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Nervously   Listen
adverb
Nervously  adv.  In a nervous manner.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nervously" Quotes from Famous Books



... little. About thirty had been taken now, and the black senior hats were visibly fewer, but the upturned boy faces seemed exactly the same. Only they grew more anxious minute by minute; minute by minute they turned more nervously this way and that as the seniors worked through the mass. And as another and another crashed from among them blind and solemn and happy with his guardian senior close after, the ones who were left seemed to drop into deeper ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... de Suede through a fat jewelled hand and, at once pressing and gliding, repeated over and over everything but the thing he would have liked to hear. He would have liked to hear the figure of his salary; but just as he was nervously about to sound that note the little boy came back—the little boy Mrs. Moreen had sent out of the room to fetch her fan. He came back without the fan, only with the casual observation that he couldn't find it. As he dropped this cynical confession ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... mate shortly. "I want to speak to you very particularly," he said nervously, and led his listener aft, followed by three of the crew who came to clean the brasswork, and who listened mutinously when they were ordered to defer unwonted industry to a more fitting time. The deck clear, the mate began, and in a long rambling ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... at Marian, and saw that though Douglas was speaking to her in a low voice, she was listening nervously to her husband. So she said sharply, "It is a pity you were not here to tell us what ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... timidly foxy, the latter knowingly pompous, and floridly self-important; Builder, in dusty suit of dittoes, carries one hand in his breeches-pocket, where he chinks certain metallic substances—which may be coins or keys—nervously and intermittently. Surveyor, a burly mass of broadcloth and big watch-chain, carries an intimidating note-book, and a menacing pencil, making mems. in a staccato and stabbing fashion, which ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... statement, and yet unable to contradict it, Pruyn continued his march for a minute or two in silence, while Miss Lucilla waited nervously for him to speak again. It was one of the few points in the round of daily existence on which she was prepared to give him battle. It was part of the ridiculous irony of life that Derek, with the domestic incompetency natural ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... it was over. Yet there had been amazing truth in what he had said, and it came to the two visitors with the force of newness. As he mopped his perspiring brow with a large handkerchief and sat down, adjusting his collar and necktie nervously, they watched him, and marvelled again that he had been willing to be put in so trying a position. There had been a genuineness about him that brought conviction. This young man really believed in Christ and that He ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... had paid for them. Hence a continued traffic on the road. Some stalwart fellow, in a loin-cloth, and glistening with sweat, may be seen at all hours of the day, a stick across his bare shoulders, tripping nervously under a double burthen of green fruits. And on the far side of the gap a dozen stone posts on the wayside in the shadow of a grove mark the breathing-space of the popoi-carriers. A little back from the beach, and not half a mile from ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the bishop was there, sitting all alone and looking as wretched as a man could. His face was grey and drawn—he had aged so markedly since Mrs Pendle's garden-party that Mr Cargrim was quite shocked—and he started nervously when his chaplain glided into the room. A nerve-storm, consequent on his interview with Mother Jael, had exhausted the bishop's vitality, and he seemed hardly able to lift his head. The utter prostration of the man would have appealed to anyone save Cargrim, but that astute young parson ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... awake from the new impressions and sensations of freedom into which the past two days had plunged me. Dimitri was in his kind and sociable mood. That is to say, he was neither frowning nor blinking nervously nor straightening his neck in his collar. For my own part, I was congratulating myself on those noble sentiments which I have expressed above, in the belief that they had led him to overlook my shameful encounter with Kolpikoff, and to refrain ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... gray eyes lifted to her face. The shaking, bony hands clutched nervously at the crystal. The eyes stared unseeingly into the girl's face for some moments, then slowly the fever crept into them again—the fever which the doctor ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... Miss Amy," he answered nervously; "an', if they was poisoned, me or you might be took up. We'd best ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... reporter who, having been warned that the Premier of Canada never gave interviews, boasted that he would break the rule. After half an hour the American reporter came out to his confreres of the press gallery, sat down at a typewriter, lighted three or four cigarettes, nervously aware that he was being watched for the forthcoming article, and after spoiling a number of sheets and tearing them all up he confessed, "Well, boys, I thought I was pumping Laurier, but it's a cinch he spent most ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... hearthstone, eyeing her askance, then he swept his brow where the cold perspiration lay in beads;—then turned to her again with a world of love for her in his eyes and a great crushing self-pity; and the menials looked away from the abject misery they beheld in their lord's face; Tompkins fumbled nervously with his burden, daring not to look up; Janet leant forward, intent, pained, sorrowing, scanning the two countenances she loved best on earth. His Lordship stretched forth his arms and with a great ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... Jess, having hard work to keep her teeth from nervously chattering, despite the heat of the day, "Who do you suppose ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison

... of thunder almost smothered her words, and the girls started nervously. The three glanced apprehensively at Amy, but she smiled bravely ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... for there was no elasticity in her motions now; through the melancholy anxiety her face always wore of late, there came the worried look of one driven almost beyond endurance, and her hands began to tremble nervously as she tied on her bonnet. Mrs. Flint was a hard woman, and dunned her debtors relentlessly; Christie dreaded the sight of her, and would have left the house had she been free ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... Watching his hearer nervously to see how he would receive this important avowal, Master Doe flushed when he saw no signs of emotion on Baptist's countenance. He didn't like thinking he had made himself look a fool. Probably Baptist perceived ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... come Uncle Josh and Aunt Jane, and not a bed in the house is made!" Mrs. Upton glanced nervously at the clock—then about to strike eleven—surveyed with dismay the disordered kitchen, looked through the open door into the dining-room, where the unwashed breakfast dishes were yet standing, took her hands out of the dough and ran to wash them at ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... Nelson in regard to the subject-matter of their previous dispute, was met by an insulting refusal to listen. It now appears that when Nelson made this offensive remark, Davis threw a small paper ball that he was nervously rolling between his fingers into Nelson's face, and that this insult was returned by Nelson slapping Davis (Killed by a Brother Soldier.—Gen. J. B. Fry.) in the face. But at the time, exactly what ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... distinction lies in the fact that while most of the other writers sprang from the country regions, being members of the landed gentry class, Dostoevsky represents the plebeian, toiling class of society, a nervously choleric son of the town; and in the second place, while the majority of them were well-to-do, Dostoevsky alone in the company belonged to the class of educated strugglers with poverty, which had ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... ink upon the bosom of her white dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon the hand with which she stood before him, nervously plaiting and ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where she had risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childish remembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... transitory, appeared from other concurrent anecdotes of Canning, reported by gentlemen from Liverpool, who described to us most graphically and picturesquely the wayward fitfulness (not coquettish, or wilful, but nervously overmastering and most unaffectedly distressing) which besieged this great artist in oratory, and the time approached—was coming—was going, at which the private signal should have been shown for proposing his health. Mr. P. (who had been, I think, the mayor on the particular occasion ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... silence, the only sound the wind. The girl gripped the back of the seat nervously with both hands, holding her breath; the Sergeant, the outline of his face silhouetted against the sky, stared motionless into the night without. Suddenly, not making a sound, he lifted the rifle to ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... over the wronged, insulted, humiliated beauty. She longed to fly from the world. She asked her father to leave Grassmere and go to some other farm a hundred miles away. She asked him suddenly, nervously, and so impetuously that the old ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... not keep the laughter out of her eyes; she nervously tapped her lips with her handkerchief, to keep it from them. Suddenly she halted Sewell, in his dejected progress toward the door. "I might give ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... Pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an envelope and addressed it. It wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it would serve ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

... shell of silence. She cast a fleeting glance at Myra Karr, nervously trying to obey Mary Hastings' directions and "act like a frog"—then her eyes searched again for Olga, now far out ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... unable to face his audience, then, with an effort, he raised his hand, nervously pushing back the white folds of his unaccustomed cowl, and casting a look of perplexity over the sea of faces before him; but the expression of trouble slowly cleared away as his eyes met those of a friar, grave and bent, who had stepped out from the company of the Servi and ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... Schofield, I presume," he announced, thrusting his hand nervously into his pocket and bringing out a fistful of papers. So eager and excited was he that, unnoticed, he dropped one flimsy sheet, many times folded, into ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... distaste. That they should come to her to-day, when she cared for nothing in the world but the lost papers, was an irony of fate. She did not return to the boudoir. She forgot the mystery of the open door, and neglected to close it. She was nervously anxious to excuse herself to Sister Lake. Above all, it was her duty to defend Clo. She must confess that it was upon her errand the girl had ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... itself in a grimace of incredulity. He had a conspicuously wide mouth, and its trick of sidelong extension at this moment was very unpleasant. "Ah, Herr Je! He never heard it," he ejaculated, turning nervously to the Marquis. "Would to the good God you never had!" he told Thorpe, with ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... secret terrible!" exploded the old man, who was nervously standing first on one foot and ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... short and quick, and she fingered her reticule nervously. She had not thought it would be quite so dreadful as this. "Judge," she said—and paused, frightened at the sound of her voice, which seemed to echo in a ghostly manner through the ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... mind whether he should ask to see this play, as, no doubt, he was expected to do. He looked rather stealthily