"Downstairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its second reading and it passed without opposition and was referred to the Law Amendments Committee, of which the Attorney General was chairman. It gave a public hearing and the women crowded the Assembly Chamber upstairs and downstairs and nine short speeches were made by women. The Premier and Attorney General said it was the best organized hearing and best presented case that had come before a House Committee in twenty-five years. The Bill was left with the committee with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... the fan. "My dear, you misjudge me. I always said that he is a good young man and I stick to it. He is good, far too good, too good to be true." With that, lowering the fan, she produced a trump. "Downstairs, a moment ago, he told ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... and escorted her downstairs. Nicely judging the time when Banneker would have finished, he was back in quarter of an hour. The stenographer ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her will alone made her able to sit through meals or through the occasional neighbors' calls. She spent hours alone in her room, dumb, dark-minded, with an unrelenting heartache and pains which racked every organ. Her sleep was fitful and she dreamed of Ben downstairs in a casket, again and again, until she fairly feared the night. When she took her nerve medicine, she seemed tied, bound hand and foot in that parlor of death, held by a sleep of terror. Then Ben would move about in the casket and make tortured faces at her, and some horrible times ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... comment from dowager lady Chia. Chia Chen therefore withdrew downstairs, and betook himself outside to make arrangements for the offerings to the gods, for the paper money and eatables that had to be burnt, and for the theatricals about to begin. So we will leave him without any further allusion, and take ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... ice-cold water and dressing we tiptoed downstairs. Going to the kitchen, we kindled a fire in order to get a bit of breakfast before we started. Theodora had heard us and came hastily down to bear a hand. She guessed ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... from the little window of Joan's garret, she saw the girl herself approaching with Mr. Tregenza. They were nearly home again, so Thomasin returned the money and the picture to their places in the chest of drawers, smoothed the bed, where she had been sitting for half an hour, and went downstairs still undetermined as ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... for conjugal privacy to explain herself: "Cyrus, I worry so, because I'm sure that woman thinks she can catch your father again.—Oh, just listen to that harmonicon downstairs! It sets my teeth ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... in, and after seeing my men safe on board her, I got leave for a day to pay a visit to Larry. On ringing, I heard him stumping downstairs to open the door. When he saw me, he could scarcely contain his delight; and forgetting etiquette and all rules and precedents, he seized me in his arms as if I had been a baby, and almost squeezed the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing instrument had ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Mrs. Gamble rushed downstairs in great alarm, and it was not long before they had Martha breathing naturally, although the General almost made that an impossibility by the ruthless manner in which he fanned her with the very book she had been reading—a heavy volume which ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... manager, "is there anything downstairs you could find for this man to do? I'd like to ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... about Herman's place that Newbern understood in time. When he had begun business some dozen years before, and it was known that Minna came downstairs from their living rooms above the saloon and helped to serve his patrons, the scandal was high. It was supposed that only a woman without character could, for any purpose whatever, enter a saloon. But Herman ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Thomas!" she panted. "Muriel, fly! There's no time to get downstairs, but Mary Ann Whooly said we could go into the room off this sitting-room ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... discredit the simple stories of our religion. At first we had no idea of astronomical space. We believed the sky to be only the ceiling of a room as large as the earth, with another room on top of it. Death was to us a going upstairs into that room, or, if we did not obey the priests, going downstairs into the coal cellar. We founded our religion, our morality, our laws, our lessons, our poems, our prayers, on that simple belief. Well, the moment men became astronomers and made telescopes, their belief perished. When they could no longer believe in ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Mother," said Edna, as they came downstairs, "exactly where we're going to—or what we're expected to ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... military preparations for the great event. His father took him by the hand, and led him to breakfast, as usual, at nine o'clock. Nobody said much, because the guards were in the room; but he saw his father and mother look very expressively at each other when he and his father were going downstairs again, at ten o'clock. He went to his lessons, as usual, and was reading to the king, when two officers came from the magistrates, to say that they must immediately take Louis to his mother. Argument was useless; so Clery was desired to go with the boy. ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... a perfunctory five minutes with Mrs. Moon, could hear Miss Vivian running downstairs and the front door opening and closing upon her. With a little haste and discretion he managed to overtake her before she had gone very far. He stopped to give his verdict on ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... handkerchief somewhere! As I passed in front of the picture of the Virgin, I would put my hands together and pray fervently, "Admirable Mother, make me find a handkerchief." But I never did find one, and I went downstairs again red in the face, out of breath, feeling dreadfully unhappy, and not daring to take the clean handkerchief which Sister Marie-Aimee handed to me. Before she spoke, I could hear the scolding which I ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... frightened, Mr. Kent, I couldn't stay any longer. I rushed downstairs and ran all the way home. Then next day I read what had happened, and I knew that I had left my hat there, and was afraid. