"Whispering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... treatise upon religious assemblies published by him in 1681, remarked severely upon the unseemly behaviour which was constantly to be seen in church—the looking about, the whispering, the talking, the laughing, the deliberate reclining for sleep. Whether it had arisen out of contempt for all the externals of worship, or whether it were owing rather to a wild fear of any semblance of fanaticism or of hypocrisy, this rude and slovenly conduct had come, he said, to a great height, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... was a voice within him which kept whispering as did the one which counselled the abandonment of his illegal calling, the abandonment of that other effort, infinitely dearer to him, to win Madge Brierly's love and hand in marriage. His common-sense assured him that she ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... cried, softly approaching the other and whispering, though after events proved that he might have spoken ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... the papers this morning, Phoenix," said David, as he sat down beside the reclining bird next morning. "They don't know who you are, but they're all talking about what happened last night. They call you the 'Whispering Burglar.' The ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... Refuse to do it, her Majesty, your Royal Brother, you yourself Royal Highness, God only knows what the unheard-of issue will be for you all! Do it, let us advise you: you must, you must!—Wilhelmina wrung her hands; ran distractedly to and fro; the well-affected whispering to her, the others "conversing at a window." At length she did it. Will marry whom her all-gracious Papa appoints; never wished or meant the least disobedience; hopes, beyond all things, his paternal love will now return, and make everybody blessed;—and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... attention was arrested by the tones of an unknown feminine voice in the hall below. Shortly afterwards she heard Frederick, the valet's large footsteps hurtling upstairs at a double, followed by a prolonged and leisurely whispering of silken skirts. Here, clearly, was a matter into which, for the reputation of Cedar Lodge, it was desirable to look without delay. Eliza, therefore, moved to the near side of the door, and, through the three-inch aperture afforded by the rising hinge, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... subdued squeaks, and sudden rushes of pattering feet, the murmuring of myriad fronds in the placid breeze, the whispering of the neighboring elms, even the steady chant of the distant cascade—all swelled into a soft and continuous chorus, hardly heard by the country policemen, accustomed as they were to the sounds of a woodland at night, but of surprising volume and variety to the man whose forests lay in the paved ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... "I am altered neither in appearance nor in heart. And do you know why? It is because Hope, bright-eyed Hope, has sat day and night by my side, whispering sweet words of encouragement, bidding me be firm; imparting to me strength to endure the present, and to enjoy the future. I feel it in my soul that he will come sooner or later to liberate ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... head upon his desk and waited in an agony of hope—waited while the darkness deepened and the splendid eternal song of the river proclaimed the futility and folly of man. A cricket sang with heart-piercing cheer, as if to say, "I die to-morrow, but I never despair." But no silken rustle, no whispering voice came to still the agony welling in bitter sighs from the lips of the ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... have not yet told her. I meant to tell her today but did not. Then I thought of telling you and of whispering the whole story to her after we ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... Alice. "There is a game I would call 'Gossip, or Whispering Gallery,' which can take in the whole of us, and possibly take us all in, in a double sense. Let Aunt Lucy sit in one corner of the room, and Uncle John in another; and we young folks can range ourselves between. Aunty can say anything ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... whispering together their thoughts of flame and speed. At the back of the room sat Miriam among the shadows, like some melody hovering in a musician's mind till he should call her forth. It was close upon the tea hour. Behind them Mrs. Mawle was busying ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... doorstep, he raised himself to his knees, and looked through a wide hole in the wall where the chinking had dropped out from between the logs. Through this he could see a strip of sky studded with twinkling stars. One by one he pointed out the magic seven, repeating the charm and whispering the wish. ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Mongan heard the whispering, and he told the hag that if she did what he advised she would certainly get either himself or the King of Leinster for ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... and went with quick steps to her side, catching up her hand and covering it with kisses. She did her best to stop him, whispering, with a glance toward the door, that they might be interrupted ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... the moody mind of Saul was viewed as an evil spirit from the Lord vexing him, so on the other hand the solemn strains of the harp, which soothed and composed his troubled thoughts, may well have seemed to the hag-ridden king the very voice of God or of his good angel whispering peace. Even in our own day a great religious writer, himself deeply sensitive to the witchery of music, has said that musical notes, with all their power to fire the blood and melt the heart, cannot be mere empty sounds and nothing more; no, they have escaped from ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... and a drop of peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff yet. And how many things you learned as you went along! Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin—simply wind on the stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual hour, two o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up promptly and remark, with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school book much, that that was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my hands as if I were a child. The hour drew nigher. He had so many questions to ask, but the inevitableness of the situation struck him dumb. We were on the platform; the train was about to move out. I made a motion; he gripped me tightly, whispering ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... were talking the other two crooks had already moved up and had made their way around back of the stone wall that cut off the Dodge garden back of the house. There they stood, whispering eagerly and gazing furtively over the wall as their man talked ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... it was because she had been so naughty that the tears were there, Ruby wanted to bury her head in the pillow beside her mother, and have a good cry there; but she remembered what her father had told her, and kept very quiet. She only kissed her mother, and whispering how very sorry she was, she came away, feeling comforted and forgiven by her mother's kiss. "I don't see how I am ever bad to such a lovely mamma," she ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... will all this end?" queried the girl, as together they strolled in the direction of Bayswater, passing many whispering couples sitting on seats. London lovers enjoy the park at all hours of ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... shaking off Macdonald Dubh; "he is one dog, and the son of a dog!" He turned and started for the boy. But Yankee Jim had got Ranald to the door and was whispering to him. "Run!" cried Yankee Jim, pushing him out of the door, and the boy was off like the wind. LeNoir pursued him a ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Vestibule), and the Peinador de la Reina (Queen's Robing Room), in which are to be seen the same delicate and beautiful architecture, the same costly and elegant decorations. The palace and the Upper Alhambra also contain baths, ranges of bedrooms and summer- rooms, a whispering gallery and labyrinth, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Vance lay trying in vain to sleep upon the hard clay floor of the cottage, he overheard the fisherman and his wife whispering together. ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... used of God to supply us with the means of speaking and hearing over long distances; Jesus gives us connection with God and shortens to whispering nearness and forgiveness the long distance of separation between an outraged Heavenly ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... the extra seats that could be provided were arranged in rows, and, it being a mild evening, the men and bigger boys stood outside the open windows. There was a great bustle and whispering until Miss Cramp's tinkling bell called the audience as well ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... the sneering countenance of Hug all the while. He never once smiled or laughed at the brilliant sallies of his brethren, and did his best to prevent his new patron, Mr. Flaw, from doing so—constantly putting his hand before his mouth, and whispering into Mr. Flaw's ear at the very point of the joke or story—and the smile would disappear from the countenance ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... became of supreme importance and when everybody in the house united to turn the world upside down for his delight. Christmas was a general holiday. But May twentieth was his own particular anniversary. Always there was some really worthwhile present about which endless whispering and the greatest secrecy was maintained. Once it had been a fine camera; once a tool chest; last year it was the long-coveted wireless for which he had so long sighed. What, speculated the boy, would it ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... thought passed through Jack's mind he smiled and bowed and made his way among the crowd, whispering as he drew his cousin's arm through ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... was half dead with fright, and hurried off in the opposite direction as fast as possible. The sharp report of one gun after another broke the stillness of night until Mayall had got more than two miles from the bloody conflict with his prize, and had soothed the child's fears by softly whispering in her ear that he was carrying her home to ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... right now," and Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest had to. I heard ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... my head and shoulders: fatigued to death: my mind still more fatigued than my body: and in such a foam the horses, that every one in the inn we put up at guessed [they could not do otherwise] that I was a young giddy creature, who had run away from her friends. This it was easy to see, by their whispering and gaping: more of the people of the house also coming in by turns, than were ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... first sounds of the returning enemy, while from time to time Mr Brooke's clear, short orders came out of the darkness behind us, and we knew that he had sent a party into the fixed boat to rock it from side to side. Then came a cheer, as the water rolled hissing and whispering among the reeds; there was the simultaneous plash of oars, and a ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... front, think that French and English are going to recapture the city? Any day that we can hear the guns faintly, we know that there is an undercurrent of nervous expectancy running through the whole city. It goes down alleys and avenues and fills the cafes. You can see Belgians standing together, whispering. Twice they actually set the date when King Albert ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... hero, who coolly leaps the gate, and halting