at Rodney, who was tapping the coal nervously with a poker, and quivering almost physically, so Denham thought, with desire to talk about this play of his, and vanity unrequited and urgent. He seemed very much at Denham's mercy, and Denham could not help liking him, partly on ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... carefully prepared place between the lining and the material of his coat. Of the others he commenced to make a close and minute investigation. It was a curious fact, however, that notwithstanding his recent searching examination, he looked once more nervously around the saloon before he settled down to his task. For some reason or other, there was not the slightest doubt that for the present, at any rate, Mr. Hamilton Fynes was exceedingly anxious to keep his own company. As he drew nearer to his journey's end, indeed, his manner seemed to lose ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... front-line trenches, massed troops crouched expectantly. Clustered on every air base were flights of planes, each one crammed with bombs. Far behind, the Yank gun-crews edged nervously up to their mighty charges, and fingered anxiously the stubby gas shells which soon would be flung through ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... in her sister's, which closed on it nervously. "I would marry him that very minute, of course. But such things ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... and she wore long black silk mitts. She had made her toilette with great care, and she now stood on the hearth rug, nervously opening and shutting a small ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks

... rummaged his pockets for half-crowns and two-shilling pieces. Finding only two or three, he changed his mind and put back the gold-piece just in time to avoid the eye of the page, who came to take the offering back to Miss Tucker. Appleton twisted his mustache nervously, and walked slowly toward the anteroom with no definite idea in mind, save perhaps that she might issue from her retreat and recognize him as she passed. (As a matter of fact she had never once noticed him on the steamer, but the poor wretch was unconscious of that misfortune!) The page came ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... it. I had hoped," said Mary Isabel with a sigh, as she braided some silvery shore-grasses nervously together, "that when old Mr. Moody went away she would go back to the church here. And ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... weeks later a copy of the Matrimonial Journal was forwarded to A.B.C., P.O. Box 17, Carcajou, Ontario, Canada. Miss Sophy McGurn retired with it to her room, looked nervously out of the window, lest any one might have observed her, and searched the pages feverishly. Yes! There it was! Her ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... with dull unseeing eyes at the table, "has an important errand at his home. His home is in Pleasantville, N.Y. That is not far from New York City. We are really perplexed as to whether we ought to let him go." Justice Higginbotham nervously clenched his fist ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... and stamp his tiny, foot in an odd mixture of curiosity and defiance. The mother had to circle back twice before he followed her, at last, unwillingly. As she stole back each time, her tail was down and wiggling nervously—which is the sure sign, when you see it, that some scent of you is floating off through the woods and telling its warning into the deer's keen nostrils. But when she jumped away the white flag was straight ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... grew shrewd in speculation, his tongue clicking nervously. Marshall Sothern's shaggy brows lowered a bit; Madden and Hasbrook had looked from Drennen to each other and to him; he alone kept his eyes hard upon the man making his way with unsteady stubbornness up ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... Lieutenant Mackinson nervously began tapping the key again, but the only reply was the insistent call for J-X, which was the code ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... troops and of the officers who command them is reviewed. He weighs character. He knows who are reliable and who inefficient. He studies, examines papers, consults reports, makes calculations, sits abstractedly, walks nervously, and lies down to dream it all over ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... like to see the rose bush to which my sister referred," began the minister nervously as they stepped out upon the lawn. "It is a very fine rose, but pink, I regret to say, pink. It is unfortunate that Annabel should dislike pink so much. I think myself that a pink rose is very pretty. Something a little different from the ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... they had no business to be, instead of being somewhere else. Would any one kindly tell him why the Guards were not somewhere else? And Churchill (he has a face like a good-natured child, and looks about fourteen) eyes the old colonels, who fidget nervously round the fire like disturbed hens. He talks and argues incessantly, but very cleverly. Before he goes he dashes off a sketch of South Africa's future with a few words about farming and gold-mining. He gives us a cup of hot cocoa all round, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... into the house to wash her hands, slip off her gardening-apron, and change her shoes. When this very hasty toilet was completed, she walked to the practising-room and entered nervously. Two ladies were sitting near the piano, with their backs to the window. They were not fashionably dressed, but perhaps they were cold, for both wore their large coat collars turned up. Their felt hats had wide floppy brims. One carried a guide to ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... I just stood there," said Nan, her eyes searching nervously for the reappearance of the two men on deck. "I guess I was just too surprised or frightened to speak, for the shadow on the door was that of a man, and he was trying ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... want to go now," said Mary nervously. She hurriedly donned her hat and rushed down to the street. Bobbie was waiting for her, as he ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... down by the stream, and Fenwick, taking up some pebbles, began to drop them nervously into the water. Phoebe, beside him, clasped her hands round her knees; in a full light it would