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... summer sun woke her early next morning, and she hurried downstairs to be through breakfast before Sure Pop came ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... downstairs, early, in the study, having her first request to make to him. Might she go in at once after breakfast and tell them all? "I suppose I ought to go to your father," he said. "Let me go first," she pleaded, hanging on his ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... his reasons for hoping that the crisis might be got over, the man-servant announced that a client, Madame de Saint-Esteve, was waiting to see him. Victorin left Bianchon in the middle of a sentence and flew downstairs like ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... published "Orphan of Pimlico," have a vigour of impromptu, and a happy suggestiveness which is better than correct drawing. Often the realisation is almost photographic. Look, for example, at the portrait in "Pendennis" of the dilapidated Major as he crawls downstairs in the dawn after the ball at Gaunt House, and then listen to the inimitable context: "That admirable and devoted Major above all,—who had been for hours by Lady Clavering's side ministering to her and feeding her body with everything that was nice, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... time Mr. Bobbsey had dressed, and had started downstairs. Bert came out of his room, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... father found it hard to scold severely, however grave he might try to look to please Aunt Susan; and it was perfectly well known in the house that she had no liking for those grave debates that formed the prelude to the supper downstairs. It was like enough she would linger without as long as she dared, and then spend as much time as possible strewing her rushes and dressing herself, so that she should not have long to listen to the talk ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... misguided pardner, and then I sot down in the parlor bedroom, the furthest I could git without goin' upstairs, and let the tide of events sweep by me or sweep me away, and I didn't know which it would be. I had to be downstairs anyway, for (though Philury helped), I had to stand with my hand on the hellum, so to speak, and see to everything. What made it worse, too, it come on the coldest snap ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... to which we drove to the back of the house, explained to the curious who rushed out that Tristan had been injured by a stroke of lightning, and rushed the closely wrapped form up to his room, feeling a great relief at having something solid between us and the sky. While Jack went downstairs to dismiss the party as courteously as possible, Alice and I tied my brother to the bed with trunk straps. Whereupon the bed and patient plumped lightly but decisively against the ceiling as soon as we removed ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... this direction blazed as the words Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, did in the eyes of Belshazzar. After concealing the letter, Rosalie went downstairs to accompany her mother to Madame de Chavoncourt's; and as long as the endless evening lasted, she was tormented by remorse and scruples. She had already felt shame at having violated the secrecy of Albert's letter to Leopold; she had several times asked herself ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... went by; I entered the shop and searched its labyrinth of "departments." But I could not distinguish her anywhere. Upstairs and downstairs I went, inquiring here and there, but nobody seemed to have seen the fair young lady in black; the great emporium seemed ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... a son who, she told me, is "somethink on a homnibus." He comes occasionally to see her. I think he drinks, for he talks very loud, regardless of the hour of the day or night, and tumbles about over the furniture downstairs. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... certain other matters. When he had finished writing, three letters lay sealed and stamped upon the table. One was addressed to John Gladney, one to the Hudson Bay company and one to a solicitor in London. There was another unsealed. This he put in his pocket. He took the other letters up, went downstairs and posted them. Then he asked the hall porter to order a horse for riding—the best mount in the stables—to be ready at the door in an hour. He again went to his room, put on a riding suit, came down and walked out across the esplanade and into ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... the room, his mind awhirl, to await her downstairs. In a few moments she came, and with eyes somberly averted got into the runabout without a word. As they swung into the road, they met McGuire Ellis and Wayne, who bowed with a look of irrepressible surprise. During the ride homeward ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... while you were looking at the memoir. She heard us talk about it; her curiosity was roused; she longed to know the history of her old master, under his own hand; she could not sleep; she heard me go up to bed; she thought you might leave the book on the table when you, too, went to rest. She stole downstairs, peeped through the keyhole of the library, saw you asleep, the book lying before you, entered, took away the book softly, meant to glance at its contents and to return it. You were sleeping so soundly she thought you would not wake ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Sue, exasperated; "'a lying tongue is but for a moment,' and 'deceitful men shall not live out half their days,' but, Dora, this is a desperate case. So you find my mother