justice in the form of his enemies, who must needs pull up cumbersomely and wait to be let through. At the death of Tom King, he could not refrain from seizing Coggan by the hand, and whispering, with tears in his eyes, "Of course he's not really shot, Jan—only seemingly!" And when the last sad scene came on, and the body of the gallant and faithful Bess had to be carried out on a shutter by twelve volunteers from among the spectators, nothing could restrain Poorgrass from lending ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... was the night Wherin the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist Whispering new joys to the mild ocean— Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... a tremendous opening of doors in the Hotel de Vezelay, and much whispering on thresholds, as the executioner and his band entered solemnly. Sophia heard them tramp upstairs; they seemed to hesitate, and then apparently went into a room on the same landing as hers. A door banged. But Sophia could hear the regular sound of new voices talking, and then the rattling ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... excellent. The reader seldom got the idea, however, that German soldiers were being killed and wounded, and after a time most of the battle descriptions contained much of soft nocturnal breezes whispering in the moonlight, but precious few real live details ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... moved, and forgot the strange mixture of religious exercises and temporal enjoyment which this feast displayed. Absorbed in listening, he did not observe that, in his immediate vicinity, a singular commotion had arisen, and that a good deal of whispering was carried on among the Brothers, as they regarded him and Hans with curious glances. After the reading of the letter another hymn was given out; then Hans nudged ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... very still for a long time. At last, there came a little rustling, whispering sound, all round the window: ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... all pretty women went to school to the devil before entering upon earthly enterprise, he wondered that he had been open to the illusion of complete ingenuousness in a descendant of one of the oldest and subtlest civilizations of earth. Within that luminous shell of youth there were, no doubt, whispering memories of men and women steeped in court intrigue from birth, of triumphant beauties that had lived for love and their power over the passions of men as ardent as himself. It was quite possible that she might be as useful ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... above her towering consort. For the instant the storm would be blanketed by the prodigious waves. Wild, formless ghosts of foam would stretch wide arms about the falling dock as if they were clasping it into the lowest crypts of the dead, and the night would be filled with a vast and dreadful whispering. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Rosalind and Arthur were whispering together with longer pauses between the sentences than is usual in the converse of friends. She was smiling into his face in her sweetest, most winsome manner, but he did not look happy. His face wore the same troubled, fighting expression which his ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... this post must be surrounded and taken, and whispered to Wulfhere, who was next me, what to do. And he answered that he would manage it, bidding me stand still. Then he went down the line, whispering in each man's ear, till he had told off twenty men, and them he sent off right and left into the darkness and I was left with Wislac standing alone, watching ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... pale and interesting face a flush had arisen simultaneously with the announcement of her name. He would have sprung up to receive her, but she pressed him down, and throwing all reserve on one side for the first time in their intercourse, she crouched beside the sofa, whispering with roguish solicitude, her face not too far from his own: 'How foolish you are, George, to get ill just now when I have been wanting so much to see you again!—I am so sorry to see you like this—what ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Great GEORGE spouting subdues all the inhabitants of the wilderness. Timid deer trip to the shore to listen; ferocious bears, catching the echo, shed tears of penitence; all creatures of the roaring kind acknowledge themselves surpassed and silenced; the whispering pines whisper all the more softly, as if ashamed of their own verbal weakness. All speeches, even the speeches of a TRAIN, must come to an end; and having ended, the floating DEMOSTHENES sits down to write to the newspapers, that ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... of that night, in the garden alone, When whispering you told me your heart was my own, That your love in the future should faithfully be, Unshared by another, kept only ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... a low whispering of raiment sweeping and trailing over marble, distinctly audible in the deep silence of the night, announced the approach of the queen. In effect it was she. With a step as cadenced and rhythmic as an ode, she crossed the threshold of the thalamus, and ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... like to tear them up," Frances was whispering behind me with a shudder, "only I promised—" ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... no miracles left in Heaven?" she moaned, half whispering lest she should wake him. "Is there no miracle of deeds undone again and of forgiveness given—for me? God! God! That we should be for ever ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... O wand'rer, by the hurrying river, Nor in the whispering wood, nor where above Rises the perilous crag. My second ever, With added ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... power? (10) To myself, at all events, it seems that all beautiful and noble things are the result of constant practice and training; and pre-eminently the virtue of temperance, seeing that in one and the same bodily frame pleasures are planted and spring up side by side with the soul and keep whispering in her ear, "Have done with self-restraint, make haste to gratify us and ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... day. Having yielded to the settlement for which he so earnestly begged, she was determined to make him purchase it, and in transports of passion and avarice, kept traversing his chamber from the lawyer to the bed, whispering her husband, and then telling the lawyer, who was drawing the will, "Sir, Mr. Mann says I am to have this, I am to have that!" The lawyer at last, offended to the greatest degree, said, "Madam, it is Mr. Mann's will I am making, not yours!"