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Sill   Listen
noun
Sill  n.  The basis or foundation of a thing; especially, a horizontal piece, as a timber, which forms the lower member of a frame, or supports a structure; as, the sills of a house, of a bridge, of a loom, and the like. Hence:
(a)
The timber or stone at the foot of a door; the threshold.
(b)
The timber or stone on which a window frame stands; or, the lowest piece in a window frame.
(c)
The floor of a gallery or passage in a mine.
(d)
A piece of timber across the bottom of a canal lock for the gates to shut against.
Sill course (Arch.), a horizontal course of stone, terra cotta, or the like, built into a wall at the level of one or more window sills, these sills often forming part of it.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sill" Quotes from Famous Books



... snow from a window, and I am perfectly willing to admit that I crawled toward it on hands and knees, for angry voices now reached me, and I knew that if I raised myself and the watcher had changed his position he could see me. I reached the sill at last with the rifle clenched in one mittened hand; and while I debated on my next procedure I heard Colonel Carrington ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... plashing on my sill, But all the winds of Heaven are still; And so it falls with that dull sound Which thrills us in the church-yard ground, When the first spadeful drops like lead Upon the coffin of the dead. Beyond my streaming window-pane, I cannot see ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... the gun, taking a long and careful aim as before; and this time the shot struck the sill of the frigate's lee bridle port, entering the port, and no doubt raking the deck for a considerable portion of its length. That it did enough damage to greatly exasperate the French captain seemed almost certain, for presently he bore away again and treated ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... window, secured the ladder again and more firmly, then getting up on to the sill and holding to the bars with one hand, he stretched out the other to the queen, who, as resolute as she had been timid a moment before, mounted on a stool, and had already set one foot on the window-ledge, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and his advent from an unknown region called "North'ard". So had his way of life:—he invited no comer to step across his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheelwright's: he sought no man or woman, save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply himself with necessaries; and it was soon clear to the Raveloe ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... noticed a couple of men at the door, of sharp features and unkempt dress, and heard a laugh as I went in. My head swam as I stumbled up the stairs and fumbled at the knob, when I heard voices raised inside, and the door was suddenly and violently thrown open. Across the sill stood a big, rough-looking man with his hands ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... monkey, cap in hand, clambered to the sill of the mediocre artist's window. And the mediocre artist tossed into his cap a peanut. The monkey, putting the peanut in his mouth, swallowed it, ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan

... from Juno's charge. As he flew about the rooms downstairs, a whole sash and shutter in the south-east room were driven in by a blow of an immense beam, and in another second half the body of a smuggler was above the window-sill. But with a tremendous leap Ugly reached him and pinned him by the throat. They tumbled back together. Then we heard a ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... magic, up went the window sash! Over the sill galloped the reindeer. And after them ran the toy sleigh with Jack Frost and ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... I approached the house, I saw that nearly all the shades were up: they used to be down—'way down to the sill. The minute I stepped into the hall I heard music—Parsifal. The drawing-rooms were open, and the ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... affection of cynicism which was just as bad as sentimentality itself, she left her position by his side and knelt upon the window sill, twisting the curtain tassels between her fingers. A vague ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... post had dropped the letters for outlying farms at the Monypenny smithy and trudged on. The smith having wiped his hand on his hair, made a row of them, without looking at the addresses, on his window-sill, where, happening to be seven in number, they were almost a model of Monypenny, which is within hail of Thrums, but round the corner from it, and so has ways of its own. With the next clang on the anvil the middle ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... a die to Piddinghoe's dolphin, and there I drops in a cottage garden, There, on a sun-warmed window-sill, I winks and peeps, for the window was wide! Crumbs, he was there and fast in her arms and a-begging his poor old mother's pardon, There with his lips on her old grey hair, and her head on his breast while she ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he hurried forward, followed ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke

... feet. In a most business-like manner he used it to smash the fastening of the shutters, and, when these were removed, to break the small, leaded pane of glass nearest the window-fastening. It was only a matter of seconds then before the window was opened and Patsy boosted over the sill into ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... the four sisters were prevented from keeping their little friend company. Elena, with nothing to do, and feeling melancholy, leaned upon the window-sill which overlooked the narrow canal. And it chanced that just then Gerardo, on his way to Dulcinea, went by; and Elena looked down at him, as she had seen those sisters look at passers-by. Gerardo caught her eye, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... elaborately carved, and black as polished ebony. Flowers grew all about it,—sweet peas, mignonette, and large purple pansies—while red and white climbing roses rioted in untrained profusion over its wide sill. Above it was a quaintly built dovecote, where some of the strutting fan-tailed inhabitants were perched, swelling out their snowy breasts, and discoursing of their domestic trials in notes of dulcet ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... just stopped below," said Vivienne, bending over the window-sill. "He's coming for his answer. Oh I don't know ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... through her spectacles, and talking to herself all the time. I expect she'd taken them out of mother's drawer, for she kept on looking round to see if any one was coming, and the best of it was I was watching all the time, and she never knew it. I saw her put one piece of paper down on the window-sill; she was saying very funny things to herself. 'Meg shouldn't have done it; she wouldn't take my advice. Ah! she'll rue it some day, I well believe,' and all on like that. Of course Meg means mother, and I was just wondering what it was she was talking about, when the wind blew quite ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... only keep down you're safe enough," he said gruffly. "There hasn't a shot come within a foot of the sill. The ground slopes out yonder, and those fellows can't fire low. Put the new men at the central window, and let them shoot at every flash they see. Bradley will ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... the twine. That was the signal to Boris to go ahead. His eyes strained on the window, Fred saw his cousin's figure appear on the sill, saw him climbing swiftly up a water pipe, and then saw him drop to the flat roof, hidden for the moment by a low parapet. Then there was another period of agonized waiting, for again a sentry was to pass. Fred used the brief interval of enforced inaction to loosen the rope and place it on the ground, ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... was a roar of six-guns. He felt Chinook shiver. He jumped clear as the horse rolled to its side. Sundown, retreating to the house, flung open the bedroom window and kneeling, laid the barrel of his gun on the sill. Deliberately he sighted, hesitated, and flung the gun from him. "God Almighty—I ought to—but I can't!" He had seen Corliss fall and thought that he had been killed. He saw a Mexican raise his gun to fire; saw him suddenly straighten ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... setting as she entered her room; the tall spire of the First Church was all ruddy with the glow of it as she threw open the window, and as she paused for a moment with palms on the sill, she looked down into the deepening shadows of back passages and alleys, nooks and recesses, where lurked ash and garbage cans and heaps of rubbish. A black cat came slinking around the corner of an old gray-brick stable, disappeared for a moment in a passage, and a moment later she saw ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... on her knees by the low window-sill. Her head with its crown of silver hair was bowed upon her arm and they rested upon the bundle of letters which Dinah had seen on the very first night that she had seen Isabel. Old Biddy hovered shadow-like in the background. She made a sign to Dinah as she entered, but ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... to her room, where she sat down and tried to think hard. A Pink Kitten was curled up on the window-sill and ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... now rose suddenly from her seat in the window-sill, the living dread of shepherds, for she travelled the country with a brilliant reputation for witchcraft, and thus she broke in upon the narrative: "I vow, young man, ye tell us the truth upset and down-thrust. I heard my douce grandmother say that on the night when Elphin Irving ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... floor? A broom. What would you say you are doing with the broom? Sweeping. How does the movement of the broom over the floor compare with the movement of the knife over the plate? It is similar. What would you take to remove the dust from the window-sill? A duster. What would you say you are doing? Dusting. How does the movement of the duster compare with the movement of the knife and the broom? It is similar. In all of these cases of dish, floor, and sill, how did we remove the foreign substance? We scraped or rubbed it off. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education

... saw the lights in the zenana windows extinguished. Then they crept quietly up, and placed the ladder under the window at which the signal had been shown; and found that their calculations were correct, and that it reached to a few inches below the sill. ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... writer about birds, says that he once had an inquisitive little Chickadee perch on the end of his boot and sit there watching him inquiringly. They have even been known to feed from the open hand. If you will daily scatter some crumbs for them before the door, or upon the window-sill, you will learn for yourselves how ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... but then the spur was more than the ordinary, and the woman herself was far out of the common both in thews and intelligence; and the end of the leap left her with five fingers lodged in the sill of the arrow-slit from which I watched. Even then she must have slipped back if she had been left to herself, for the sill sloped, and the stone was finely smooth; but I shot out my hand and gripped hers by the wrist, and instantly she clambered up with both knees on the sills, and ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... at the close of a bitter day, Jinnie had finished her work and was resting on the door sill of an empty house ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... seen—the only face, in fact, he had ever yet felt to be beautiful. For the window looked directly into the garden of the next house: its honeysuckle tapped at his window, its sweet-peas grew against his window-sill. It was the face of the angel of that night; but how different when illuminated by the morning sun from then, when lighted up by a chamber-candle! The first thought that came to him was the half-ludicrous, all-fantastic idea ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... Tess. Once he strained his face to the bars—saw her climbing frantically, and the sight made him dizzy. He could only wait—wait the interminable time until the red-brown head appeared and the wide eyes stared into his. Skinner quietly drew his child to the stone sill and placed his fingers over her lips to enjoin silence. Tess understood and even drew softer breaths, holding tightly to the ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... to know how our friend will look," he began again, as he arranged the cushion on the window-sill for Florida's greater comfort in watching the spectacle, "but it won't be an easy matter to pick him out in this masquerade, I fancy. Candle-carrying, as well as the other acts of devotion, seems rather out of character with Don Ippolito, and I can't ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... There's a little tin, pint pail out on the window sill, and a stone pot. I'll bet you sixpence she "finds herself" (I know nobody finds old maids). There now, didn't I tell you so? See,—she moves a little table up to the window and holds the table-cloth close up to her eye-lashes, to see ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... heard the door close after them. He crept up to the front windows and stuck his head in: there was no one there. He could always detect the presence of anyone in a room. He put one foot over the window-sill and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... early in the evening, she said she had thought of something she wanted to write in her journal. But when Joyce had gone down she did not begin writing immediately. Turning down the lamp until the room was almost in darkness, she sat with her elbows on the window-sill staring ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the gentleman the priest's house; Trevalyon putting a sovereign into her hand, thanked her and followed the boy. They soon reached their destination, a small, white, many-gabled old-fashioned windowed house, with bright flowers in boxes attached to the window-sill. Father Lefroy was full of hospitality and welcomed Captain Trevalyon, telling him he was ready to tell him of Madame Rose and her movements for the past three years. "Three years ago, the woman with whom you spoke, Monsieur, and who directed you to me, sent for me, saying, 'Madame ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... and pulled until the rope ladder reached her window and then she fastened that to a hook under the sill and the first thing that happened—just like lightning—was that Peter Piper ran up the ladder and leaned ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett

... his window on a hard horse-hair-stuffed arm-chair, covered by a grubby antimacassar that had given a touch of social distinction to the Skinners' sitting-room for many years. His unaccustomed rifle rested on the sill, and his spectacles anon watched the dark bulk of the dead rat in the thickening twilight, anon wandered about him in curious meditation. There was a faint smell of paraffin without, for one of the casks leaked, and it mingled with ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... I was simply smiling over some very pretty thoughts that had come to me about the roses which were climbing over Mary Gillespie's sill. I meant to inscribe them in the little blank book when I went home. Georgie's speech brought me back to harsh realities with a jolt. It hurt me, as such speeches ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... on the floor. There were thin muslin sash curtains at these windows, and white shades had been drawn down to meet them. Some trailing English ivy made a delicate tracery in dark green beside one window, and two or three potted begonias on the sill lifted transparent trembling blooms to the sun. The rest of the large room was in keeping with this cheerful bit of detail. There was a shining gas stove beside the shining coal range, and a picturesque bit of ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... call, call low! My heart grows still, Still as my breath, Still as your smile, O Ancient One! A chill Strikes through the sun upon the window-sill— I know you now—I follow where ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... standing beside the physician, "here are some of her long hairs," and she picked some from the window sill. "Oh, she did have the longest, most glorious hair!" and Betty sighed in memory, for Betty loved long tresses and her own, while they became her wonderfully well, ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... chimed from the steeple, and another hour rolled slowly by; then suddenly she stopped short, and crossed the room to where her satchel lay on the wide window-sill. Opening it, she drew from it a small vial containing white, glistening crystals, and hid it nervously in her bosom; then, with trembling feet, she recrossed the room, opened her door, and peered breathlessly out into the dimly ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... connected with the estate as straight as he could. He wished to explain affairs to John Massingbird, and hand over documents and all else in due form, but he was not allowed. Business and John had never agreed. John was sitting now before the window, his elbows on the sill, a rough cap on his head, and a short clay pipe in his mouth. Lionel glanced with dismay at the ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... two babies in a perambulator, a baker's boy, a young woman with a large parcel, a vendor of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars. Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest flashed across her face and she leaned out over the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... on its wall; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... triforium run down on to a gabled sill which cuts into their bases. There is the same ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock

... them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night. The ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... so predisposed and so fitted for the study of entomology, a casual occurrence of a trivial nature was sufficient to awaken and give it direction. 'Observing accidentally, one morning, a very beautiful golden bug creeping on the sill of my window, I took it up to examine it, and finding that its wings were of a more yellow hue than was common to my observation of these insects before, I was anxious carefully to examine any other of its peculiarities; and finding ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various

... in which He comforts His children. Leaning her tired head on the low window-sill, Christie slept and dreamed, and in her dream, peace came to her spirit. A strange, soft light spread around her, like the gleam she had once seen fall on the sea in the early morning. Only the sea seemed near now, and there were strange, bright forms flitting ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... readers of these pages it may seem like profanation to pass over poets like Sill, George Woodberry, Edith Thomas, Richard Hovey, William Vaughn Moody, Madison Cawein—to mention but half a dozen distinguished names out of a larger company—and to suggest that James Whitcomb Riley, more completely than any American poet since ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... to inspire cheerful thoughts. Opposite her was the window which years before had elicited her admiration, where every successive summer scarlet beans had grown to a fabulous height on slender strings. Her room was on the shady side, and a pot of mignonette would die in a week on her sill. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... door posts, or spike two 2 by 4 studs together, stand them up, set them plumb, and with stay laths secure them in position. Set up the intermediate studs, which are 2 by 4 inches, and 16 inches between centres, toe or nail them diagonally to the sill. Then put in the floor joists for first floor, each joist to be placed alongside each stud, and nailed to it and to the sill. Next measure the height to ceiling, and with a chalk line mark it around the entire range of studding; below the ceiling line notch each ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward

... sill before Captain Elisha's greeting caused them to turn and see the three already there. Mrs. Dunn, who was in the lead, stopped short in her majestic though creaking march of entrance, and her florid face turned ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the sill of the door, a handsome picture. His gray eyes sparkled, his face was full of excitement and there was a color in his cheeks. There was no sign here of the dissipated man of the night before. It was ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... dilapidated little arbor, built sixty or seventy years ago when the Villa Camellia had been owned by an Italian count with a weakness for the fine arts. The roof leaked, and a riot of jessamine almost hid the door; the window-sill had fallen, and the floor was a mass of dead leaves. The plastered walls were painted with frescoes—faded and moldy now—of a country chateau with cypress trees, and three ladies in big plumed hats riding on white horses, and a gentleman in shooting costume and tall boots, who wore side ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... bridges and by little canals that opened into the main canal. They passed so close to some of the houses that Kit and Kat could see the white curtains blowing in the windows, and the pots of red geraniums standing on the sill. In one house the family waved their hands to Kit and Kat from the breakfast table, and a little farther on they passed a woman who was washing clothes in the canal. Other boats filled with vegetables and flowers of all colors passed them. And they were ...
— The Dutch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... how is it Nick's hairbrushes are on the window-sill there, where she put them when she went to bed? I can see them quite plain. This is the side street—what's-its-name? There's the wall over there at the end. Don't you remember—it's a corner house. This is the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... more sense than I have, by a long chalk! I should never have thought of the maid being in the room. Clever Fan! Now, you'll put the key on the sill—when? Say ten o'clock. And you'll see, Fan, that the little window on the back staircase isn't locked, and keep ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... hast not forgotten Thy pledge and promise quite, With many blushes murmured, Beneath the evening light. Come, the young violets crowd my door, Thy earliest look to win, And at my silent window-sill The jessamine peeps in. All day the red-bird warbles Upon the mulberry near, And the night-sparrow trills her song All night, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... coffin—a sight from which every young mother averts her eyes. As Hester approached a cottage whose thatch had not been weeded for long, she was startled by a howl and whine from within; and a dog, emaciated to the last degree, sprang upon the sill of an open window. A neighbour who perceived her shrink back, and hesitate to pass, assured her that she need not be afraid of the dog. The poor animal would not leave the place, whose inmates were all ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... pushes huge bundles Of itself in warm motion Through the barrack windows; It rattles a sheet of flypaper Tacked in a smear of sunshine on the sill. A voice and other voices squirt A slow path among the room's tumbled sounds. A ukelele somewhere clanks In accidental jets Up from ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... when there came a nervous tap on the window frame, Porter slept on. A moment of silence followed, and then a voice breathed stridently, "Signore!" Porter stirred in his sleep. A man's head and shoulders appeared over the sill of the open window. "Signore! Signore l'Americano!" The tone was louder and very urgent. Porter awoke with a start and seized his revolver. "Pax, pax!" came the voice as the ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... window, like a spectre in her white dress, her hands clutching the sill, and her eyes striving to pierce the darkness which enveloped everything, and opened beneath her like a black gulf. With heart oppressed with fear, she ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... pushed himself back. His knees struck the sill, slid over, and he felt the coarse, peeled paint of the veranda. He reached the ledge—dropped to the ground, and in dropping, the revolver spilled from his hand as it caught on a projecting ledge of the floor, bounded off into ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... following her brother to his room, and perching herself on the window-sill, while he read his performance from many slips of paper. The visions of those boyish days had not been forgotten, the Vesuvius scenery was much as Ethel had once described it, but with far more force and beauty; there was Decius's impassioned ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... about the tower, and looking up into the lantern saw on the north side a seam of old brick filling; and on the south a thin jagged fissure, that ran down from the sill of the lantern-window like the impress of a lightning-flash. There came into his head an old architectural saw, "The arch never sleeps"; and as he looked up at the four wide and finely-drawn semicircles they ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... to the table. "No," he said, "this stand is fully a foot from the window sill. It couldn't have been unknowingly ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... table, the piles of fruit, the busy figures of the nuns as they moved to and fro. Outside in the courtyard the sun would be shining perhaps, the trees would wave, and cast flickering shadows on Madelon, as she sat, the pigeons would come fluttering and perching on the window-sill, and Soeur Lucie, whilst paring, cutting, boiling, skimming, would crone out for Madelon's benefit the old tales she knew so well that she could almost have repeated them in her sleep. Madelon only begged to be let ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... out mechanically for the pinks, and found them on the outer sill of a sash window between two filthy drain-pipes. So here were flowers; here, a garden, two yards long and six inches wide; here, a wheat-ear; here, a whole life epitomized; but here, too, all the miseries of that life. A ray of light falling from heaven as if by special favor on those puny ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward the window to ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... towards him; the least movement of my head, and—I might be lost. Would he see me?—Would he peer into the darkness? No; he went away. He had seen nothing. I felt, rather than heard, him moving on tip-toe in the room; and I mounted a few steps higher. My head reached to the level of the window-sill; my forehead rose above it; my eyes looked between the opening in the blinds—and I saw—A man seated at Mademoiselle Stangerson's little desk, writing. His back was turned toward me. A candle was lit before him, and he bent over the flame, the light from it projecting ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... green curtain extended to the sill, but was slit in one corner. With his eye close to this slight opening he gained a partial glimpse of the interior. It was that of a rough office with a cot in one corner as though occasionally utilised for a sleeping room, the other ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... to have heard. But while Murdie was making up his mind to slip out, the minister was before him. Quickly he stepped down the pulpit stairs, psalm-book in hand, and singing as he went, walked quietly to the back door, and leaving his book on the window-sill, passed out. The singing went calmly on, for the congregation were never surprised ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... her articulate—"My husband! Mine! Mine!"—but in no tone of tenderness, rather pronouncing the words as a passionate claim to his possession. Then suddenly she drooped, half kneeling on the deep window-seat, half fallen across the sill. He sprang to catch her, but not before her forehead had come down sharply on the stone edge of the outer window. He kneeled upon the window-seat and gathered her gently in his arms, where she lay ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... which June offered, Daisy slowly crawled off the bed and went and kneeled down before her open window, crossing her arms on the sill. June followed her, with a ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... which his line of sight was cut off by the outer edge of the sill, he calculated that he must be confined in a room situated on the second story of the fort, and that there would consequently be a considerable drop from the bottom of the window to the ground, without ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... and from the baskets gave him bread. Soon after him, Ulysses enter'd slow The palace, like a squalid beggar old, Staff-propp'd, and in loose tatters foul attired. Within the portal on the ashen sill He sat, and, seeming languid, lean'd against A cypress pillar by the builder's art Polish'd long since, and planted at the door. Then took Telemachus a loaf entire 410 Forth from the elegant basket, and of flesh A portion large as his two ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... closed windows. There were plenty of apertures in the church through which they could have escaped, if they had had any idea of exploration. But they were content to buzz feebly up and down the panes, till strength failed them, and they dropped down on to the sill among the bodies of their brothers. An old man who was digging in the churchyard told Hugh that the same thing had gone on in the church every summer for as long as he ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... out reply; He turned him gayly down the rill; Yet left a light which shall not die, A sunshine on the farmer's sill. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... palace, of an historic front by one of the great old designers, thrown open on a feast-day to the golden air. His look itself, at such times, suggested an image—that of some very noble personage who, expected, acclaimed by the crowd in the street and with old precious stuffs falling over the sill for his support, had gaily and gallantly come to show himself: always moreover less in his own interest than in that of spectators and subjects whose need to admire, even to gape, was periodically to be considered. The young man's expression ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... a martial air, given with a splendid lilt and swing. The tune crept into Ned's blood and his hand beat time on the stone sill. But the music increased his longing for liberty. His thoughts passed away from the narrow street and the marching regiment to the North, to the wild free plains beyond the Rio Grande. It was there that his heart was, and it was there that his ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... help. She saw that he was a little shorter than herself, that he was very light and quick on his feet, and had a round, brown face, clean-shaven, and a round, brown head, close shorn, from which in the zeal of his attentions to her he had shed his straw hat onto the window-sill. He formed a strong contrast to the contents of his store-room, which was full, mainly, of massive white furniture picked out in gold, and very blond. He said casually that it had been there, off and on, since long before he could remember, and ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... the head of the fish firm, and he returned once more to the cap-sill of the wharf. He saw that if the young man attempted to sell out his fare at retail, the business of the market would ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... garden-borders, and marks out the places for flower-seeds. He informs them that it is the time for hoeing out weeds, for making grafts and layers, for sowing annuals, and for destroying the insects on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill of her window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of air and sun, she has never been able to make anything grow but mustard and cress; but she persuades herself that, thanks to this information, all ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin white, embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole of the preceding day ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... what they were to do, and at last they arranged that the donkey should stand at the window with his fore-feet on the sill, that the greyhound should get on his back, the cat on the dog's shoulder, and the cock on the cat's head. When they had grouped themselves in this way, at a given signal, they all began their different forms of music. The donkey brayed, the greyhound barked, the cat miawed, and ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... children to school. As I said this, I glanced inquiringly toward the boy, who was looking steadily at me from his stone stool by the anvil. Two or three little crock-faced girls, from two to five years of age, had stolen in timidly, and a couple of young, frightened eyes were peering over the door-sill at me. The poor Englishman—he was as much an Englishman as the Duke of Wellington—looked at his bushy-headed, barefooted children, and said softly, with a melancholy shake of the head, that the times were rather hard with him. It troubled his heart, ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author