and tell her that—that I'm probably downstairs in the basement,—er—er—well, I might be setting the mouse-trap." And giving Dora an encouraging push in the direction of the hall, Sue disappeared on swift foot ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... our proceedings that I would willingly have contributed by every means in my power, even at any sacrifice of pain, to bring the enterprise to a successful termination. But there seemed no help for it, and I turned my head round to him and said that I was afraid we must go downstairs. He caught me round the neck, pressed my lips passionately to his, and entreated me to have patience with him for a few moments; he said he would not attempt to do anything that would give me more pain, but that ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... short distance of us," he ejaculated. "Then the Bulgarians will turn their big guns on us." He turned to Helen. "You would better go downstairs, ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... "Lemme see. Him! Say, Swifty, you go back and tell J. Bayard that if he's got nerve enough to want to see me, it'll be a case of wait. And if he's at all messy about it, I give you leave to roll him downstairs. The front of some folks! Come on now, Dominie! Cover up better with that right mitt: I'm goin' to push in a ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... French say; and I looked down sadly into the grey back yard which the wind of the morning had strewn with chips from the Petrel. At last, when shadows were gathering in the corners of the room, I heard footsteps. Ella appeared, prim and virtuous, yet a little commiserating. My father wished to see me, downstairs. It was not the first time she had brought that summons, and always her manner was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... take my place downstairs, but no one shall wait on you here except me, as long as I'm with you," said stately Phebe, stooping to put a hassock under the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... He went downstairs, and, on arriving on the scene of action, found that the fags were engaged upon spirited festivities, partly in honour of the near approach of the summer holidays, partly because—miracles barred—the house was going on the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... matter?" asked Elisabeth, somewhat breathlessly. She had run downstairs at full speed in order to enter the dining-room before the dishes, completing her toilet as she fled; and she had only beaten the bacon by ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... basement of the house instead of one of the cabins. This, however, is, by a few conciliatory words from Mrs. Rosebrook, settled to the satisfaction of all. Harry has supper provided for him in one of the little rooms downstairs, which he is to make his Study, and into which ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... simply cutting the duct and seeing what will happen to the guinea pig. (Sylvia rises, horrified.) I shall require a knife specially made to get at it. The man who is waiting for me downstairs has brought me a few handles to try before fitting it and sending it to the laboratory. I am afraid it would not do to bring ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... "Downstairs, sir, along with his missus, stoking the kitchen fire, with mattresses built up before it like a sandbag battery. Seems to me the woman's been spending half the night airing one thing and another. She says the place is like a vault. Not," added Archelaus, magnanimously, "that ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... room of the Secretary of State, who lay ill, and attacked him, inflicting three terrible knife wounds on his neck and cheek, wounding also the Secretary's two sons, a servant, and a soldier nurse who tried to overpower him. Finally breaking away, he ran downstairs, reached the door unhurt, and springing upon his horse rode off. It was feared that neither the Secretary nor his eldest son would live, ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... Dolly forthwith hung up her hat and coat in the wardrobe; took brush and comb out of her travelling bag, and with somewhat elaborate care made her hair smooth; as smooth, that is, as a loose confusion of curly locks allowed; then signified that she was ready to go downstairs again. If Mrs. Eberstein had expected some remark upon her work, ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... her father and, as if finding it difficult to reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... mummy; as it was, only a few bricks struck him, inflicting severe bruises on back and arms. But the shock had been serious. When his shouts from the window at length attracted attention and brought help, the poor man had to be carried downstairs, and in a thoroughly helpless state was ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... comes smilelessly downstairs. He is dressed in black, and looks as if he had lost all his friends during the night. Miss Abigail, also in black, looks as if she were prepared to bury them, and not indisposed to enjoy the ceremony. Even Kitty Collins has caught the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... showed him that the Prior was still at variance with the Abbot, a state of affairs that was ultimately bound to be disastrous for the Community. He withdrew almost immediately on some excuse to the Superior's inner room, whence he intended to go downstairs to the Porter's Lodge until the Prior was gone. Unfortunately, the door of the inner room was locked, and before he could explain what had happened, a conversation had begun which he could not help overhearing, but ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... degrees and much puffing, Shuey got the erratic box to the next floor, where, disregarding Shuey's protestations that he could "make her mind," Mr. Armorer got out, and they left the elevator to its fate. It was a long way, through many rooms, downstairs. Shuey would have beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... downstairs after Mrs. Littell, the soft, thick rugs making their progress absolutely noiseless. Not a step in the ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... for Ned, who was a tender-hearted man. The blood rushed to his face; he sprang up with such violence as to overturn his chair, seized his cap, and, without uttering a word, dashed out of the room, and went downstairs three steps ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... we could ride without being instructed, Without any saddle or bridle or spur? Our legs are so long, and so aptly constructed, I'm sure that an accident could not occur. Let us all of a sudden hop down from the table, And hustle downstairs, and each jump on a horse! Shall we try? Shall we go? Do you think we are able?" The ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... dark January day in the year 1858 a little girl was running quickly downstairs for her play-hour with her elders. Just as she reached the foot of the staircase the drawing-room door opened, and her brother came out with a grave face. 