"Step-" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wizard came to this last he cried out eagerly, for he thought that he had succeeded in his quest, until he read on and discovered that the spell described was only for use on wicked Queens who had shamefully ill-used their step-children. It is very easy to make a mistake in magic, for it ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... Mean personified, Step-sister of Elissa (parsimony) and Perissa (extravagance). The three sisters could never agree on any subject.—Spenser, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... chariot. To-morrow morning we will bury him as decently as we can in some quiet, retired spot, where he will not be likely to be disturbed. Unfortunately we cannot do better for him than that, for we, poor actors, are excluded by our hard-hearted and very unjust step-mother, the church, from her cemeteries; she denies us the security and comfort of being laid to rest for our last long sleep in consecrated ground. After having devoted our lives to the amusement of ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... in the simplest fashion. Roger felt a rush of slightly ashamed gratitude towards his step-mother, feeling a little reluctantly, as he had done once before, that he had misjudged her. Confused by her kindly impulses he stooped to pick up the wisp of a handkerchief she had let fall to the floor. As he laid it in her lap she uttered a ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... slavery, to your step-mother's people, de Harrisons, in Longtown. You 'members comin' down when I was a young man and you was a boy? Don't you 'member us playin' in de sand in front of de old Harrison house? Dat house older than you and me. 'Member how I show you how to ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... over the events of the past few months—the conspiracy against her, by her step-uncle, Count d'Este, by which he had so nearly deprived her of the fortune left to her by her aunt, and the striking way in which his plans had been upset by Richard Duvall. She had loved him at their very first meeting, and now that they had become husband and wife, she ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... place," interrupted in her turn Lady Frances, whose habitual and active kindness had prompted her to seek assistance for Barbara, so that she encountered the troop under the command of her step-uncle—"I say it has not taken place—half a ceremony is no marriage. But have you any with you skilled in surgery? for here has been a most foul murder: come with me into the chapel, and behold!" Lady Frances returned, followed by Colonel Jones, Sir Willmott as a prisoner, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... news was telegraphed to Charles, who was billing Newport, Kentucky, which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. He received the message while standing on a step-ladder with a paste-brush in his hand. Now came an early evidence of his humor and equanimity. He calmly went on posting the bill for the show that he knew would never appear. Afterward in reciting the incident ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... mother's customers with milk. Such was the humble beginning of his industrial career; and it was by his own strength that he rose from that position, and achieved the highest eminence as an artist. Not taking kindly to his step-father, the boy was sent to trade, and was first placed with a grocer in Sheffield. The business was very distasteful to him; but, passing a carver's shop window one day, his eye was attracted by the glittering articles it contained, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Colonna resolved that an alliance should take place between Coningsby and her step-daughter. But the plans of the princess, imparted to Mr. Rigby that she might gain his assistance in achieving them, were doomed to frustration. Coningsby fell deeply in love with Miss Millbank; and Lord Monmouth himself decided ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Mary tries to believe it's so, but Martha knows it isn't. They think they think they want me, but they don't; nobody wants an outsider on a wedding tour, and I'm not going. I can't help it. Come on, tears! Even angels sometimes cry aloud; and, not being a step-relation to one, I'm going to let Mary cry if she wants to. Sometimes Martha is real hard ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... Psamathia, and having founded a convent there, adorned its garden with the pots ([Greek: ta gastria]) of fragrant shrubs which accompanied the sacred tree on the voyage from Palestine.[465] More sober historians ascribe the foundation of the convent to Euphrosyne, the step-mother of the Emperor Theophilus,[466] or to his mother-in-law Theoctista.[467] Both ladies, it is certain, were interested in the House, the former taking the veil there,[468] while the latter resided in the immediate neighbourhood.[469] Probably the convent was indebted to both those pious women ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... at Glacier Point, sideways and more distantly from the summit of Cloud's Rest, straight on from the valley floor, upwards from the foot of the Lower Fall, upwards again from its own foot, and downwards from the overhanging brink toward which the creek idles carelessly to the very step-off of its fearful leap, the Fall never loses for a moment its power to amaze. It draws and holds the eye as the magnet ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... we'll steer the middle course, Nor, loving praise, rob Judgment of her force. Just his conceptions, natural and great, His feelings strong, his words enforced with weight. Was speech-famed Quin himself to hear him speak, Envy would drive the colour from his cheek; But step-dame Nature, niggard of her grace, Denied the social powers of voice and face. Fix'd in one frame of features, glare of eye, Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie; 1000 In vain the wonders of his skill are tried To form distinctions Nature hath denied. His voice ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... dancing to the prattle and laughter, a bright child, never stupidly weary. At times his very happiness would seem to her like a menace of misfortune to come. Was there not with herself the curse