... low tone, the code of signals which had been adopted. Patching was also there. He shrugged his shoulders in the French style as Tiffles came in, but said not a word. Tiffles proceeded straight to a bottle which stood on a window sill, and took a long drink from it, and then passed it to Patching, who mutely did the same, and, in turn, handed it to the idiot, who pulled at it with great gusto, in the manner ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... curiosity, Buckingham at first entertained some thought of following her by the same dangerous route, and had actually got upon the sill of the window for that purpose; and was contemplating what might be his next safe movement, when, from a neighbouring thicket of shrubs, amongst which his visitor had disappeared, he heard her chant a verse of a comic song, then much in fashion, concerning a despairing lover ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the mirror, which gave back her reflection from head to foot, at all her luxurious surroundings, so unfamiliar to her; then, instead of going to bed, she opened the window and stood leaning against the sill, motionless as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... his office Tom Van Dorn and Henry Fenn sat with their feet in the window sill, looking through the open window into the moon. In their discourse they used that elaborate, impersonal anonymity that youth engages to carry the baggage of ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... outline of the window- frame was visible; Uncle Felix's big figure blocked against the stars. Judy's head could be seen in silhouette against the other window, but Tim and Maria, being smaller, were merged in the pool of shadow below the level of the sill. A large, spread thing passed flutteringly up and down the room a moment, then came the rest. It settled over everything at once. A rustle was audible as of trailing, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... sill," advised Diana, and Anne accordingly leaned. Much to her delight, she saw, as she peered through the pane, a willow-ware platter, exactly such as she was in quest of, on the shelf in front of the window. So much she saw before the catastrophe came. In her joy ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... painstaking effort to understand that this meant Johnny McLean. That he was down there now, while she breathed pure air. Many times she read it, dazed. Suddenly she flashed to the window and threw it open and beat on the stone sill and dragged her hands across it. Then in a turn she felt this to be worse than useless and dropped on her knees and found out what prayer is. She read the paper again, ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... season is the dance you are giving to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French window, was just about to enter ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... he could see two or three on their beds. The children were tired of shouting. Drake went in-doors and threw a great log on the fire. It blazed up high with sparks, and he watched it, although the sun shown bright on the window-sill. Presently he noticed that a man had come in and taken a chair. It was Half-past Full, and with his boots stretched to the warmth, he sat gazing into the fire. The door opened and another buckaroo entered and sat off in a corner. He had a bundle of old letters, smeared sheets tied trite a twisted ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... episodes made him keep the tail of his eye on the window. Once or twice it was a question whether there was—not a bat, but something more considerable—that had a mind to join him. How unpleasant it would be if someone had slipped noiselessly over the sill and was crouching on ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... yes; I did say yes, I believe; but I did not know how or why, at this question there seemed a coming together of gladness and pain which took away my breath. My head dropped on Darry's little window-sill, and my tears rushed forth, like the head of water behind a broken mill-dam. Darry was startled and greatly concerned. He wanted to know if I was not well—if I would send him for "su'thing"—I could only shake my head and weep. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the doorway in which he had been standing, to his comfortable chair by the window, seated himself, picked up his pipe from the window-sill, filled it, lighted it and began puffing. The two men entered the room, closing the door behind them, and found chairs for themselves and occupied them. Then the ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... then, finding his eyes watering, he turned from it with an incoherent whimper, as if it had been a person from whom he would conceal the fact that he was weeping. He leaned his arm, against the window sill and dried his ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... have our conservatories and spend our thousands upon orchids, but which of nature's smiles ranks with the rose and the mignonette, the daisy and the bluebell, and the sweet forget-me-not blooming for all earth's children, and which grow upon the window-sill of the artisan and which the laborer ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... minute looking out, and tapping impatiently with his fingers on the window-sill, while Mr. Leigh watched him, troubled, and a little inclined to be angry. When he turned round again he had made up his mind that it was no use to get out of temper, a pretty sure proof that he was so already, and that the first thing to do was to find out exactly what his father and everybody ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... he took the gun-barrel between his knees with a movement of impatience, and continued his occupation of polishing it, although his eyes were constantly fixed askance upon the graceful form of the girl as she leant upon the window sill. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... sleeping-room and studio. It was as neat as wax, and as light and airy as any painter could desire. A large bow-window admitted the free light of heaven and at the same time afforded a fine view of the Palatine Hill. Leaning for a moment against the window-sill, in mute admiration of the prospect before her, the princess thought how happy a woman might be with this view to greet her eyes every day, while a husband who worshipped her and was worshipped by her worked at her side—or, rather, not worked, ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... was out of it; and what was more, the sunshine was out of Ellen's heart too. She went to the window and opened it, but there was nothing to keep it open; it slid down again as soon as she let it go. Baffled and sad, she stood leaning her elbows on the window-sill, looking out on the grass-plat that lay before the door, and the little gate that opened on the lane, and the smooth meadow and rich broken country beyond. It was a very fair and pleasant scene in the soft sunlight of the last of October; but the charm of it was gone for Ellen; ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... him. His mind suddenly lit up, as with a strain of music, with a sense of the sweetness of quiet lives worn away monotonously in the fields, in the grey little provincial towns, in old kitchens full of fragrance of herbs and tang of smoke from the hearth, where there are pots on the window-sill full of ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... after vainly purring against grandmother's stool, had jumped on the window-sill in pursuit of a belated wasp, and Sarah, rushing to the rescue of her flowers, cuffed the animal soundly and placed her in grandfather's lap. He was a lover of cats—a harmless fancy which was a source of unceasing annoyance to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... his prolonged residence on the island, and the thought had cost him many a bitter pang, but he had never mentioned it to Billy, on whom the idea fell for the first time like a thunderbolt. He almost staggered, and put his hand quickly on the window-sill. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... Eveley's window was followed by an impatient brushing aside of the curtains, and Miriam Landis swung gracefully over the sill in a cloud of ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... her little hands closing softly over the restless brown one drumming a tattoo on the window-sill, and her golden head drooping so close to Eve's, her curls mingled with her dark locks, "I could never love any one in this world again. I loved once—it was the sweetest, yet the most bitter, experience of my life. The same voice that spoke tender words to me cruelly cast me from him. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... day or two after they returned that Phyllis was leaning on the window-sill in the drawing-room, watching a passing shower, and admiring the soft bright tints of a rainbow upon the dark gray mass of cloud. 'I do set my bow in the cloud,' repeated she to herself over and over again, until Adeline entering the room, she eagerly exclaimed, 'Oh ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... minutes later, when he hung up, he had secured the information and made careful note of it, after which he sought an arm-chair in the hotel window, planted his feet on the window sill and gave himself up to reflection. He was occupied thus when T. Morgan Carey came out of the barber shop, and seeing Mr. Hennage, came over and sat down beside him. Mr. Hennage decided that the financier must have something on his mind, and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... 17th October, 1323, a few months before the most illustrious of his prisoners, and his bones were laid in a sarcophagus which may still be seen forming the sill of one of the windows of S. Matteo (on the right as you enter). Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust of Lamba till 1797, when the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the French proceedings of that age, threw it down. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... we took up the floor and joists under the instrument, and removed the sill on the end of the house. Of course we had to take out the studs below the plate; but the posts I had put in were amply sufficient to support the frame. We levelled down the banking so as to form a smooth ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic

... vivid Recollection's hand Recalls the scene once more! I see the same tall poplars stand Beside the garden door; I see the bird-cage hanging still; And where my sister set The flowers in the window-sill— Can they ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... Ben Eunaich, Dalmally; and Damsey (Adamnan's Isle) in Orkney, take their names from this saint. At {139} Firth-on-the-Spey, near Kingussie, is a very ancient bronze bell, long kept on a window-sill of the old church, and tradition relates that when moved from thence it produced a sound similar to the words, "Tom Eunan, Tom Eunan," until it was restored to its original resting-place in the church, which stands on ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... the sudden sound of a window being raised made him look up, and in an instant, swift as a passing cloud-shadow, his moodiness was gone. Daisy was leaning on her window-sill, looking down upon him. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... threw her pitying apron frill VESPERS Over a little trembling mouse When the sleek cat yawned on the sill, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... an hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observed the same slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his little hatchet, splitting kindling, and breaking coal for his fire. He does this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not to be attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain of his prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an axe), and daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason is this: That the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... hauling myself up by the rope, whereon I had made knots to this end; nor was the climbing more difficult than to scale a branchless beech trunk for a bird's nest, which, like other boys, I had often done. So behold me, at last, with my legs hanging in free air, seated on the sill of the casement. Happily, of the three iron stanchions, though together they bore my weight, one was loose in the lower socket, for lack of lead, and this one I displaced easily enough, and so passed through. Then I put the wooden bar at the rope's ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... right. Knowledge added little to human happiness. Science and skill could do nothing for General. Poor General! Again he smoothed the latter's head. For years he had barked his good-bye in the morning, for years watched eagerly his coming, paws on the window-sill as dusk grew on, for years leaped joyously to meet him on his return, but he would do these things no longer. There was no chance of betterment, and death would be a mercy—a painless death which could be arranged. But he ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... begin vigorously brushing and dusting a child's wheel chair. It was but a few minutes' work and Pattie took the chair inside again, but a few moments later she reappeared at her bed-room window, and throwing the sash up she brought a hat and a brush to the sill and brushed the hat vigorously. Clearly Pattie and the child were going out for a walk! At any rate, if she could but meet them on her way to the station, Jane thought she could annoy ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... sat by the window trying to make some sort of plan, watching the lightning play over the hilltop and the streams of rain chasing each other down the lightning rod. And this was the day that had dawned so joyfully! It had been a red sunrise, and she had leaned on the window sill studying her lesson and thinking what a lovely world it was. And what a golden morning! The changing of the bare, ugly little schoolroom into a bower of beauty; Miss Dearborn's pleasure at her success with the Simpson twins' recitation; the privilege ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... subtler sense Hold their breath and hurry thence. Miss Thompson hovers there and gazes: Her housewife's knowing eye appraises Salt and fresh, severely cons Kippers bright as tarnished bronze: Great cods disposed upon the sill, Chilly and wet, with gaping gill, Flat head, glazed eye, and mute, uncouth, Shapeless, wan, old-woman's mouth. Next a row of soles and plaice With querulous and twisted face, And red-eyed bloaters, golden-grey; Smoked haddocks ranked in neat array; A group of smelts that take ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... the moonbeam, Beyond all praise but a tear. The dream of Adeimantus (As he lay upon his bed), Wonderful, white, and gracious, And this was the word it said. "Arise! oh! Adeimantus, The breath of the dawn blows chill, The stars begin to fade Ere the first ray strikes the sill. Arise! oh! Adeimantus For here is work to your hand, If the fingers fashion the dream As the soul can understand." He rose from his troubled bed Ere the dream had faded away, And he said, "I will fashion the dream As the potter fashions the clay." He said in his ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson

... and then I saw something come up above the sill, and clutch at the broken window-frame. It caught a piece of the woodwork; and, now, I could make out that it was a hand and arm. A moment later, the face of one of the Swine-creatures rose into view. Then, before I ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... about half an inch thick. These are suggestively called balloon frames. The former would be huge and inconvenient, the latter are often fair and frail. That the frame of the outer wall of a wooden building should be mainly vertical is evident, the outer studs, if possible, extending from the sill to the plates, and as many of the inner ones as may be reaching through both stories, especially those by the staircase, where the shrinking of the second-floor timbers will reveal ugly cracks and crooks. That the greatest strength and ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... and saw only red brick factories and dingy houses and dirty streets. The longing for the spring in her old English home lay in her heart like a throbbing pain. "Oh, papa," she sobbed, resting her arms on the window-sill and laying her head wearily down, "do you know all about it, dearest? Oh, if you could only tell ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston

... is not a desirable race characteristic; it does not add to the woman's happiness or efficiency; or to the child's; it is merely an accessory pleasant to the master; his attitude being much as the amorous monad ecstatically puts it, in Sill's ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... for a conscience already sodden with billiards, drink and cigars. He flung a leg over the sill and drew himself gently into the room. At least he would have one good meal, he too would have his Christmas dinner before the end came. He switched the light on and turned eagerly to the table. His eyes ravenously scanned ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... bouquet in a vase on the window-sill by my bedside, and thought of Catherine going out in the early morning to gather the violets and the fresh roses and adding one after the other in the dew, putting in the lilacs last, and the odor seemed still more ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... baby, instructing him how to hold it, and threatening him if he hurt it; then laid himself on his front, shoved his legs across the area through the window, and followed with his body. Holding on to the edge of the window-sill, he let his feet as far down as he could, then dropped, and fell on a heap of coals, whence he tumbled to the ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... wildly around the room, and I seen a fly upside down on the window-sill tryin' to ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer

... shelter of a cellar. The building was hit several times. Shortly after the bombardment commenced a man leading a mule was observed, coming along the road. He was invited to take shelter in the cellar. The invitation was accepted with alacrity. The mule was tethered to the window-sill, and the man was soon in their midst. Shells continued to burst overhead and round about. The newcomer proved to be a blessing. He soon had the men laughing despite the noise and danger. When a shell burst in close proximity to the building, he evinced great concern for the ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... confronted the enemy as calm as ever, sitting, if you please, upon my feet! I don't know that any gymnastic performance ever surprised me more than this, though I have seen this very beast drop twenty feet from a window-sill on to a stone pavement without appearing to notice any particular change of level. Cats with so much plumage have probably their own reasons ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... Baalbec is finer than London; oh, To sit on the bough that zigzags low By the woodland pool, And loudly laugh at man, the fool That vows to the vulgar sun; oh, rare, To wheel from the wood to the window where A day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care, And perch on the sill and straightly stare Through his visions; rare, to sail Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale, — To flit down the shadow-shot-with-gleam, Betwixt hanging leaves and starlit stream, Hither, thither, to and fro, Silent, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... the screen and placed the coat, with the four kittens asleep on it, carefully in the deep wire basket. Sandyface, interested, leaped upon the window sill, and smelled of the kittens and the basket. Then she craned her neck to ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... a matter of indifference. Some evidently lead to palpable and speedy disaster. If I elect to believe that I can fly, and leave my window-sill as lightly as does the sparrow I now see there, it is time for my friends to ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... your kind hints; and now to take advantage of them." So saying, I stepped lightly upon the window-sill, cleared the miller with one spring, and before Power could recover his legs or Margeritta her astonishment, I clasped her in my arms, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... through the golden haze of Venice that he saw them. His St. Ursula is a dainty Venetian lady, and the bedroom in which she dreams her wonderful dream is just a room in one of the old marble palaces, with a pot of pinks upon the window-sill, and her little high-heeled Venetian shoes by the bedside. Whenever it was possible, Carpaccio would paint in those scenes on which his eyes had rested since his childhood—the painted galleys with their sails reflected in the clear water, the dainty dresses ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman

... it. A flat in summer! Oh, the cinders on the window-sill, and the sun on the roof, and the knowledge that all of us are going out of town to lawns and ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... twenty minutes the bush below the back-window parted and the Kaffir slipped out. He grinned at me, and after a glance round, hopped very nimbly over the sill. Then he examined the window ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... half unconscious of what she was doing, but with a blind intention of obeying the orders of her fiance, climbed over a window sill and jumped out. ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... it hovered about the door and windows, peeping curiously in above the shoulders of a dozen loungers. As to this idle company, there they stood, spellbound by the place, and, casting now and then a glance upon the darkness in their rear, settled their lazy elbows more at ease upon the sill, and leaned a little further in: no more disposed to tear themselves away than if they had been born to cluster round the blazing hearth like so ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... the cot, from there to the next and the next. Her course was straight to the door through which the physician had entered, and by the time he was halfway across the room she had wriggled herself clear of the last cot, and was over the sill and in the corridor, the twilight aiding her escape. Regaining her feet, she darted noiselessly down the long hall. At the head of the stairs she paused. On the floor below was a small alcove where she might hide. Making sure that no one was in sight, she sped down, but as ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... a shower and the mould was wet," proceeded Malcolm Sage, "there were no marks of mud or mould on the pipe, on the window-sill, or in Lady Glanedale's bedroom, which, I understand, had purposely not been swept. A man had slid down that water-pipe; yet he had done so without so much as removing the surface dust from ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... next Sunday, while he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's gardener were filling his bow-window with flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom and leaf. The said window was large and had a broad sill outside, and inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, sent up a cart-load of flower-pots, and Betty and the gardener arranged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... But a huge hedgehog had curled itself up in a ball close to the pillow where the little delicate head had been pressed. Irene was afraid of no living creature, and she recognized the hedgehog at once. She took it up and laid it on the window-sill. Then she looked round her. Her face was white as death; her teeth chattered. She suddenly left the room and went straight to Lucy's. She opened the ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... 4-2/3 diameters of the shot, unless some change in height had to be made to fit a gun port or embrasure. To prevent cannon from pushing shutters open when the ship rolled in a storm, lower tier carriages let the muzzle of the gun, when fully elevated, butt against the sill ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... brownie and blow it threw your hackamore and forgit it," said Pinkey, soothingly, as he handed him a book of cigarette papers, with a sack of tobacco and made room for him on the door-sill. "I ain't used to cow ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... thence, through a system of relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of recourse ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... is a confounded rascally business," said Jack to himself; who then dropped his cloak, jumped upon the window-sill, opened wide the window-curtains with both hands, and uttered a yelling kind of ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... flung open and a man staggered blindly over the sill, reeling and clutching at his breast with both gnarled, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... stateliness. There were some people present who were evidently very much impressed by their surroundings. Booker Washington seemed to be absolutely unconscious of the splendor of the house in which he was, or of the society in which for the moment he found himself. Born in a hut without a door-sill, he was at ease in the most stately and beautiful ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... servant to fetch an embroidered cushion; and, seating herself in such a way as to lean against the railing, she took up a fishing-rod and began to fish. Pao-ch'ai played for a time with a twig of olea she held in her hand, then resting on the window-sill, she plucked the petals, and threw them into the water, attracting the fish, which went by, to rise to the surface and nibble at them. Hsiang-yn, after a few moments of abstraction, urged Hsi Jen and the other girls to help themselves to anything they wanted, and beckoned ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... expedition, of whom the writer was one, were selected from the three Ohio regiments belonging to General J.W. Sill's brigade, being simply told that they were wanted for secret and very dangerous service. So far as known, not a man chosen declined the perilous honor. Our uniforms were exchanged for ordinary Southern dress, and all arms except revolvers ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... ribs and bringing into tangible shape what looked like several sets of huge bird-wings. "No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more children being thrown from fifth story windows! No, siree! All we have to do now is to place the Anti-Fire-Fly on the window-sill, spread the wings, jump into the basket, push her ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... attempting his escape from the plantation. He was just stepping out of the door when he met the enraged overseer with his gun in his hand. Not a word was spoken by either. Huckstep raised his gun and fired. The man fell without a groan across the door-sill. He rose up twice on his hands and knees, but died in a few minutes. He was dragged off and buried. The overseer told me that there was no other way to deal with such a fellow. It was Alabama law, if a slave resisted to shoot him at once. He told me of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... which came and chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... the bedroom window of the genial physician, whose astonishment at his covering so long a stretch of road at night for news of a boy like Crossjay—gifted with the lives of a cat—became violent and rapped Punch-like blows on the window-sill at Vernon's refusal to take shelter and rest. Vernon's excuse was that he had "no one but that fellow to care for", and he strode off, naming a farm five miles distant. Dr. Corney howled an invitation to early breakfast to him, in the event of his passing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... up on their stools and craned their heads forward to get a better view of me, and two little girls jumped upon the sill of an open window where they ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... frequently to the Corralon and conversed with the mother and the girl. On the window-sill of their tiny home the mother and the daughter had a little box with a sprig of mint planted in it; although they watered it every morning, it scarcely grew, for there was no sun. One day the woman and child disappeared together with their pretty poodle; ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja



Words linked to "Sill" :   structural member, windowsill, stone, threshold



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