'Havelock is dead!' said he, and at the news the little girl laid her head ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... drinking had to some extent been solved by Hoolan, who had gone downstairs, and returned with a tin pot capable of holding about a couple of quarts. This he had cleaned by rubbing it with sand and water, and it went round as a loving-cup among those unprovided with mugs or horns. When all had finished, the two soldier ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for the old-clo' woman. The last prop against decay and collapse seemed removed. But the next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which the greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she was able to take up her sack again and go ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Was the woman in league with the devil? The master had brought poison from Gnesen, poison for the rats. The servant's observant eyes had noticed the box on the table, the white box from the chemist's, with the black death's head on it. If now that woman downstairs were to put some of it in master's coffee or among the sifted sugar, of which he loved to pour half a basinful into his cup? ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... walk downstairs," insisted his aunt, "and you know how dreadfully frightened you were the night after the party, when you did walk ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... I could get one of these noble mates to accompany me. She abused Lucky Sudds, as she called her, at the inn where the party was, envying her huge profits, no doubt, and giving me afterwards something to drink for which I really felt exceedingly grateful in my need. I stepped downstairs in order to be on the alert. The moment that I reached the ground, the door of Lucky Sudds' house opened and shut, and down came the Honourable Thomas Drummond, with hasty and impassioned strides, his sword ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky!" said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... must not keep you, Mrs. Watson," Mrs. Francis said, as she remembered the washing. "When you go downstairs will you kindly bring me up a small red notebook that you will find on the desk ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... this juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called downstairs by a crying baby. A bright idea occurred to me and I went hurriedly into the corridor where my friend was ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... alone, Lord Spendquick shook his head,—shook it twice, as if fully to convince himself that there was nothing in it; and then re-arranging his hat before the looking-glass, and drawing on his gloves deliberately, he walked downstairs, and strolled into White's, but with a bewildered and absent air. Standing at the celebrated bow-window for some moments in musing silence, Lord Spendquick at last thus addressed an ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his way rather sulkily to the dining-room. It annoyed him that Cuningham had a lady and he had none. His companion on the road downstairs was the private secretary, who tried good-naturedly to point out the family portraits on the staircase wall. But Fenwick scarcely replied. He stalked on, his great black eyes glancing restlessly from side to side; and the private ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... telephoning to the Medical Officer of Health," volunteered Olave Parry, who had been downstairs to seek fresh information. ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... would be best," he answered in some surprise. "The boys prefer the downstairs room and the bar. I'll tell the man about my horse, and then ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... they arose as early as the birds and stole downstairs without anybody hearing them. One window was open, and they crept softly out and ran to the side of the river. Then, feeling as if they had found a friend, they walked along its banks, hoping that by- and-by they should meet some one to take care ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... his spade. The shouting in Carvil's cottage stopped, and after a while the window of the parlour downstairs was lit up. A man coming from the end of the street with a firm leisurely step passed on, but seemed to have caught sight of Captain Hagberd, because he turned back a pace or two. A cold white light lingered in the western sky. The man ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... Upstairs, and downstairs, into this room and that they were taken to be shown an "invention." Each room was more squalid than the last. Finally the end in sight, escape near at hand, the gentleman said, "I'll show you something," and took ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... on her dress glittered and shone in the dull light. Her figure was superb, her neck and bosom a flawless white. The Englishman, however, was unmoved. His keen gray eyes were fixed upon her, but the revolver remained in his right hand. From downstairs they could hear the music of violins, the rattle of glasses, the hum of voices and laughter. Madame frowned slightly as she marked the young Englishman's alertness. She was used to victims, ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Me did most ever'thing you see. Me got this bump the time me tripped. An' here is where the