—but here let me break it off; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... appeared behind the general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music, and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere beneath into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... amusing," she smiled, ignoring the question. "You'll enjoy it. And it isn't all fleet and admiral. There's happiness, and romance, and whispering on the stairs. At night, when the lights are all blazing, and the band is playing waltzes in the casino, and somebody is giving a dinner in the grill-room, and the girls flit about in the shadows looking too sweet for words—well, Baldpate ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... time other gamblers would hand him part of their winnings—being glad to let him stake for them as much as his hand could grasp; while beside him stood a Pole in a state of violent, but respectful, agitation, who, also in expectation of a generous largesse, kept whispering to him at intervals (probably telling him what to stake, and advising and directing his play). Yet never once did the player throw him a glance as he staked and staked, and raked in his winnings. Evidently, the player in question was ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... man who, under Providence, had wrought it, seemed deaf and blind to all this. He only felt a soft trembling clasp round his right hand, and he only heard Auriole's voice whispering his name. ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the key to the lock, when, starting from his knees, with a voice of affrightment, loudly whispering, and as if out of breath, they are at the door, my beloved creature! and taking the key from me, he fluttered with it, as if he would double lock it. And instantly a voice from within cried out, bursting against ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... then, by all means distrust our own and the public estimation of all heroes dead within a hundred years. Let us, in laying claim to an infallible verdict, remember how oddly our decisions sound at the other side of Time's whispering gallery. Shall we therefore pronounce only on Chaucer and Shakespeare, on Gower and our learned Ben? Alas! we are too sure of their relative merits; we stake our reputations with no qualms, no battle-ardours. These we reserve to ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... newly-married bride, a simply clad country girl of eighteen, sat at a window, looking out upon a little square, and every few minutes exchanging caresses they imagined were seen by no one else in the room. Indeed, when they were not caressing, they were whispering in very affectionate proximity. Once or twice I overheard, "My darling," and, "You know, my love," which curt but meaning sentences are much in fashion with persons on a bridal tour, and who set out with the belief ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... at me [a confident slut this Miss Rawlins, thought I]: so did Mrs. Moore. I told you so! whispering said I, turning to the women; shaking my head with a face of great concern and pity; and then to my charmer, My dear creature, how you rave! You will not easily recover from the effects of this violence. Have patience, my love. Be pacified; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... breadths of damask, with the water-can making mimic rain upon them, she was well aware that all her surroundings added charm to her charm. The soft winds blowing her hair and her pink skirt; the green leaves whispering above and around her; the rippling of the brook running down the hillside—all these things belonged as much to her as the frame belongs to the picture. Why did not Roland come to see her thus? Was he afraid for the words he had said to her? Were they not true words? Did he intend, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... whispering to Macumer, and I was convinced, from the movement of his lips, that what he said ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... clouds trailed delicately through the blue sky. From the pine forest streamed a wild perfume, the branches swayed together, rhythmically, sonorously. I felt so light and free and happy—so childish! I wanted to poke my tongue out at the circle on the grass, who, drawing close together, were whispering meaningly. ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... Suffolk and Thetford in Norfolk runs a quiet river, the Little Ouse, where few boats break the stillness of the water. On either bank stand whispering beech-trees, and so low is the music of the leaves that the message of Ely's distant bells floats through them on a quiet evening as far as ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... on watch we lay in each other's arms for warmth. Our frozen suits thawed where our bodies met, and as the slightest movement exposed these comparatively warm spots to the biting air, we clung motionless, whispering each to his companion our hopes and thoughts. Occasionally from an almost clear sky came snow-showers, falling silently on the sea and laying a thin shroud of white over ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... under the trees, and seated at the tables innumerable family parties, innumerable pairs of lovers, pairs of married people, pairs of working women and of working girls on holiday; all happy for their hour, all