have been seen that the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and as I looked from my window at the great fires blazing in the forest, my fear of his burning came upon me again. At Spokane I waited with great anxiety for him to arrive. At last the train drew in and I hurried to his car. The door was closed, and as I nervously forced it open he whinnied with that glad chuckling a gentle horse uses toward his master. He had plenty of hay, but was hot and thirsty, and I hurried at risk of life and limb to bring him cool water. His eyes seemed ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... everything being pretty easy on deck and the ship breasting the gale like a duck, but Mr Fosset's face, I noticed, looked grave and he answered the other in a more serious fashion than his general wont, his mouth working nervously in the pale moonlight that lent him a more pallid air as the words dropped from his lips, making his countenance, indeed, almost like ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... mother at the breakfast table, struck alarm to her heart. He was silent, and evaded all her questions. While they still sat at the table, the door bell rang loudly. The sound startled James, and he turned his head nervously ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... this. I was only dreaming, dear. Why, no, of course you could not have married me—never could—never, never! I know that well enough now. You see I have been ill," nervously plucking at his hands, "and have had strange fancies, and I do not know myself or anything about me quite yet. But forget it all. It was only a sick fancy, and I thought what did ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... the dancing, dear,' said Christine nervously. It was scarcely a part of their strategy that Roger should come in and find the old lady backing her fancy at ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... on the grass, with his back against a tree, watched the two generals as they talked long and earnestly. Now and then Stuart nervously switched the tops of his own high riding boots with the little whip that he carried, but the face of Lee, revealed clearly in the near twilight, remained ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... was the cold script to the actuality? It was no use, the attempt to read. Kwaiba's face interposed. "Oh! That salute! The very idea of that terrible salute, the contact with corruption!" He was as if plunged in an icy bath. He started nervously. It was but rain dashing against the amado, rattling and twisting in the gale. He could not sleep. That night he would watch. The fire was hot in the hibachi (brazier). He went to the closet to get some tea. On opening it he sprang back with a shout of ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... head he could see her hands, as they lay upon her knees. She was moving them nervously. "You ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... fact, when, the next morning, no news coming of the absentees, he was impelled to question his flock somewhat precisely concerning them. There was the usual shy silence which follows a general inquiry from the teacher's desk; the children looked at one another, giggled nervously, and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... in their places, leaning nervously forward. This was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting into a panel by itself with black lines around it—and they were sure he ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... Then, nervously, he began to say things, to pay her the barefaced, far from subtle, compliments that had served him once or twice before on similar occasions (if any occasion could be called similar). Addressed to her, they seemed somehow inadequate. He said ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... not that the lady does not command our favor," declared the spokesman, very pale now and drumming nervously with his fingers on the edge of a blotting pad. "Those of us who have met her are charmed with her manners and appearance, and our only regret is that Providence did not ordain that her birthplace should be on the right ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... fifteen dollars, mother. Tad Butler, with flashing eyes and heightened color, laid two crisp new one dollar bills in his mother's hand, and nervously brushed a shock of hair from ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin

... know whether to open it, or not," he debated nervously. "I want to know what's in it, an' I'm scared to find out. I'm a good mind to throw it overboard and ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various

... come for the boy to leave his old surroundings, and, besides study, have a moderate amount of the best society, too. Pen, who was thoroughly out of harmony with his present surroundings, gloomily said he would go, and in consequence of this decision not many weeks later the widow and Laura nervously set about filling trunks with his books, and linen, and making all necessary preparation for his departure, writing cards with the name of Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, which were duly nailed on the boxes; at which both the widow and Laura looked with ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... around the room quickly and nervously, then drew Dr. Ravenshaw to the door with a glance. "I should like to go upstairs before the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... and a pen in his hand. They could even catch the look of sympathy on his face as he listened attentively. Suddenly Lenora almost broke off. She gripped Laura by the arm. The door of the study had been opened slowly, and Craig, carrying a bundle, paused for a moment on the threshold. He glanced nervously towards the Professor, who seemed unaware of his entrance. Then he moved stealthily towards the fireplace, stooped down and committed something to the flames. The relief on his face, as he ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Sir Matthew paused. Once more his eyes took in the room. Where was the enemy? Just behind him, in his usual place, sat Tarleton at his table covered with papers. The secretary's face was white and drawn; he was twisting his small moustache nervously; his eyes were fixed on the chairman with ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... at her nervously. He had never known her so queer before. Perhaps it was some literary allusion that he had not caught; but her face did not at that moment suggest literature. In the differential tones that one uses to an old and infirm person ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to the average experience which is never ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... laughed nervously. "I ought to be ashamed of myself," she said, "you ought to be at the police station now. But I'm all worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody. I don't let the neighbors in much—it's a cheap set of ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... vanished from view he walked nervously up and down the beach for a short time; then noticing the presence of a moving light not more than half a mile down the shore he remembered what he had heard Mr. Frazer say about the wreckers being ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster

... It was only after she passed by him that he looked up and thus he did not see the angry glance she gave him before she moved on. He looked after her. She tottered slightly just before reaching the door and flung it to behind her nervously. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... than that. He waited for her to resume. At a loss, she sat in silence awhile, a pucker on her white brow, her fingers nervously drumming on the table. At last she flung herself headlong against the impassive, polished ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... too," added Herse nervously. "It is only natural. There are no images of the gods in this Christian hovel. Away, hateful serpent! We are honest folks and will not agree to any vile baseness. Here is my amulet, Karnis; if the daemon comes again you must turn ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to rock with the fearless certainty of a chamois. Her only stumble was caused, she recollected, by an absurd effort to avoid wetting her dress. She laughed nervously when they reached the place. This time Jenks lifted her across the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... hunting in the forest of Rouen, he got the news of Harold's coronation—play with his bow, stringing and unstringing it nervously, till he had made up his mighty mind? Then did he go home to his lodge, and there spread on the rough oak board a parchment map of England, which no child would deign to learn from now, but was then good enough to guide armies to victory, because ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... escaped some serious peril, Olga could not have worn a more agitated look. Her hand resisted Otway's approach; she would not seat herself, but moved nervously hither and thither, her eyes constantly turning to the door. It was in vain that Piers laughed at the incident, asking what it could possibly matter to them that some person had wished to see Miss Bonnicastle, and had gone away thinking no one was within; Olga made ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... bit nervously. He had not forgotten the fight in the canyon, although, as he knew, coyotes, only on the very rarest occasions, when driven ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... to be neighborly," said he, nervously lowering his voice, for he was conscious of his wife, still standing on the veranda. "Thought I'd just step along, too. I cal'late mebbe you'd like comp'ny on his bail bond," and he jerked ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... of sunlight seemed to cut the bed in two, shining just on the hands, which were moving nervously, continually opening and closing. The fingers were twitching as though moved by some thought, as though trying to point out a meaning or idea, as though obeying the dictates of a will. The rest of the body lay motionless under the sheets. The angular frame showed not a single ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... They will wonder at and feel a superstitious admiration for us, and feel proud to be led by men so powerful and wise that a handful of them can subject a flock a thousand millions strong. Gradually men will begin to fear us. They will nervously dread our slightest anger, their intellects will weaken, their eyes become as easily accessible to tears as those of children and women; but we will teach them an easy transition from grief and tears to laughter, childish joy and mirthful song. Yes; we will ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky

... as he spoke, and saw a sudden gleam of fear or excitement light up his dull eyes for a moment, whilst his fingers clutched nervously at the sheet, but that was ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... across at his younger son and nodded; and Chris, his chin on his hand, and sitting very upright on the long-backed settle beside the chaplain, began rather nervously and abruptly. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... of the party nervously, "what's the good of that kind of talk? They ain't any sense in hunting trouble, that ever I heard of!" He glanced over ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... quit the house," she muttered, drawing her veil over her eyes, of which the lids nervously trembled. "I cannot ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... here she changed her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a suit belonging to her foster-brother. Making her way southward, she went to the inn at Belford where the riders carrying the mail usually put up for the night. Here, the same night, came the postman, and the seeming youth watched nervously, but determinedly, for an opportunity of finding out whether the fateful paper was in his bag or not. No slightest chance presented itself, however, and an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night failed by reason of the fact that the man slept upon it. One ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... and are talking perfect nonsense." Tamara laughed nervously. "I refuse to be the least upset ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... is contemplated will be perfectly clear, I believe, when I ask you to survey with me the dangers of war which we have met in the past forty years without having become nervously excited at ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... Her mouth twitched nervously, but she managed to say, "Good-morning, Mr. Houghton, I'm in haste," and on she went. He saw her head go down. Was she laughing or crying? The latter possibility brought him to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... Drake and I got very close to our mother on the sofa, but