jelly slipped Right off my bread upon my shirt, An' when me tumbled down it hurt. That's how me got all over dirt. Me threw those building blocks downstairs, An' me upset the parlor chairs, Coz when you're playin' train you've got To move things 'round an awful lot." An' then my Pa he kisses me An' bounces me upon his knee An' says: "Well, well, my little lad, What glorious fun ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... knight downstairs again, and when he had mounted and ridden off he called two servitors, and bade one carry the luggage upstairs, and the other conduct the men to the stables he ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... Wogan went downstairs. He could leave the three of them shut up in that room to come by a fitting understanding. Besides, there was other work for him below,—work of a simple kind, to which he had now for some weeks looked forward. He crept down the stairs very stealthily. The hall door was still open. He ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... country girl should have so moved me!" he muttered. "What does it mean? What is there about her that takes hold of my attention and awakens my interest? I wish to go downstairs now, and talk to her, and have her read to me, and am provoked with myself that I do. Yesterday at this time I wished ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... would have imagined how it had been occupied the day before. The large room was fresh strewn with evergreen sprigs; the breakfast-table stood at one end, where each took breakfast, standing, immediately on coming downstairs. At the bottom of the room was a busy group. The shoemaker, who travelled this way twice a year, had appeared this morning, and was already engaged upon the skins which had been tanned on the farm, and kept in readiness for him. He was instructing Oddo ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... consented, and going-downstairs they found her in a very handsome apartment, seated all alone in front of the fire. The gentleman drew aside a curtain that hung in front of a large cupboard, wherein could be seen hanging a dead man's bones. Bernage greatly longed to speak to the lady, but durst not do so for fear ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... going downstairs I went into the next room, and two minutes after who should enter but my sweetheart, who looked charmed and yet puzzled at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... that her bedfellows were up and dressed and downstairs. She heard a queer buzzing sound from below, as she stood in her bare feet on the icy floor and gazed about her, dizzy ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... days later, Bancroft came downstairs one morning early and found the ground covered with hoar-frost, though the sun had already warmed the air. Elder Conklin, in his shirt-sleeves, was cleaning his boots by the wood pile. When he had finished with the brush, but not a moment sooner, he put it down near his boarder. His ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... of Moses Fletcher, the money-lender, were hovering round Crawshaw Fold, not daring, however, to enter until the fateful hour of ten. Jimmy, with his wife, sat before an untasted breakfast, wondering how it was his mother was so late in coming downstairs; and when at half-past eight there was no sign of her appearance, he sent his wife, with a strong feeling of foreboding, to find out the reason of the delay. Slowly she climbed the stairs to awaken, as she supposed, the old woman for the last tragic act of the drama. When she stood ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... in the lower hall beat seven times, and reflected that while four guests had been bidden to dinner only three had yet come, Wobbles was agitated. Mrs. Throcton, Mr. Maddledock's sister, and Miss Annie Throcton had arrived and were just coming downstairs from the dressing-room. Mr. Linden was in the parlor with Miss Maddledock, both looking as if all they asked was to be let alone. Mr. Maddledock was in the library walking up and down in a way that ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... perceive that Caroline was not only beautiful. She talked to him almost exclusively, for she had capriciously seated herself away from her lover, and next to her aunt. "Adela," she had whispered, going downstairs, "I shall look to you to talk to George all the evening, for I mean ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... o'clock something like midnight to him. He had been unable to sleep until after two o'clock, his usual time of turning in, and now this rude wakening seemed thoughtless cruelty. However, he dressed, and yawned himself downstairs. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... in, a man lay awake in pain not thirty yards distant. The lad lighted a candle, which he had brought with him, and it was then, while he collected a heap of long hemp and prepared to set it on fire, that John Best, in torture from toothache, went downstairs ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... seemed to him that he sat again in the rocking chair near the bed. Although he knew the room was dark, he had no difficulty in seeing everything perfectly. He heard, now quite plainly, the music and dancing downstairs, but what gave a ghastly significance to his dream was the sight of his own person on the bed. The eyes were half open, and the face was drawn and rigid. The colour of the face was the white, ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... insisted on calling on Gard up in the attic room, pleased to welcome such an "excellent person"—as he had heard downstairs—to the fold of the family. But did they not lead such dull, stagnant, imbecile lives, moored here in this stodgy, out-of-the-world suburb, where so many idiots live who wonder how the world can come to an end when it's round? Friedrich truly hoped ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... all His mercies! This day, our guest, Marmaduke Falmer, joined us downstairs in the sitting-room for the first time since ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... bestowed, they slipped downstairs, and, muffling the telephone, sat waiting for news, slipping out now and then to the street, one at a time, to watch the glare of the fire in the sky and to listen for the sounds ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... coming in with her patient's tea on a tray, and at sight of her the guests hurriedly took leave, Joe nearly tumbling downstairs to escape from Frank, who would have followed, if his mother had not said quickly, "Stay, and tell me ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the two burglars had been taken away by the police, Dick's father and mother looked at the White Rocking Horse where it lay on its side in the lower hall, after having fallen downstairs. ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... us. We can't both leave at once, of course, but old Mrs. Austin, downstairs, will be glad to have one or the other of us sit with her an occasional afternoon ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... in the morning the company began to decrease; the number of women especially dropped away home, some and some at a time; and the gentlemen retired downstairs, where they unmasked ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... taken with lightning-like rapidity by the superintendent; and as I turned I was startled by a man's thrusting into my hand something that felt like a brick, and shouting into my ear, "any knives, matches, or tobacco?" "No, sir," I lied, as lied every man who entered. As I passed downstairs to the cellar, I looked at the brick in my hand, and saw that by doing violence to the language it might be called "bread." By its weight and hardness it ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... emerged triumphant, exactly as his perfect charity and humility and amenity, and his long inward loneliness, of half a century, did. He had bowed his head and sometimes softly scratched it during that immense period; he had occasionally, after roaming downstairs with the troubled fold in his brow and the difficult, the smothered statement on his lips (his vocabulary was scant and stiff, the vocabulary of pleading explanation, often found too complicated ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the most barefaced effrontery, as well as the utmost cruelty, towards the old man, and Maryanne's words cut her father to the very soul. "Jones might have been anywhere for me," she continued; "but there he is downstairs, and Sarah Jane is with him. Of course they ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... some unpleasantness in the way of blood-spilling. After dinner, the senoritas are sure to come on deck. They've done so every night, and I hope they won't make this night an exception. If Don Gregorio and the skipper keep downstairs, and—" ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... deal harder before morning, lad, but I do not think it will be anything very severe. Things won't be so comfortable downstairs, for the next day or two, but that is likely to be ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... were stiff from the long ride, so he carefully shook them one after the other, and spoke pleasantly to a dog that was wandering about the Grand Place in a forlorn panic. Then he remembered why he had come to the place. There were wounded downstairs in ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... School. Just inside the door a number of notices were pinned up, lists of lectures, football fixtures, and the like; and these he looked at idly, trying to seem at his ease. Young men and boys dribbled in and looked for letters in the rack, chatted with one another, and passed downstairs to the basement, in which was the student's reading-room. Philip saw several fellows with a desultory, timid look dawdling around, and surmised that, like himself, they were there for the first time. When he had exhausted the notices he saw a glass door which led ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... strange events that are best chronicled in a few cold sentences. That night, I say, while honest men and boys slept, Mr. Fillet sat up in bed and listened. He distinctly heard movements in his study below. Jumping up, he slided into his carpet slippers and crept downstairs. There was a light in his study. He looked round the half-open door and saw the back view of a boy in pyjamas. The whole incident is much too sinister for me to remind you frivolously that little Carpet ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Baker wasted no time downstairs, but went directly to Lloyd's sitting room, and rapped softly on the door. In response to his knock, a nurse appeared in ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... fellow could manage a smudge and send it so fast and keep his spaces. The last word before it stopped was SAFE, or that's what it was meant to be, only the short flash for E didn't come. The fellows all began shouting when there wasn't any more, and I heard Pee-wee shout downstairs, "Aren't you going to put the name of ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... downstairs into the common room and supped off a smoked ham and a bottle of execrable wine. While he ate a man came in and sat him down by the fire. The man had a hot, flushed face, and when he saluted ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... what? The old pot-hook, I'd play him any game you like to name for a pony aside and back myself to the Day of Judgment. And he's the man who talks about bagging a Duke for his girl! Pshaw, Anna would kick the coronet downstairs in three days and the owner after it. You must know that for yourself—she's a little devil to rear and you can't touch her on the curb—eh, what, you've noticed ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... accomplishment is to carry up the newspaper, after it has been read by the gentleman downstairs, to his mistress in the drawing-room, when he receives a cake as his reward. He also may be seen carrying a basket after his mistress, with a biscuit in it, which he knows will be his in due time; but that if he misbehaves himself by gobbling it greedily ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... Samuel Barmby was waiting for her downstairs. He might have something to say which really concerned her. Better see him at once and get rid of him. With slow step she descended to the dining-room. The letter, folded and rolled, she carried ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... fled, and was coughing at the foot of the stairs, while all Peterhoff hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came in, and the head Chaprassi who speaks English came in, and mace-bearers came in, and ladies ran downstairs screaming, 'Fire'; for the smoke was drifting through the house and oozing out of the windows, and bellying along the verandahs, and wreathing and writhing across the gardens. No one could enter the room where Mellish was lecturing on his Fumigatory till that ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... retreat into the room. QUEEN MARIA LUISA'S lady-in-waiting and servant are summoned. Enter both. All three then muffle themselves up, and GODOY prepares to conduct the QUEEN downstairs.] ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and Amos, motioning to Mrs. Hackit to follow him, left the room. On their way downstairs she suggested that the carriage should remain to take them away again afterwards, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... a bustle heard downstairs, a peal of laughter and a perfect flood of chatter in a high, shrill voice, and with a bounding run up the staircase, Alicia burst into the room where the three ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... crowd, anxious to see Gottlieb and me on trial and to learn the nature of the evidence against us; and when our client left the stand—a pitiful, wilted human creature—and crawled out of the room, a jeering throng followed him downstairs and ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... here's my showings for her age. She was about the figure of two or three-and-twenty when a' got off the carriage last night, tired out wi' boaming about the country; and nineteen this morning when she came downstairs after a sleep round the clock and a clane-washed face: so I thought to myself, twenty-one, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... tonight," she said. "I am going downstairs. Will you give my rug and cushion to the deck steward? ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... poor guy downstairs was likely to be nowhere in the explosion which this last insult ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... on in a rush of confidence, "everybody in Martindale knows that I'm not a fighter. Those fellows downstairs think that I'm a sort of bad hombre. I'm not. Why, Allister, when I turned over Buck Heath and saw his face, I nearly ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... in the hall of a house in Eaton Square. She was going downstairs as I was making my way to the ball-room, and greeted me with a rather ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... did not appear at the early breakfast, eaten when the blue glow of dawn shed its ghostly lights upon the valley. The old mother placed various dishes on the back part of the stove. At ten o'clock he came downstairs. His mother was sweeping busily in the parlour at the time, but she saw him and ran to the back part of the stove. She slid the various dishes on to the table. "Did you ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... was busy about; but I noticed that my uncles were preparing for the expedition, putting some tools and a small lantern in a travelling-bag. After this Uncle Jack took it open downstairs ready for starting. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... tolerably well in health, but a good deal shaken in spirits.... I am expected downstairs, to read to them in the drawing-room something from Shakespeare; and our afternoon is promised to a cricket-match, for the edification of one of our party, who never saw one. I must therefore conclude.... Good-bye, dearest Harriet. As for me, to be once more in pure air, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the battle-field confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected, and full of a cold rage which steeled her ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to him; yet they defend all his errors and follies, and he affords them constant countenance and protection. However, the King was delighted by his reception at the theatres, and told Lady Bessborough, as he came downstairs, he never was ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... was a Liberal; for the second half he has been a Conservative; but his actual policy in Parliament has remained largely unchanged and consistent. His policy in Parliament is as follows: he takes a seat in a room downstairs at Westminster, and takes from his breast pocket an excellent cigar-case, from which in turn he takes an excellent cigar. This he lights, and converses with other owners of such cigars on equus celer or such matters as may afford him entertainment. ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... ushered by the most staid, most crisp of parlour-maids, not into Helen's own little sanctum downstairs, but into the drawing-room. It was a narrow room, running to the back of the house where a long window showed a ghostly tree in the fog outside, and it was very much crowded with over-large furniture gathered together from Miss Buchanan's past. There were chintz-covered chairs ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Garvin had had a premonition which she had not wholly confided to the rector. She had believed her husband never would come back; and early in the morning, in spite of all that Mrs. Breitmann could do, had insisted at intervals upon running downstairs and scanning the street. At half past seven Dr. Jarvis had come and himself carried down the child and put him in the back of his automobile. The doctor had had a nurse with him, and had begged the mother to accompany them to the hospital, saying that he would send her back. But she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Princess Alicia hurried downstairs again, to keep watch in the Queen's room. She often kept watch by herself in the Queen's room; but every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the King. And every evening the King sat looking at her with a cross look, wondering why ...
— The Magic Fishbone - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird, Aged 7 • Charles Dickens