of that unsisterly action? and not far from him, the terrible danger of the father's, the step-mother's jealousy, the mockery of those half- brothers to come? Ah! how perilous for happiness the sensibilities which make him so exquisitely happy now! Before they started on their dreadful visit to the Minotaur, says ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... supports these civil determinations with his military forces. Even with the army in Germany, Napoleon's brother-in-law, Murat, is as a pillar of the Bonaparte dynasty, and to prevent the intrigues and plots of other generals from an Imperial diadem; while, in Italy, his step-son, Eugene de Beauharnais, as a viceroy, commands even the commander-in-chief, Massena. It must be granted that the Emperor has so ably taken his precautions that it is almost certain that, at first, his orders ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... get hold of her for her family in France—She is really a French girl. Tewfick Pasha is not her father but her—" he could not find the word and dropped into English. "Her step-father—do you understand? And he had no business to marry her off, so I tried to steal her for the French family. It was a mad attempt which has failed—but for which the young lady should not be blamed. She had never seen me before. She had no ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... years," said Mr. Fallows. "Reckon he's been so busy formin' trusts and buyin' out railways and promotin' things generally that he ain't had any time to come back home. It's his step-pa's funeral that's bringin' him now. The only time city folks seem to want to see their kin folks in the country is when ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... of a factory or into the legislature. Now experience teaches that this is a most dangerous experiment, both for stable boy and society. The true philosophy of Democracy teaches that the stable boy shall have, through school and the step-ladder of free institutions, the chance to rise to the management of industry or the leadership of the Senate. That is why the foundation of Democracy is political. For out of political freedom will come social and economic ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... A.M., which may have been very nice in a home for the early Christians, but was reported among the boys to have entirely stopped the growth of Little Briggs. This was a child, whose mother had married again, and whose step-father had felt his duty to his future too keenly to deprive him of the benign influences of Barker at any time in the last six years. After rising, we had ten minutes to wash our faces and hands,—a period by the ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... and the picture in her mind's eye of the bare lodge of Snettishane, put all doubts at rest. Yet she capped her conviction by a brief word with one of her step-sons. "White daddy good?" was what she asked, and the boy answered that his father was the best man he had ever known. That night the raven croaked again. On the night following the croaking was more persistent. It awoke the ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... am not her blood relation, you know—I am merely the General's step-daughter. Yet I am certain that the old lady has remembered ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... songs. In addition, she has issued a primer, the Kansas text-book and a primary reading chart for which she has a United States patent. Margaret Lynn, one of the faculty of Kansas University, is a writer of short stories and "A Step-Daughter Of The Prairies." ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... for my country, the love for my father who, though weak and almost imbecile, had ever been kind to me in person, the craving affection for my brothers and my sisters, nay! something approaching to pity or regret for the mother who had proved herself but a step-mother towards me, all revived ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... of him who daily for the last two months has been trying to convince me that I cannot reach the summum bonum of human happiness until I have invested four dollars in Perkins' patent automatic garden rake and step-ladder combination. The gentleman who has the smoke-consumer, the gentleman who deals in shrubbery, the gentleman who advocates lightning rods, and the other gentlemen who represent the tantamount interests of lawn statuary, fancy poultry, patent paving, etc., etc., etc.—I may, in the flight of ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... I went down to get a pitcher of hot water, and I heard Miss Sniffen's voice in the dining-room and so went in that way. Mrs. Nobbs was up on the step-ladder in front of the placard, so I didn't see it at first, but when I did it muddled me so I just stood there and stared. Miss Sniffen turned round and said, 'What do you want?' sharp as could be, just as if I had no business there. She felt guilty all right! You could see that! ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... abandoning his wife and son, and leaving St. Louis—I should say Guadalajara—for ever. Joining some adventurers in a foreign land, under an assumed name, he pursued his reckless course, until, by one or two acts of outlawry, he made his return to civilization impossible. The deserted wife and step-mother of his child coldly accepted the situation, forbidding his name to be spoken again in her presence, announced that he was dead, and kept the knowledge of his existence from his own son, whom she placed under the charge of her sister. But ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... through winding streets of gabled or step-roofed houses with toppling overhanging stories, then along one side of a great square, packed with people in costume, the women recalling to Mrs. Stimpson's mind, quite inappropriately, the waitresses at the Rigi ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... consummation of our engagement, consulted her father, who at once gave his consent. Her sister not only consented, but, thanks to her kind heart, warmly approved the match. Her brothers, of whom there were many, were bitterly opposed. Mrs. King—a step-mother only—was not only also bitterly opposed, but inveterately so. Bright fancies and love-bewildering conceptions were what, in her