped box at her feet. Finally she lifted it But immediately she shivered and acted so strangely that Miss Terry thought she was about to break the toy in pieces on the steps or throw it into the street. ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... on there at once: I'll overtake you on his doorstep. (Christy turns to go.) Wait a moment. Your brother must be ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... from cooling his ambitious hopes by a long walk in the woods, he found the break waiting at the foot of the steps in the great court. The two fine horses were pawing the ground, and Mdlle. Moser was inside, surrounded by boxes and bags, while Moser, looking bewildered, stood on the doorstep, feeling in his pockets and bestowing coins on two or three sneering footmen. Paul went up to the carriage, 'So you are leaving us, Mademoiselle.' She gave him a thin clammy hand, on which she had forgotten to put a glove, and without saying a word, or ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood with the lamp on the upper doorstep) lurched, uttered a senseless view- holloa, and vanished out of the small circle of illumination like a wraith. Yet a minute or two longer the clatter of his break-neck flight was audible, then it was cut off by the intervening steepness of the hill; and again, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... standing before her a man in armour, who asked her where she was going. It was the "pious soldier of the race of Con," says local wisdom, still keeping watch, with his ancient piety, over the graveyard. Again, the custom is still common hereabouts of sprinkling the doorstep with the blood of a chicken on the death of a very young child, thus (as belief is) drawing into the blood the evil spirits from the too weak soul. Blood is a great gatherer of evil spirits. To cut your hand on a stone on going into a fort is ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... doctor. "Haven't you been told? Why are you here? Mr. Fenley was shot dead on his own doorstep nearly an hour ago. At least that is the message telephoned by his son. Unfortunately I was ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... to shake off a dew-drop; for—considering how brief her absence was to be, and therefore the folly of being cast down about it—she would not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry them with her handkerchief. On the doorstep, she met the little urchin whose marvellous feats of gastronomy have been recorded in the earlier pages of our narrative. She took from the window some specimen or other of natural history,—her eyes being too dim with moisture to inform her accurately whether it was a rabbit or a hippopotamus,—put ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the hell with Prescott! [Contrite.] Don't misunderstand me. I wouldn't refuse any job he had to offer me. I'd black his boots if that was the job. But I've been to see him as much as I can. I can't sit on his doorstep and whine. ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings

... Mr. Russell, and the convalescent Hound went to lie upon the downs which climbed up straight from the back doorstep of the inn. They were accompanied by a rug, a scarf, a sunshade, an overcoat, the blessings of the landlady, and Cousin Gustus's diary. Nobody ever knew what sort of matter filled Cousin Gustus's diary, nobody ever wanted to know. It gave him grounds for claiming literary ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... bounced out of bed in a minute. Their mother helped them to put on their clothes and new wooden shoes. Then she gave them each a bowl of bread and milk for their breakfast. They ate it sitting on the kitchen doorstep. ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... chance visitor knowing nothing of the house and its mistress. They obviously came from some very poor working-class home; their clothing was of the plainest possible, and, save that they were very clean and in perfect order, they might have been sitting on a doorstep in a London back street. Mrs. Ormonde had thrown a kind word to them in hurrying by. At the sight of Egremont they hushed their renewed talk and turned shamefaced looks to the ground. He went on to the drawing-room, where there was the same comfort and elegance ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... stating that I would go down to the corner and wait in a public-house. And down to the corner I went, but, it being church time, the "pub" was closed. A miserable drizzle was falling, and, in lieu of better, I took a seat on a neighbourly doorstep ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... wife, is busy with her preparations indoors. The cottage stands in a sheltered nook, a wooden dwelling, coated with tar, with nets hanging outside its walls, and a doorstep as white as snow. A few hardy geraniums in pots brighten the windows, but garden there is and can be none; the pebbly shore must serve the children as a playground. Rosy cheeks and sound lungs give proof that the little Drakes are thriving ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... sweet as its honeysuckle blooms, and some day we will frame it with California mountains, and call it Home. I shall only want to add a gently sloping field, wherein pearly short-horns stand ankle deep in clover, while my dear old dog Hero basks upon the doorstep; and upon the lawn,— ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson



Words linked to "Doorstep" :   sill, door, doorway, threshold, room access



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