Walter lounged nervously about, trying to appear, I think, as if such an affair—a parting for six months—were nothing to such a big fellow as he. Aggie came and held my hand. When our father had taken his usual seat, he and our mother commenced to give us careful instructions ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... woman chanced to be tapping half-carelessly, half-nervously, with her key on the panel of her door. It meant nothing to her comrade, but to the passing man it resolved itself into an intelligible and coherent message. For it was in Morse, and to his trained and adept ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... lady immediately quieted at the words of the mulierose man and instead of berating him, coughed nervously and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... well for the purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; he was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslatable word "bosh." As he could make nothing of this, he gazed appealingly at the benignant features of Mr. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... she said, trying to speak quite naturally, but conscious of a shrinking embarrassment which made her cheeks nervously flush. 'The door was open, so I came right in. How are ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... though they were flattered by Ida's invitation, looked forward rather nervously to the evening of the party. For the first time they were to meet and mingle on terms of equality with a large number of young people who had been brought up very differently from themselves. Dick could not help remembering ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the jungle trees hung over here and there lower and lower in the great tunnel of greenery, so cramped in size that there seemed to be only just room for the elephant to pass along, Peter kept on looking back nervously, half-expecting to see his companion swept away from ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... of September approached—the day Pollyanna was to arrive—Mrs. Ruth Carew became more and more nervously exasperated with herself. She declared that she had regretted just ONCE her promise to take the child—and that was ever since she had given it. Before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her sister demanding that she be released from the ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... jumped as nervously as Betty would have done. Poor Betty! She must be almost at the landing by this time. At that very moment a little quavering voice rang ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... looking for old comrades, encountered the unremembered eyes of strangers—for they were strangers—this tall young man, with his gray eyes, pleasantly fashioned mouth, and cleanly moulded cheeks; and this long-limbed girl, who sat, knees crossed, one long, slim foot nervously swinging above its ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... had thrust an old guitar in his hands, and he stood nervously picking at the strings. He might have been standing there still had not the moon come to his rescue. It climbed slowly out of the sea and sent a shimmer of silver and gold over the water, across the deck, and into his eyes. He forgot himself ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... this, flame out in Irish enthusiasm and with Irish sincerity, to a benefactor, who, if a man of sense and respectability, as well as kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it; and, if of a nervously fastidious nature, as some are, may be led to think almost as much less favorably of the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude, as if he had been guilty of its contrary, instead only of an indiscretion. But, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, though the shut-up room had but lately ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... the pistol on the mantel-piece, and nervously resealed the letter, which he then took to the box where the letters were usually left, not wishing anyone to know that Raoul's letter had passed through ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... Louis sat back in his chair, his thin lips mumbling nervously at his nails, his eyes fixed on his own handwriting: the ring, a passport to life or death, he had at once slipped upon his finger. Every moment he knew he was watched, every action weighed, and he ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... the rest, a sneer on his lips, though his eyes burned with a deep fire. If he had taken a step, hands would have been thrust out to stop him. But he did not move except, in the midst of Liane Devereux's story, to play nervously with an old-fashioned ring of twisted, jewel-headed serpents on the third finger of his ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... may have been the remains of a neolithic altar. The pool below was dark and boggy and brown with peat. She took a good-sized pebble, and flung it into the middle with a terrific splash. Ingred, giggling nervously, counted the bubbles. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... between them, striding. Just as they emerged into Dean's Yard, his left hand nervously exploring one of his pockets, on a sudden encountered a ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... nervously at the end of his rug. She looked up and down along the row of chairs. There were one or two slumbering forms, but most were empty. There were no promenaders ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... writing to Broussard startled and overwhelmed Anita. She glanced about her nervously, fearing Mrs. Lawrence's words had been overheard, and stammered and blushed. But the woman, lying wan and weak in the bed, did ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... and uncommon," she returned, musingly, "and it has this one advantage, it hardly sounds like a Christian name; if you are sure you do not object, perhaps I will use it, but," speaking a little nervously, "you need not have worn this," pointing to my cap. "You remember I said so ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... and dashed away. General Joffre paced up and down nervously. Finally, at the approach of rapid footsteps, he raised his head. A group of officers were approaching. One of them advanced right up to the general and saluted, and even as he did so the sound of a bugle rang out, ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... glancing nervously toward her