whispering, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... there were two men directly behind him, whispering together; but he paid no attention to them until he heard ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... is not this rushing at once in medias res? It is; there's no paltry subterfuge about it—no unnecessary wearing out of "the waning moon they met by"—"the stars that gazed upon their joy"—"the whispering gales that breathed in zephyr's softest sighs"—their "lover's perjuries to the distracted trees they wouldn't allow to go to sleep." In short, "there's no nonsense"—there's a broad assertion of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... too, arrived a day or two before Christmas, with some small cousins. These cousins occupied the attention of the little boys, and there was a great deal of whispering and mystery, behind doors, and under the stairs, and in the ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... farther and farther from that spot. Now and then he would turn his head and glance back, and immediately increase his pace a little. He was long past the point where he had strength to trot, but he could walk, and he did walk and carry Casey on his back, still whispering condemnation. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... two stood a moment, as though they were whispering; each diabolical, each rolling back his eyes to watch the other. While from the little mob there rose a snarling, bubbling snore, like some giant wheezing ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... suddenly upon the mouth of a cave where Steven threw down the fish, assumed an air of secrecy, took Pepeeta by the hand and led her toward it, whispering: ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the history of wasted opportunities and regrets, of defeat and discontent, of self-wrought failure and remorse, that may plainly be read in 'To my Sister,' 'An Exile's Farewell,' 'Early Adieux,' 'Whispering in the Wattle Boughs,' 'Quare Fatigasti,' 'Wormwood and Nightshade,' and other poems. The writer, as he himself says, has no reserve in the criticism of ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... was all the more wonderful to me, because it was the habit of her mind in later years to reason, as President McCosh does, from premise to conclusion. But she had seen a vision there sitting in the August splendor with the voice of God's presence whispering in the trees, and the vision had set the heart high above the brain. These were care-worn and work-worn folks she saw about her with knotted hands resting on the staff, or folded quietly on the lap. They had nearly done the good day's work, and now preacher and prophet ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... were doing. For that is my trouble—that I look guilty so easily. I never cash a cheque at the bank but I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder and to hear a stern voice saying, "You cummer longer me." If I walk through any of the big stores with a parcel in my hand I expect to hear a voice whispering in my ear, "The manager would like to see you quietly in his office." I have never forged or shoplifted in my life, but the knowledge that a real forger or shoplifter would try to have the outward appearance of a man as innocent ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... to escape from prison. But nothing of the kind ever happened. Whenever the guard or the inspector himself looked into his cell through the hole in the door, they saw Stepan sitting on a bag filled with straw, holding his head with his hands and whispering to himself. On being brought before the examining magistrate charged with the inquiry into his case, he did not behave like an ordinary convict. He was very absent-minded, hardly listening to the questions; but when ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... touched his shoulder. He took my arm, and we went; no one had noticed us, and I had not spoken a word. In the room to which he guided me, through a long and sombre corridor, there was no sign of a secretary. I drank some water. 'There, you are better!' he cried. 'Thank you,' I said, but scarcely whispering. 'How fortunate I ventured to come to you just at that moment! You might have fallen'; and he smiled again. I shook my head. I said: 'It was your coming—that—that—made me dizzy!' 'I profoundly regret—' he began. 'No, no,' I interrupted him; and in that instant I knew I was ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... probable effect of the night's rioting that he had forgotten where he was. Suddenly the Egyptian's beautiful face was close to his, and she pressed a divit into his hand, at the same time pointing at the officer, and whispering "Hit him." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Merriwell's body. Of all the mysteries on this island, the mystery of this black whispering glade in the woods was ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... barked at us, though in one instance a plan had been laid to intercept us. About four leagues from Santander, whilst we were baiting our horses at a village hostelry, I saw a fellow run off after having held a whispering conversation with a boy who was dealing out barley to us. I instantly enquired of the latter what the man had said to him, but only obtained an evasive answer. It appeared afterwards that the conversation was about ourselves. Two or three leagues further on there was an inn and village, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... actually knew of all that was going on I do not know; but I do know that about this time she seemed paler than ever, and we frequently saw her and Ruth talking earnestly together; and Ruth and Walter, too, were always whispering ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... quiver, this great sailor, when he saw Pal Yachy standing there, but I put my arms about him whispering to him to wait. It was dark where we were, there was a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... up the storm Wo heard a voice, low and quiet, but in it all the sounds of earth and sky seemed to mingle—the song of the bird, the whispering