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Primly   Listen
adverb
Primly  adv.  In a prim or precise manner.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Primly" Quotes from Famous Books



... have been good manners, my lady,' Pina said primly. 'When a gentleman has carried off a young lady, with her own consent, the least he can do is to look pleased, I ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... station, which tapped the district of Rexton. A trunk, a bandbox and a bag formed her humble belongings, and she arranged with a porter that these should be wheeled in a barrow to Rose Cottage, as Miss Loach's abode was primly called. Having come to terms, Susan left the station and set out to walk to the place. Apart from the fact that she saved a cab fare, she wished to obtain some idea of her surroundings, and therefore did not ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... a wordy falling-out between Mrs. Halloran and Mrs. Donohue; there had been words; nay, more, there had been language. Mrs. Halloran had gone to church early in the morning, had fulfilled the duties of her religion, and was returning primly home, when Mrs. Donohue spied her, and, still smouldering with volcanic fire, sent a broadside of lava at Mrs. Halloran. The latter heard, flushed, opened her lips—and then suddenly checked herself. After a moment she spoke: "Mrs. Donohue, I've just been to church, and I'm in a state ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... he said, pleasantly, with his hat already in his hand, "I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco." As he spoke his eye swept approvingly over the neat inclosure, the primly-tied papers, and well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china-silk mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the wall; thence to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled clinging hair, and then—fell upon the leathern ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the little girl had divided with his profession the doctor's days. Every morning after breakfast he stood to watch the trim, sturdy, round little figure dance down the steps, step primly down the walk, turn at the gate to throw a kiss, and then march away along the street to the corner where another kiss would greet him before the final vanishing. Every day they met at noon to exchange on equal terms the experiences of ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... present perch the board appeared to rest on the pavement itself. Behind the table in a row, as shopkeepers might await a customer, three of the Warlockians, seated cross-legged on mats, their hands folded primly before them. And at the side a fourth, the one whom he had ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... the sea, with the hatred of a woman whose ancestors had made their living on the Banks and had been drowned in storms. But she liked the captain. "I am sure you are very kind," she said, primly, "but it will have to be Saturday when there ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... to his throat. He almost tore away the collar and primly arranged tie. Rochester was by his side in a second, and saved him from falling. His face was white to the lips. A shriek from the women rang through the hall, and came echoing back again ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a lemon ice cream soda," said Suzanna primly. And she had difficulty in restraining her tears when Maizie deliberately gave her command for chocolate ice cream soda. When the orders came Suzanna scarcely touched her glass. Covertly she watched Miss Smithson; she saw, how daintily that lady ate her ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... a dangerous sedition in Prussia betweene the chiefe cities and the knights of the Order. The citizens demanded libertie, complaining that they were oppressed with diuers molestations. Whereupon they primly made sute vnto Casimir then king of Polonia. The Master of the Order seeing what would come to passe began to expostulate with the king, that he kept not the peace which had bene concluded betweene them to last for euer. Also Frederick the Emperour commaunded the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... the country has very bad manners," commented Martha, puckering her lips primly. "I wouldn't put myself out for them, ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... sights to gaze at, it was difficult to walk primly two and two, and the line proved a straggling one, in spite of Miss Frazer's efforts in the rear. At a pair of great iron gates Miss Russell stopped and turned ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... muslin was belted around her slim figure by a blue ribbon, and her Leghorn hat was drawn around her oval cheek by a bow of the same color. She had a Southern girl's narrow feet, encased in white stockings and kid slippers, which were crossed primly before her as she sat in a chair, supporting her arm by her faithful parasol planted firmly on the floor. A faint odor of southernwood exhaled from her, and, oddly enough, stirred the Colonel with a far-off recollection ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... various sizes. Having made fast alongside a vacant space of quay, we had our dinner, and then strolled out with cigars to look for the Johannes. We found her wedged among a stack of galliots, and her skipper sitting primly below before a blazing stove, reading his Bible through spectacles. He produced a bottle of schnapps and some very small and hard pears, while Davies twitted him ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... regarded, is not so admirable as her form. The features are a trifle too elongated, and their delicacy is marred by a nose a bit broad and unshapely and a mouth with thin lips primly set. Her dark eyes might be magnificent if wide open: but through the narrow slits of their lids, half hidden by long curling lashes, the eyes peer at you with a cold, watchful, intent gaze that carries a certain ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... mustn't be too sure, but I think that is it. (Primly.) What is it exactly that you ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie

... two things of interest. The first, which beyond measure delighted me, was, that Charley was at Oxford—had been there for a year. The second was that Clara was at school in London. Mrs Wilson shut her mouth very primly after answering my question concerning her; and I went no further in that direction. I took no trouble to ask her concerning the relationship of which Mr Coningham had spoken. I knew already from my uncle that it was a fact, but Mrs Wilson did not behave in ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... "When I hear a man talking about the abolition of slavery," he remarked gloomily, "I always expect him to want to do away with marriage next—" he checked himself and coloured, as if an improper speech had slipped out in the presence of Mrs. Lightfoot. The old lady rose primly and, taking the rector's arm, led ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... a carriage, unadorned by an imposing flounce that almost covered the robe; a little later, the one sober flounce was driven into obscurity by twenty coquettish small ones; and these were displaced by primly puffed bands; which gave way to fanciful "keys" running up the sides of the dress (where they seemed to have no possible right); and those vanished when double skirts commenced their brief reign; to be dethroned by a severe-looking quilted ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... something we thought you ought to know," Celie began primly, "so Ma and I hurried right over, so as to put you ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of nearly a mile, brought us ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... for her change of policy and manner was revealed with distressing suddenness. At daylight one morning the door of the room in which she slept under lock and key was wide open, and on her quaintly embellished table a primly ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... taller ones looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats decorously, sat up so silent ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... camp, and retired in dudgeon, because the young officers were for ever drinking with the squaws—and—and—hum—ha." Here Mr. Harry pauses, as not caring to proceed with the narrative, in the presence of little Fanny, very likely, who sits primly in her chair by her mother's side, working ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Miss Mary, sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over her shoulder, opened her gray eyes widely at this, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... but I soon discovered that the place was impossible for me. Torquay is the chosen home of the proprieties, the respectabilities, and all the conventions. Nothing could dislodge them from its beautiful hills; the very sea, as it beats primly, or with a violence that never forgets to be discreet, on the indented shore, acknowledges their sway. Aphrodite never visits there; the human race is not continued there. People who have always lived within the conventions go there ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... in rear is opened and MRS. KEENEY stands in the doorway. She is a slight, sweet-faced little woman primly dressed in black. Her eyes are red from weeping and her face drawn and pale. She takes in the cabin with a frightened glance and stands as if fixed to the spot by some nameless dread, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. The two men turn and ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... Camp Ground," replied Slim, holding his voluminous bathrobe primly around him with one hand to cover the bathing suit which he wore under it, and shaking hands vigorously with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... Mary Jane walked primly out of the store; it always made her feel funny to be called young lady. But the minute she was out of the clerk's sight she ran as fast as ever ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson

... had been waiting for days with the revelation when he should make that old request. Now she enunciated it with every vowel and consonant correctly and primly uttered; indeed, she repeated it four or five times in ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... table. After supper he had the chance to see Athalia and to make sure that she was not looking tired. "You didn't take cold yesterday, 'Thalia? I saw you were out in the rain," he would say. And she, always a little embarrassed at such personal interest, would reply, primly, "I am not at all tired, Brother Lewis." Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more unpractical things—those spiritual manifestations which at rare intervals centred in Brother ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... sat in her father's study-chair as stiff and stolid as a lay-figure in a shop window, with her lips drawn primly over her teeth. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... mean," he added hastily, "don't be a fool. There are some things one can't bet on. As you ought to have known," he said primly. ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... face. Then she whispered primly to Fenella. "What wickedness!" And they sailed out at the further door and along a passage that had cabins on either side. Such a very nice stewardess came to meet them. She was dressed all in blue, and her collar and cuffs were fastened with large brass buttons. ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... opened before them—a broad valley was disclosed, with a broad, shallow stream dividing its meadows; scattered farmhouses, orderly, prosperous, commanded their shorn acres. A mailbag was detached and left at a crossroad in charge of two little girls, primly important, smothered in identical, starched pink sunbonnets. The Greenstream stage splashed through the shallow, shining ford; the ascent on the far side ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... said Dora, primly. "I submit that the affirmative has not refuted the argument of ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... to Flo, and both stood primly silent till they were tumbled into another mail bag, and went rattling on again with a new ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... politeness of the Allardice family gave me my invitation to Tibbie's wedding. I was taking tea and cheese early one wintry afternoon with the smith and his wife, when little Joey Todd in his Sabbath clothes peered in at the passage, and then knocked primly at the door. Andra forgot himself, and called out to him to come in by; but Jess frowned him into silence, and, hastily donning her black mutch, received Willie on the threshold. Both halves of the door were open, and the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... true," said Miss Wodehouse, rather primly. She had never disputed that fact by word or deed, but still it was not pleasant to have the statement thus thrust upon her without any apparent provocation. It was not the sort of thing which a woman expects ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... custom," she replied primly. Would he expect her to say "Sir?" Anyhow, she wouldn't! She compromised with a dainty meekness which might be interpreted as respect for a superior. Mr. Meggison fixed her with a sharp look which would have detected the impudence of a ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... wildly, then, meeting his eye, she laughed, a twinkling little laugh. "You shouldn't ask questions like that, not so suddenly, anyway," she said primly. "It ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... not dared venture upon "Dear Mrs. May"; it had not even occurred to him that he might), and informed her primly that the bag had arrived. Also it inquired in stiff language whether the writer might be permitted to place ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... pursed his lips. "In cases of this sort, doctor," he said primly, "the Navy is in charge. The patient is, after all, the ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett

... of dark-gray superfine cloth enveloped her form completely. A small bonnet of gray taffeta silk was tied primly with a demure bow under her chin. It left not a wisp of hair visible. A riding mask covered her face so that only a finely turned chin was to be seen. So suddenly did she appear that both Robert and Peggy were ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... began primly, "I must take this occasion to inform you that Mrs. Sawyer and I spend Christmas quietly—very quietly. We have never had a Christmas tree, and personally I consider that holly is most suitable and decorative where Nature planted ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple

... shook the hand she held out primly, keeping a certain distance from him lest he should attempt ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... my right took me into a kind of lane or by-road, where there were some old-fashioned, semi-detached cottages, sheltered by a row of sycamores, and shut in by wooden palings. I opened the low gate before the third cottage, and went into the garden,—a primly-kept little garden, with a grass-plat and miniature gravel-walks, and with a grotto of shells and moss and craggy blocks of stone in a corner. Under a laburnum-tree there was a green rustic bench; and here I found a young lady ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... dozed, I would lower that timid little whiffet of a Puritan maid out through the window to the turnstile. Then I would ride her round till our heads whirled. If Jack Battle came along, Rebecca would jump down primly and run in, for Jack was unknown in the meeting-house, and the meeting-house was Rebecca's ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... was giving audience to my tenants, five or six boys made their appearance and stood in a primly proper row before me. Before I could put any question their spokesman, in the choicest of high-flown language, started: "Sire! the grace of the Almighty and the good fortune of your benighted children have once more brought about ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... kitchen was as far removed from being the scene of a baking exploit as was possible. Everything was cleared away, and set up primly in its place, leaving only a row of fine little biscuits and cookies, with Phronsie's gingerbread boy in the midst, to tell the tale of what had been going on. Outside there was a ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... living was carefully inculcated. At first the ministers had almost entire control. A church reproof was the heaviest punishment, and knotty points in theology caused the bitterest discussion. A pillion was the grandest equipage, and a plain blue and white gown, with primly starched apron, was the common attire of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... and it is her duty to like her husband's home," said Miss Heredith a little primly. She disapproved of the speaker, whose khaki uniform, close-cropped hair, crossed legs, and arms a-kimbo struck her as everything that ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... her. However, he had to stick grimly to the perambulator. Nellie tripped primly in black silk on one side of it. Nurse had the wayward Ralph by the hand. And Robert, taciturn, stalked alone, adding up London and making a very small total ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... I'd better wait for you," she said primly. "There are bad places where the trail goes close to the bluff, and the lava rock will be slippery with this snow. And it's getting dark so fast that a stranger ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I made Bruce go to you before I even let him—" here Edith broke off primly. "Of course that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura tells me, is 'a mere experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till they feel quite sure—then notify their parents and get married in ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... Dr. Harman," the little old lady said primly. "I do wish you'd give your own Queen credit for some ability. Goodness knows you ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... not a great reader myself," remarked Miss Mitty, a trifle primly. "My father used to say that when a lady had read a chapter of her Bible in the morning, and consulted her cook-book, she had done as much literary work as was good for her. Too intimate an acquaintance with books, he always said, was apt to unsettle the views, and the ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... the water boiled. She shoved her table nearer the fire, so near that I found myself looking down at the writing things that were arranged so primly at one end. There was an ink bottle on a gray blotter, a pewter tray for pens and a queer shaped lump of bronze, a paper weight I supposed. I wouldn't have been human if I could have kept my fingers off that bit of metal. I pretended to pick it up accidentally but I did it as guiltily as a child ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... to have the slightest authority over you," said Eileen very primly, as she drew back in the shadows. "You have come and gone exactly as you pleased. All I ever tried to do was to keep up a decent appearance before the neighbors ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... and Pauline walked first, their prayer-books in their hands and holding down their veils on account of the wind; they did not speak but were bursting with delight at seeing people come to their shop-doors, and they smiled primly and devoutly every time they heard anyone say as they passed that they looked very nice. Madame Boche and Madame Lorilleux lagged behind, because they were interchanging their ideas about Clump-clump, a gobble-all, whose daughter would never have been confirmed if the relations had not found everything ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... primly on, with Mrs. Stanhope at her side, who turns often with a friendly glance toward a happy-seeming couple that walk apart, as if their chief enjoyment ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... him a particle of anything at all, whether good or bad: which complete negativeness of character produced rather a strange effect. In the same way, his wizened, marble-like features reminded one of nothing in particular, so primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples with which they were pitted placed him among the number of those over whose faces, to quote the popular saying, "The Devil has walked by night to grind peas." In short, it would seem that no human agency could have approached such ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... tea and candles, sister?" asked Miss King primly.—"We have had tea of course, Hyacinthe, but we will have some infused for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... Dunleavy, with his safe ancestry of two generations of wholesalers and strong probabilities about the respectability of still another generation, was her ideal of a Christian gentleman. She wore a full white muslin gown with a blue sash, her hair primly parted in the middle, her right hand laid flat over her left in her lap. Her vocabulary was choice. For a second, when she referred to winter sports at Lake Placid, she forgot herself and tucked one smooth, silk-clad, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... consciousness of being observed and, perhaps, desired. Stout Neapolitan fathers, with bulging eyes, immense brown cheeks, and peppery mustaches, were promenading with their children and little dogs, looking lavishly contented with themselves. Young girls went primly past, holding their narrow, well-dressed heads with a certain virginal stiffness that was yet not devoid of grace, and casting down eyes that were supposed not yet to be enlightened. Their governesses ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... aristocracy loved to build for themselves. The sun shone warmly upon the great, latticed porch, screened by the passion vines that hid one end completely from view. To the left, a wing stretched out generously, with windows curtained primly with some white stuff that flapped desultorily in the fitful breeze from the south. At the right, so close that they came near being a part of the main structure and helped to give the general effect ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... face in a Quaker bonnet, a white kerchief folded primly over a gown of dove-colored satin, a pure plain dress, looking very distinguished, for all its simplicity, among the gay toilet ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... filled them all, and as a means to this end their first idea was to dress, act, and talk as correctly and unblamably as boys and girls could. So, by the time the worthy lady was heard descending, they were all in the drawing-room, seated primly on the stiffest chairs they could find, and apparently absorbed in the books they gazed at with serious faces and furrowed brows. To the trained eye the "high-water marks" around faces and wrists were rather more apparent and speaking ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... discovery that she was at times independent of her brother's perfections, Herbert smiled, and sympathetically drew a step nearer to her. She rose at once, somewhat primly holding back the sides of her skirt, school-girl fashion, with thumb and finger, and her eyes ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... give that impression," she said, almost primly. Then, with a change of tone, "But I can't—I won't stay at the hotel where I am. To-night at her house Lady Dauntrey invited me to come and stay there. I was asked before, to Christmas dinner. I could accept, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... hot fit of Swinburne, which was of a feverish sort: he had set out to break down without having, or even thinking he had, the rudiments of rebuilding in him; and he effected nothing national even in the way of destruction. The Tennysonians still walked past him as primly as a young ladies' school—the Browningites still inked their eyebrows and minds in looking for the lost syntax of Browning; while Browning himself was away looking for God, rather in the spirit of a truant boy from their school looking for birds' nests. The nineteenth-century ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... is to be neat! Not primly so, but daintily so. The girl well got up, with irreproachable gloves, and shoes that fit, though her gown be only cotton, yet if it be well turned out, may compete with the richest, while the slovenly dresser, who scorns or forgets to give attention to details, is passed over by the discontented ...
— How to Marry Well • Mrs. Hungerford