aunt. "You've no idea how upset Aunt Marcia is already," she whispered. "She'll be distracted if she gets an ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... said she, nervously breaking the white bread cake at her side, "that with so small a distance between Bute and Gigha, you might surely have come to visit your brother long ere this present time. For although Earl Hamish ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... outlines I could only dimly see in the faint light of the street lamp, leaned toward me. The same small hand nervously reached out, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... bashfulness, as if every one in the enormous gathering were looking at her, watching her. She cast down her eyes, wrapped her white robe close about her, hiding her hands under it, and shrank into her arm-chair. For a while, for a long while, she fanned herself nervously, very slowly, and striving to appear calm. Gradually she became calm and laughed to herself at her own folly, realizing that ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... demanded Ogilvy, playing nervously with a gold pencil on the polished table. He was one of those Americans who in a commercial atmosphere become prematurely white, and today his boyish, smooth-shaven face was almost as devoid of colour as his hair. Even Leonard Dickinson showed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days when such a visit was a ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... at my crutch, sir,' he said nervously; 'but I shall soon throw it away. I am ever so much better now, am ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... actually in sight of the cottage, the child had betrayed no memory of her own; though as they entered Langdale her chatter ceased, and her eyes sped nervously from side to side, considering the woods and fells and whitewashed farms. As they stopped, however, at the foot of the steep pitch leading to the little house, Carrie suddenly caught sight of it—the slate porch, the yew-tree to the right, the sycamore ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... hardest thing in the world to do the least bit of good," groaned the Parson, as he broke a twig off the hedge nervously, snapped it in two, and flung the fragments on the road-one of them hit the donkey on the nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin, he would have said, "Et tu, Brute!" As it was, he hung down his ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... the platform. Outside they found a lovely cariage lined with olive green cushons to match the footman and the horses had green bridles and bows on their manes and tails. They got gingerly in. Will he bring our luggage asked Ethel nervously. ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... seemed to me that this person was quite white, and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite blankly upon a place, a kind of mist in which reason could not live; and it was the fear of this that made them fumble nervously at the lock of that rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was not so ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... did see her once in the Champs-Elysees. I was walking with you and my father. A gentleman and lady came toward us; you became excited, quickened your steps, and clutched nervously at my father's arm, and I heard you say in a low voice, "Don't look ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... was stronger than she, and kissed her. It was the second time he had ever done it. Her eyes flashed angrily, but that was instantly past, and she fell upon a chair crying as if her heart would break, her hands dropping nervously by her sides; for this was that miserable, desolate sorrow which does not care to hide its ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... waist-coat. Under his arm he carried a large parcel, which he proceeded to open, and placed upon a sofa the contents, consisting of a couple of coats, and three or four waistcoats and a pair of trousers. He saluted Sanders with a most obsequious bow, looked nervously at Jack, who opened one eye from between his master's legs and growled, and then, turning to Drysdale, asked if he should have the honor of seeing him try ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... his unconcerned air; her faintly-quickened pulses sank into quietness; it seemed childish to have been so nervously sensitive in meeting Harold Gwynne. She felt thoroughly ashamed of herself, and was afraid lest her shyness might have conveyed to him and to his mother the impression, which she would not for worlds have given,—that she bore any painful or ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... Departmental Governor. His face was deeply serious, and his demeanor expressed the utmost gravity. In his hand he held a despatch. The Governor sat at his desk, nervously fumbling ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Knight drummed lightly and nervously on the table-cloth. Mrs. Knight sniffed, threw back her head so that the tears should not fall out of her eyes, and gently patted the baby's back with her right hand. Aunt Annie hesitated whether to ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... to their garments; others had the blue, ghostly look of unwonted early risers, shivering with the chill morning air and the faint heart which a fasting stomach entails; some, the latest comers of all, were quite breathless, and were nervously holding on to the gloves, veils, shawls, or over-shoes caught up at the last moment and only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... a minute or two in silence, the General running his fingers nervously through his ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... something to do with the curse?" I inquired after a short pause, and nervously I remembered my father's experience on that subject, and I had never before dared to allude to it in the presence of any member of the family. My nervousness was fully warranted. The gloom on Alan's ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... moments of persuasion were necessary before she could be induced to lean back and allow Dr. Babb's fingers on her nose while she breathed the laughing-gas; but, once settled, the expression faded from her countenance almost as quickly as a magic-lantern picture vanishes. I watched her nervously, my attention divided between her vacant-looking face and a dreadful picture on the wall. It represented Dr. Babb himself, minus the hair, but with double the number of smiles, standing by a patient from whose mouth he had apparently just extracted ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... spontaneity to much of his dialogue. When he attained popular fame, he threw off his dramas—whether original or adapted from the French and German—with a rapidity and ease that did much to create a false impression as to his haste and casualness. But Fitch, though a nervously quick worker, was never careless. He pondered his dramas long, he carried his characters in mind for years, he almost memorized his dialogue before he set it down on paper. And if he wrote in his little note-books with the same staccato speed that an artist sketches, it was merely because ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch

... walked across to the bench and sat down. Mary looked up from her dolls, and then, nervously and self-consciously, went back to her play. Sarah ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... blinked behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and he moved uneasily from one foot to the other, while his fingers played nervously with ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... leaped forward, gathering speed to an extent that was a revelation in motoring to Ffrench. The keen air, the giddy rush through the dark, were a sobering tonic. After a while he spoke to the man beside him, nervously embarrassed by a situation he ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram

... Emory. He had taken his Sunday dinner at the old house in I Street for almost a quarter of a century. To-day he had been unusually silent, and had contracted his brows nervously every time Betty looked at him. She understood perfectly, and amused herself by turning round upon him several times with abrupt significance. However, she spared him until they had taken Mrs. Madison to the parlor and gone to the library, where ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... too, with such moods, psychologically at least, his visions of the "arrested moment", as in "Dining-Room Tea", — a sort of trance state — or in the pendant sonnet. Analogous moods are not infrequent in the great poets. Rupert Brooke seems to have faltered, nervously, at times; these poems mirror faithfully such moments. But even when the image of life, imaginative or real, falters so, how essentially vital it still is, and clothed in an exquisite body of words like the traditional "rainbow hues of the dying fish"! For I cannot express too strongly my ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... had made the point that her aunt designed her for Lord Mark: it had only sufficiently come out—which had been, moreover, eminently guessable—that she was involved in her aunt's designs. Somehow, for Milly, brush it over nervously as she might and with whatever simplifying hand, this abrupt extrusion of Mr. Densher altered all proportions, had an effect on all values. It was fantastic of her to let it make a difference that she couldn't in the least have defined—and she was at least, even during these instants, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... She glanced nervously at Maggie, who had taken up a book and was pretending to read. "He came and he spoke to me. He was very, very kind, and he made ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... neck, with a locket, or a cross, or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden under her dress. Once or twice, while she sat silently thinking, she removed one of her hands from before her face, and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon, clutching at it with a half-angry gesture, and twisting it backward and ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... after the soldiers gathered up their dead and wounded, they went each their own way along the ravine, now blue with the evening fog. Those in the rear kept looking back at the enemy, suspiciously eyeing them, and nervously clutching with their hands the cold muzzles ...
— The Shield • Various

... his controls, making the minor lateral adjustments in the vehicle's position which were not possible to the automatic controls. At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled black hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously at the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently. A large, plump-faced, young man in soiled khaki shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girl in a suit of ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... Empire mirrors which reflect the light there are three iron bedsteads with straw mattresses, and now and again a man gets up from one of these straight-backed chairs and lies at full length on one of the beds. But a minute later he rises silently again and listens intently, nervously, to the sound of footsteps coming sharply across the polished boards. It seems to be the coming of the messenger for whom all these men have been waiting. They spring to their feet and crowd round a table as a gentleman comes in with a bundle of papers from which he gives ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... lost my key," he laughed, a bit nervously; then he added, with a deep breath: "It's snowing to-night. A heavy snow, and there will be good sledging for a few days. God knows I don't want you to leave me, but if it must be—we should take advantage ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... a stone beside the road that winds through the woods toward the railway station, and smoked, nervously. He was disheartened of the business of living, and, absurdly enough, as it seemed to him, he ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... Beth answered nervously. She was beginning to have a painful conviction that a man had to depend almost entirely on his wife for his success in life, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... across the studio and pushed open the door. It was masked by a curtain, and this too she pulled aside, slowly and nervously like some small animal that is timid and yet venturesome. She knew every corner of the place of course, and the very creaking of the hinges and gentle swish of the curtain was a familiar sound ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... it, I wonder?' he said, a trifle nervously. A dull sound, as of a hive of bees stirred to anger, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman



Words linked to "Nervously" :   nervous



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