... downstairs," thought the lad; and then, as if to prove it was not so easy, one of the stones, upon which he was bearing with his foot, slipped from its rotan tie and began to rustle ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... but Meinik was obstinate and, seeing that the faithful Burman was not to be moved, he reluctantly left the matter in his hands, and went downstairs. He moved a short distance along the ledge, and waited. The time seemed an age to him, so that he gave an exclamation of delight when Meinik suddenly came into sight, and took his ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... did not notice him at the station at all. I saw that he was sitting at the same table downstairs as this gentleman, but I am quite sure that I have never seen him before ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wants to prove the correctness of this observation let him watch himself, especially if it is necessary for him to go downstairs to get to the station, while he is walking down the steps. The drawing back or contracting of the muscles, as if they were intelligently trying to prevent us from reaching the train on time, is most remarkable. Of course all that impeding contraction comes from ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... head; and they went downstairs in silence. "Hallo!" said he, as he opened the door, "it is raining. Let ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... curieuse tings. You talk much of de Anglish ladies. Vel, des are passablement bien; but des all get dronk ven des can. Je sais bien vy des go upstairs before de gentlehommes!—it is dat des may drink at dere ease. Ha, ha, dat is vot des do; you drink downstairs, des drink upstairs." ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... within, real hunger, unknown to her of late, added to this healthy view, without precipitating her to appease it; she was more inclined to foster it, for the sake of the sinewy activity of mind and limb it gave her; and in the style of young ladies very light of heart, she went downstairs like a cascade, and like the meteor observed in its vanishing trace she alighted close to Colonel De Craye and entered one of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the door bell, and presently a servant admitted them, and, whispering something in Sarah's ear, drew her downstairs into the kitchen. The other Ruggleses stood in horror-stricken groups as the door closed behind their commanding officer; but there was no time for reflection, for a voice from above was heard, saying, ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of her many admirers that I had insulted her. One morning I would come downstairs to be slapped in the face before a hotel full of people and what could I do? It would be a case of pistols and ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Monty from below; but it was altogether too late for advice. Will gathered himself like a spring, and hurled the Greek downstairs backward. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... and we went downstairs together. I turned off the hall into an old-fashioned panelled room, and there standing, I heard all the servant had to tell. It was ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... protected from the dangers which threatened them, when she was startled by hearing the footsteps of several persons approaching the room. Before she had time to secure the door, they burst it open, and one of them, throwing a cloak over her, bore her downstairs. In vain she struggled—in vain she cried out. Overawing the servants, they hurried her into the streets, and carried her rapidly along till they reached the door of a large house which stood open. They entered, and she was conveyed upstairs into a handsome room, when she was placed on a sofa and ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... summons had been answered by most of the boys, Bruce hurried downstairs and proceeded to get "Old Nanc," the troop's homemade automobile, ready for service. Into it he loaded all the manila rope he could lay hands on, as well as blocks and pulleys, chains, crowbars, axes, sledges and everything else that might ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... yourself up into such a state," murmured Louis at length. "But I should like to know whether the scullery door was open or not, when you came downstairs ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... time past three o'clock. Feeling hungry, for they had eaten nothing since early morning, Maskull went downstairs to forage, but without much hope of finding anything in the shape of food. In a safe in the kitchen he discovered a bag of mouldy oatmeal, which was untouchable, a quantity of quite good tea in an airtight caddy, and an unopened can of ox tongue. Best of all, in the dining-room cupboard he ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... left him on the Clyde, and went on about my work. But I went back to Dunoon as often as I could, as I got a day or a night to make the journey. At first there was small change of progress. John would come downstairs about the middle of the day, moving slowly and painfully. And he was listless; there was no life in him; no ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... the ladies at tea in the drawing-room, while the gentlemen were down in the yard to see a young horse of blood which had just arrived from the stud. We suddenly heard a noise of distress; I hastened downstairs, and found the horse so unruly that nobody durst approach or mount him. The most resolute horsemen stood dismayed and aghast; despondency was expressed in every countenance, when, in one leap, I was on his back, took ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... shinned up the ladder, drew it after them, closed the panel and the trap in the floor above it, replaced the carpet and pushed over the place a heavy bedstead from which they took the castors. They now carried the ladder downstairs and concealed it in the coal house as they went through it on their way home. They will get their pay ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... to this lad a horse was brought to the door of Bazin's house. It was saddled and bridled. Almost immediately Bazin came downstairs. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