... slowly. "I've been thinking. Suppose she did find your beautiful locket and—and appropriate it for her own use," finished Bobby rather primly. ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson

... one of the quaint old-fashioned houses, behind a needless screen of climbing woodbine, two girls are whiling away the afternoon. One of them is lounging in a lassy rocking-chair, while the other sits more primly and is ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... for takin' so much interest in the children," said Miss Vilda primly, "and partic'lerly for clearin' our characters, which everybody that lives in this village has to do for each other 'bout once a week, and the rest o' the time they take for spoilin' of 'em. And the Doctor's wife is very kind, but I shouldn't think o' sendin' the baby away so sudden while ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... with disfavor at Carrick's worn tweed clothes and his general week-day effect. "I think," he said primly, "I'll ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... thing that will strike us, after this love of clouds, is the love of liberty. Whereas the mediaeval was always shutting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and drawing brickwork neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our painters delight in getting to the open fields and moors; abhor all hedges and moats; never paint anything but free-growing trees, and rivers gliding "at their own sweet will"; eschew formality down to the smallest detail; ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... patronage we will be forced to do without," Mary Louise replied primly. They were nearing the house and as they approached, someone in one of the front rooms struck a light and it could be seen moving, the shadows ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... little boys were still some distance from her. The water, muddy beyond all chance of transparency, came up to their chests. To them, however, this was not enough. The excessive modesty of eight or nine made them keep even the white of their angular little shoulders primly covered. ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore

... grave. "Nellie is breaking the news to her now," she said primly. "I am afraid she is going to find it very hard. But, as sister says, there are times when one has to follow one's own judgments. When mother sees that we all stand ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... puffing somewhat when we finally came to a halt. I confess that just at that minute even Sunnyside seemed a cheerful spot. We had paused at the edge of a level cleared place, bordered all around with primly trimmed evergreen trees. Between them I caught a glimpse of starlight shining down on rows of white headstones and an occasional more imposing monument, or towering shaft. In spite of myself, I drew my breath in sharply. We were on the edge ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... said, Master Carver. I had some such thought myself," said Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an irreverent grin, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... them, seated in the doorway between the two rooms so that both could hear; she gave them reports of the condition of things outside; and Miss Hope said primly that she would like to meet and thank the boy who had been so kind as soon as she could be "suitably attired." Betty was thankful that she did not ask his name, but the sisters were not at all curious. They had been ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson

... gone for a drive with somebody or other and didn't want me," said Miss Pringle primly. "You haven't ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing him. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... ought to talk that way before ladies," he said, primly. "Of course, I know you're only in joke, but there's some people can't see jokes as quick as others and they might get a wrong idea ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... open; the tall columns of the portico entrance look down on you so grimly; the front of the booking-offices, in their garment of clean stucco, look so primly respectable that you cannot help feeling ashamed of yourself,—feeling as uncomfortable as when you have called too early on an economically genteel couple, and been shown into a handsome drawing-room, on a frosty day, without a fire. You cannot think of entering into a gossip ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... place is respectable," she told him very primly. "I don't think you ought to ask ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... exhilaration had subsided into a happy buzz that arose from all the seats in the entire orange-tinted brilliant auditorium. The ladies would not go; the ladies feared, they said, to impose their company upon Miss Fiddle in the tremendous strain of her activities. They spoke primly and decisively. It was true that they feared; but their fear was based on consideration for themselves rather than on consideration for Miss Fiddle. Ozzie was plainly snubbed. He had offered a wonderful privilege, and it ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... their model. She was posed in a nun's dress, pensive gray, with virginal white bound primly across her brow. Marietta is a capital model, and her sad face and tender eyes were upturned with exactly the desired expression to the grinning mask in the centre of the ceiling. Silentia kindly consented to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he uttered those neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over England as 'Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admirably—-his eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost of melancholy in his whole face. Reynolds, in his Conversation-piece, celebrated when in the Strawberry Collection, and representing Selwyn leaning on a chair, Gilly Williams, crayon in hand, and Dick Edgecumbe by his side, has caught the pseudo-solemn expression of his face admirably. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... said Susan primly. But so irresistible was the well of gaiety bubbling up in her heart that she made ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... the wind was blowing over a bed of new-sprung mint in the garden, and was suggestively fragrant. It was a very old-fashioned garden, full of perennials Naomi Holland had planted long ago. Eunice always kept it primly neat. She had been working in it ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... CAROLINE (primly). Hush, Bertram. We ought always to be polite to our visitors when they stay with us. I am sure, if Rosemary wants ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne

... I suppose," said Mr. Medlicott primly, "because, if so, I am sorry, but I cannot accompany you—it is not that I disapprove of dancing for others," he hastened to add, "but I do not care to watch it myself. And I do not think it wise for Stella to grow to care for ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... do," Margaret said. She opened a funny old chest in the corner of the spacious, high studded chamber. "And here are some of the dolls that I play with." She produced a manikin dressed primly after the manner of eighteen-thirty, prim parted hair over a small head festooned with ringlets, a fichu, and mits painted on her fingers. "Beulah," she said with a mischievous flash of a grimace at Eleanor. "Gertrude,"—a ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... horribly unhappy. I must look a sight." Then, remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:— ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... brought out and tied on her, and the poor old woman blushed like a girl when she stood with meek hands folded at her waist and looked primly about on the family for their approval at Margaret's request. But that was nothing to the way she stared when Margaret got out the threefold mirror and showed her herself in the new headgear. She trotted away at ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... broke off with a very faint primly angry smile. She was perhaps the more offended with him because of that flutter at the beginning of the conversation. And in a moment with perfect tact and dignity she got up from her ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... again until Charlotte had given a final shake to the bed in the corner, upon which her bonnet and shawl had been lying. She put them on neatly and primly; and when she was ready to go she spoke again in a ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton

... Gailey," she said, with a kind and even very cordial smile, and heartily shook the flaccid, rheumatic hand that was primly held out to her. And yet in spite of herself, perhaps unknown to herself, there was in her tone and her smile and her vigorous clasp something which meant, "Poor old thing!" pityingly, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... and repressed, walked primly down the room in the wake of a waiter and with a murmured word or two with the Mariposa, handed her a telegram. The latter, still with an expression of perplexity, requested Mrs. Ames' permission to open it, acquainted herself with its contents, and then ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... to Grizel in Thrums. But was it, then, all a dream? he cried, nearly convinced for the first time, and he went into the arbour saying determinedly that it was a dream; and in the arbour, standing primly in a corner, was Grizel's umbrella. He knew that umbrella so well! He remembered once being by while she replaced one of its ribs so deftly that he seemed to be looking on at a surgical operation. The old doctor had given it to her, and that was ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... you? what she wrote to you in cold blood—the coward—in the very moment when you were staking your life for love of her? I remember, if you do not—'You have deceived me,' she wrote, and her hand never trembled, for the words ran as neatly and primly as ever they did in her convent copy books. 'You are not what you represented yourself to be—You have taken advantage of the inexperience of an ignorant girl, I have been deluded and deceived. I never wish to see you, to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... she said to Lady Myrtle. 'I like a house to be almost primly neat. Frances says she's sure I shall be an old maid, and I daresay I shall be. I shouldn't mind, if I had a house of my own like ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... Jim held out his band to Cynthia, and she climbed, with unbending dignity, to the driver's seat. "You know you've got that dress to turn, Lila," she said, as she settled her stiff skirt primly ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... Great Falls last week," she told him primly, just grazing him with one of her impersonal glances which nearly drove him to desperation. "Aunt Mary has typhoid fever—there seems to be so much of that this spring and they sent for mamma. She's such a splendid nurse, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... observing the grimly rigid aspect of the silent Queen, Rebecca straightened herself primly and remarked, with her most formal air: "I s'pose you are the Queen, ma'am. You seem to be havin' a little party jest now. I hope I'm not intruding but to tell ye the truth, Mrs. Tudor, I've got into a pretty pickle and I want to ask a little ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... primly and turned her head first on one side and then on the other to look at the sketch. "I don't think we'll leave it to Mr. Beaton, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... had the pleasure of casting my optics upon the individual of Nancy Ellen's choice," said Agatha primly, "but Miss Amelia Lang tells me he is a very distinguished person, of quite superior education in a medical way. I shall call him if I ever have the misfortune to fall ill again. I hope you will tell Nancy Ellen that we shall be very pleased to have ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Susanna had caught the winks and nods of Toby and Henry, who were tired of sitting primly ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster

... "Yes, sir," said Audrey primly, but inwardly fluttering. The housekeeper's room had heard something of the news by this time, and Audrey had had a busy time explaining to other members of the staff exactly what he had said, and what ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne

... reached Mionge Lane he met his pretty truelove skipping along most lady-like and primly. She was dressed in a light blue dress with a white sash tied at the side in two knots. Her long fair hair hung down her back tied with a pink ribbon, and her fringe was fluttering in the breeze. Behind her fringe she wore a wreath ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... careering somewhere. Well, this tidy fit won't last long, so I may as well make the most of it," said Miss Bat, as she handed out the required articles, and then pushed her spectacles from the tip of her sharp nose to her sharper black eyes for a good look at the girl who stood primly before her, with a clean apron on and her hair braided up instead of flying ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... little, rudely sculptured bed, With shadowing folds of marble lace, And quilt of marble, primly spread And folded round ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... primly, "you are thinking of criminal cases; but if a man be unfortunate enough to get into debt, that is quite a different thing:—we are harder to poverty than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... several, crossing, but none of them talked to me about—such things," I replied, rather primly. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... repeat," answered Miss Quiney primly, smoothing down the front of her creased grey satin skirt, "is—will be—our capital mistake. For me, I need in this weather but an additional shawl. I am ready. . . . Go to your room . . . and let me enjoin a certain deliberation even in crossing the hall. Manasseh is there, and before ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Dinky House, the Mascot, and the rest of the tiny shanties. She liked the houseboats, too, with their gaily-striped awnings, their hanging baskets filled with gaudy pink geraniums and bright lobelia. Their primly-curtained little windows amused her; and in the evenings she would lure Owen out on to the terrace to look down the river to where the Chinese lanterns hung on their poles like globes of magic light ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... she sat, like all other rooms of the district, was too primly neat to be cozy or comfortable. It contained a bright new rag carpet, a luridly painted wooden settee, a sewing-machine, and several uninviting wooden chairs. Margaret often yearned to pull the pieces of furniture out from their ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... vowed Mr. Cobb solemnly, as he remounted his perch; and as the stage rumbled down the village street between the green maples, those who looked from their windows saw a little brown elf in buff calico sitting primly on the back seat holding a great bouquet tightly in one hand and a pink parasol in the other. Had they been farsighted enough they might have seen, when the stage turned into the side dooryard of the old brick house, a calico yoke rising ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... shoulder. "I miss you," he said, simply. "I miss you all the time. You see, I love you." Then, with precipitate selfconsciousness, he closed the door of his New England heart, and from some remote corner of it sent out his cautious after-thought. "I love you," he repeated, primly, "as a sister in ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... from me, was shaded by a wide round bonnet, not quite so painfully plain as the scooplike affair of the time, but with a drooping brim from which depended a slight frilling of sheer lace. Her smooth brown hair was drawn primly down across her ears, as was the fashion of the day, and from the masses piled under the bonnet brim there fell down a curl, round as though made that moment, and not yet limp from the damp heat of Washington. Fresh and dainty and restful as a picture done on Dresden, yet strong, fresh, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough



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