of the trees, and the murmuring ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Jerry took the lead; whispering to Hal to be sure and keep by my side, whatever might happen; we spurred our horses up the steep acclivity; our rifles cocked, and ready at the word to pour ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... his head nearer, and those standing by could see the dying man whispering into the detective's ear. He spoke with an effort for some minutes, and hurriedly, like one who knew that his time was short. Then he stopped suddenly, and his head fell back grotesquely, like a broken doll's. Colwyn felt his heart, and ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible color, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, swishing stealthily over the sand. The snakes whisper softly; The whispering, whispering snakes, Dreaming and swaying and staring, But always whispering, softly whispering. The wind streams from the lone reaches Of Arabia, solemn with night, And the wild fire makes shimmer of blood Over the robes of the hooded ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... the court-house the boys kept snickering and whispering, "Don't stump your toe, child," and "Be careful of the child, boys," and things like that till Pony had to fight some of them. Then they stopped. They were afraid ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... were not the rounded domes of the isolated farms, but a series of upward-pointing shafts. They walked through a tall gap which must have supported a now-disappeared barrier gate, and their passing was signaled by a whispering sound as they shuffled through the loose sand and soil drifted there in a ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... generous sentiment "This one's on me," the spinning of a coin on the bar, the raising of the elbow, the final toss that dispatched the fluid—all these were done to the life. The audience followed suit with a will. A whispering rustle ran through the dingy hall as each man murmured his favorite catchwords. "Give it a name," "Set 'em up again," "Here's luck," and such archaic phrases were faintly audible. Miss Chuff kept her gaze fastened on ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... would like to hide, to suppress yourself by holding your breath. But still the watch must be kept; you must, at the least sound, issue from your retreat, face the invisible and bluntly disturb the imposing silence of the earth, at the risk of bringing down the whispering evil or crime upon yourself alone. Whoever the enemy be, even if he be man, that is to say, the very brother of the god whom it is your business to defend, you must attack him blindly, fly at his throat, fasten your perhaps sacrilegious teeth ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... boy came up the lane to the other corner; there were sixteen years between the ages of the brothers, who alone were left of the children born into and borne out of the house. The young man waited till they were within whispering distance of each other, and then he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... toiled desolately up the rustling and whispering side of a low hill the maid chanced to look back, and when she looked back she screamed and pointed, and clung to Becfola's arm. Becfola followed the pointing finger, and saw below a large black mass that ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... actually coming, and as I went into the house with her, she held me, whispering to me to come home at once with her, but I told her I could not leave them in that way, and they were really ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... river. And there was the sound of wind over the lake in his song, the sound of ripples under the prow of a boat, the sound of ripples on the shore, the sound of the river flowing past the tall reeds, the whispering sound of the river at night. And all the time he played cunningly on the dulcimer. The girls of Novgorod had never danced to so sweet a tune when in the old days Sadko played his dulcimer to earn kopecks ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... to see her pass And watch her through the fence, and I Can hear the others whispering, "Miss ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... a grey pallor spread from lip to brow, and the unhappy woman shuddered; but rallying, she moved across the floor to her writing desk, and the infatuated man followed, whispering: ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the proud stare of her eyes; and when she dropped the heavy lids upon them and sauntered away, arms akimbo under her shawl, he could only swear. And he always cursed Marco Zoppa who gave her chestnuts and sage counsel for nothing. God only knew what devilry he might be whispering to her in the shady corner where the sun never came and the grass sprouted between the flags—she leaning against the wall, looking down at her toes, and he peering keen-eyed into her face and muttering in his beard, sometimes laying an old brown hand on her ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... him a little way, but totally unaware of the stranger's entrance, were two men whispering and laughing together. One held a piece of paper on a book, and was making a hurried sketch of Louie. Every now and then he drew the attention of his companion to some of the points of the model. David caught a careless phrase or two, and understood just enough of their student's ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rich vestments that I scarcely recognized the man, whom I had always seen before in dull forest garb, yet I permitted him to take my hand and assist me gallantly to the shore. Faith, but he appeared like a new person with his embroidered coat, buckled shoes and powdered hair, smiling and debonair, whispering compliments to me, as he helped me across a strip of mud to the drier ground beyond. But I liked him none the better, for there was the same cold stare to his eyes, and a cruel sting to his words which he could not hide. The man was the same whatever the cut of his clothes, and ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... even listening—he lifted one of his hands, and looked at it vacantly. He whispered something to himself; and counted out what he was whispering slowly; in divisions of his own, on three of his fingers in succession. He fixed his eyes again on Anne with the same devouring hatred in their look, and spoke (this time directly addressing himself to her) with the same ferocious vindictiveness in ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... awful secrets are going on here? Is it a Freemason's Lodge and those the mystic signs?" asked a gay voice at the door; and there stood Rose, full of smiling wonder at the sight of her two uncles hand in hand, whispering and nodding to one ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier, ere the morning star: While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering with white lips—"The foe! ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Anatomy; Medicine; then the mind of man; then the minds of men, in all Travels, Voyages, and Histories. So I would spend ten years; the next five in the composition of the poem, and the five last in the correction of it. So would I write, haply not unhearing of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, which speaks to mighty minds, of predestinated ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... in the whispering tone used when sickness is near. "This has been a dreadful trip for you to take. You must have some hot tea at once." And, as the old woman bustled ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... moreover, his room was at the top of the house. He did not hear any disturbance that night—the opening and shutting of doors, the anxious whispering voices, the sound of wheels driving rapidly up to the door. He knew nothing of it all. For, alas! his tiresome, fidgety temper had caused him to be looked upon as no better than a sort of naughty child in the house—of no use or assistance, concerning whom every one's ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... pass us whispering, and we follow them with our eyes. This Utopia has certainly preserved the fundamental freedom, to love. And then a sweet-voiced bell from somewhere high up towards ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... fell to whispering undertones and suddenly, unexpectedly, crashed and stopped. The girls were running from the floor. A wave of smooth, polite applause ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... to find my name familiar everywhere I have been on my travels. But magazines, newspapers, telegrams, and what-not have turned the world into a whispering gallery. But the less a man is known to men the more he knows of God; so it seems to me, as a rule. Yet great activity may flow as a consequence of intimate union with Him whom theologians call Actus Purissimus. From the fact of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... our summer, wandering alone! See, see the dead leaves falling! Hear thy heart, Which, with the year's pulse beating swift or slow, Takes in the changing world its changing part, Return a sigh, an echo sad and low, To the faint, scarcely audible sound With which the leaf goes whispering to the ground! O love, sad winter lieth at the door— Behind sad ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... came to the captain of the yacht Coral. A slight flaw in the breeze, which was bearing the vessel forward, caused the sails to flap, and must have made a sort of funnel of one of them for the moment; or rather, as may be said, it made a temporary whispering gallery of the deck and rigging of the craft. And being such, it bore the following ominous words to Captain Bergen, uttered, as they were, by Hyde Brazzier in a most ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... second act again," said Alice, seating herself on the boulder. I waited for a few minutes, enjoying the beautiful flow of Mrs. Farnsworth's voice, then, mystified and awed, I crept down the ladder and stole away. "It's Dick Searles's play," I kept whispering to myself. It was the "Lady Larkspur" that he was holding back until he could find the girl who had so enchanted him in London and for whom he had written this very comedy with its setting in the ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... just right, Ros," he whispered. He had a habit of whispering as the Captain had of shouting. "You done just right. Keep 'em guessin'; keep em guessin'. Jed's all upsot. He don't know whether he's keel down or on his beam ends. He'll be makin' a higher bid pretty soon. Say," with a wink, ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that is your idea of a humble suitor, is it?" he said, and though he never raised his voice above the rather husky, whispering tones that seemed habitual to him, it cut like a lash. Later, Diana was to learn that Baroni's most scathing criticisms and most furious reproofs were always delivered in a low, half-whispering tone that fairly seared the victim. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... responded calmly. "It's not so good as the hobo's fire beside the track, but it's better than four walls. The moon has been wonderful, Sir Gray Eyes—as bright and dark as life; radiant a little while and hidden behind clouds a great deal. And the wind has been whispering like a troubadour ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... dawn gives only to her royal lover. Birds were chanting matins as if all the jubilance of their short lives must be poured out at once. Flowers stirred and brightened like children after sleep. A balmy wind came whispering from the wood, bringing the aroma of pines, the cool breath of damp nooks, the healthful kiss that leaves a glow behind. Light mists floated down the river like departing visions that had haunted it by night, and every ripple breaking on ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... came over me that suggested cradling waves, and I was sleepily wondering why we had gone out on a day that portended storms, when a tapping at my stateroom door was followed by someone whispering: ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... you on your knowledge find this way? Isab. I haue t'ane a due, and wary note vpon't, With whispering, and most guiltie diligence, In action all of precept, he did show ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... which ended differently, which led to tangled knots and bitter heart-burnings. But the first picnics from Haddo Court in which Betty Vivian took part was, in a way, something like that first morning when she joined the other girls in whispering her prayers in ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... tell exactly. I heard some whispering to that effect. Somebody in the village told one of the servants, I believe. This man said that he was crossing the churchyard early on that unfortunate foggy morning, and heard voices in the chancel, and peeped through the window as well as the dim ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... waked next morning, he did not find himself in Virginia, but in Devonshire, where, to his unbounded embarrassment, a white housemaid was putting up his curtains and whispering something about his bath. And though he pretended profound slumber, he was well aware that people do not turn brick-red in their sleep. And the problem of what was the matter with the Sherwood ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... left the room. Then Jane approached her head to that of the sleeper, softly, softly, and her arm stole across Emma's bosom and rested on her farther shoulder. The fire burned with little whispering tongues of flame; the circles of light and shade quivered above the lamp. Abroad the snow fell and froze upon ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... quickly. Presently they would need to go down the side of the fell, and skirt the White Water to their ambush place at the head of the Loch. Of this last, Stair thought exclusively. But with more of the mystery of an older race about him, Louis Raincy listened to the firs whispering confidences overhead as they sped downhill. Then came the birches' clean rustle—for the burn they were following led them among copses where the legs of the horses risped with a pleasant sound through ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... it? What had happened? When had there been time for anything to happen? They had had their coffee so nicely and quietly together, whispering so confidentially all the time, and kissed each other's hands at parting. Mr. Boltay did ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... whispering things, and little Isobel's arms crept tightly about his neck. After a little Billy held her out to him again, and a part of what Rookie had seen in ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... through the breathless hush That answered me, the far-off rush Of herald wings came whispering Like music down the vibrant string Of my ascending prayer, and — crash! Before the wild wind's whistling lash The startled storm-clouds reared on high And plunged in terror down the sky, And the big rain ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... young fellow they call John,—evidently a stranger,—said there was one more wise man's saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he didn't know who said it.—A civil curiosity was manifested by the company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, SHALL I TELL IT? To which the answer was, GO AHEAD!—Well,—he said,—this was what ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... mountain-side, and toss the branches of the melancholy pine, and then enter the house, and try all the doors along the passage. Sometimes strong currents of air blew my hair all over the pillow, as with strange whispering breaths. The green timber along the walls seemed to be sprouting, and sent a dampness even through the "b'arskin." I felt like Robinson Crusoe in his tree, with the ladder pulled up,—or like the rocked baby ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... And the whispering grass on the gay green hills And every cricket that skirls and shrills, And every moonbeam, gleaming white, All know the Glugs quite well by sight. And they say, "It is safe, it is the test we bring; For a Glug ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... beneath their white shaggy brows as he sought his place in the book were not encouraging. But the enigmatic character of his response was not enough for Sissy, dazed, yet greedy for glory. She glanced from Split, in whose ear Kate was whispering something that seemed vastly to delight her, to her father, who had begun ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... we are alone. We think most truly, love best, when isolated from the outer world in that mystic abyss we call soul. Nothing external can equal the fullness of these moments. We may sit in the blue twilight with a friend, or bend together by the hearth, half whispering or in a silence populous with loving thoughts mutually understood; then we may feel happy and at peace, but it is only because we are lulled by a semblance to deeper intimacies. When we think of ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... old fancy now, leaning against the tall poplar which, indeed, was whispering in nervous fashion to the blushing scrub oaks clustering close. Some one was coming up the road from the station. In the far distance the girl heard the panting shriek of the engine of the morning train from the city. Could ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... merit freedom. Only be firm and dauntless. Lend your ears To no designing whispering court-minions. 10 What may ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... anything more about this story than that doorpost there, may I never hope for salvation. I was at home long before," he added. Frederick stood still, oppressed and doubtful. He would have given much to be able to see his uncle's face. But while they were whispering, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... on our faces, and while lying there I heard him whispering to Bill. He then said to Tish: "I believe, lady, ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