estimation, we ought not ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... photographic exposures, H and H being cases for holding reels of film before and after exposure, F the long, tape-like film, G a sprocket whose teeth engage in perforations on the edges of the film, such sprocket being adapted to be revolved with an intermittent or step-by-step movement by hand or by motor, and B a revolving shutter having an opening and connected by gears with G, and arranged to expose the film during the periods of rest. A full view of this shutter is also represented, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Perry to enjoy the common privileges of a child, she would not suffer him to approach his father's house, expressed uneasiness whenever his name happened to be mentioned, sickened at his praise, and in all respects behaved like a most rancorous step-mother. Though she no longer retained that ridiculous notion of his being an impostor, she still continued to abhor him, as if she really believed him to be such; and when any person desired to know the cause of her surprising dislike, she always lost her temper, and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... remarkable promise; and, accordingly, she began to take singing lessons—not, as is stated in Grove's "Dictionary of Musicians," from Maurice Strakosch, but from a French lady, subsequently studying with her step-brother, Ettore Barili, who was a famous baritone singer; but nature had been so prodigal of her gifts to the child that she never undertook a serious course of study, but, as she herself says, her real master was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Though he earnestly pressed the point, there was no one to send; and so on his return home, finding an English sailor who could read and write, though sadly ignorant of the truths of religion, he made him his teacher. His perseverance and earnestness were to be rewarded. A sick lad, a step-son of Ata's, was the first convert at Hihifo, but on his death, the chief still more hardening his heart, it was agreed by the missionaries that Mr Thomas should remove from that station to Haabai. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... throughout this region, and but few permanent water-courses. To the north extends a salt desert for upwards of one hundred miles, with a width of two hundred miles. It is crossed by the River Salado, which, rising in the Cordilleras, falls into the Plata, to the south of which rises a number of step-like terraces, sterile during the heats of summer, but covered with verdure after the rains of spring. Huge boulders, brown grass growing in tufts, and low spine-covered bushes, diversify the surface. In this inhospitable region transitions from heat to cold are very great. Now the traveller is ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Tarahumares. As his seat was high, he had to maintain a stooping position all the time he played. The dancers, men and women, made much noise by stamping their fiat soles vigorously on the ground, as they moved in double column around the fire and the shaman, in a kind of two-step-walk forward. They danced in a direction against the apparent movement of the sun, the men leading, the women following. I noticed that the step of the women was slightly different from that of the men, inasmuch as they lifted ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... in her miniature sitting-room at one side, contentedly matching patchwork. Little Jane Vennard, her step-daughter,—usually at work in the mills, but, since their close, making herself busy at home, whither she had brought a cookery-book through which Ray declared he expected to eat his way,—bustled about from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... When Wolfdieterich was about to undress, he had to ask the ladies who pressed around him to leave him alone for a short time, as he was ashamed they should see him naked. When Amphons of Spain, bewitched by his step-mother into a were-wolf, was at last restored, and stood suddenly naked before her, he was greatly ashamed. The maiden who healed Iwein was tender of his modesty. In his love-madness, the hero wanders for a time naked through the wood; three women find him asleep, and send a waiting-maid to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with me in my ambition to go to Hampton, unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a wild-goose chase. At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my step-father and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy clothes and ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... *[331] Cicero, in the third book of his treatise On a Commonwealth, says that nature has treated man less like a mother than a step-dame, for she has cast him into mortal life with a body naked, fragile, and infirm, and with a mind agitated by troubles, depressed by fears, broken by labors, and exposed to passions. In this mind, however, there lies hidden, and, as ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible[126], the following early instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to her ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of his youth, and what by long intimacy, won so far on her affections, that she rather than he was the lover, and at her death she bequeathed him her whole property. He likewise inherited the estate of a step-mother who loved him as her own son. By these means he had pretty well ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... AND SISTER, ETC. Mourning for a brother or sister, step-parents, or grandparents is the same as for parents, but the time is shorter, generally about six months. For an aunt, uncle, or cousin the ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... The step-ladder was an old one and inclined to wobble. Brother mounted it slowly, and Sister sat down on the lowest step to hold it steady. Her weight was not enough to anchor the ladder, and it still shook crazily when Brother reached ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... madam," said Helen, still wishing to soften the displeasure of her step-mother, "I hope you will never be ill-rewarded for that indulgence, either by my grandfather, my sister, or myself. Isabella, in the quiet of Thirlestane, has no chance of giving you the offense that I do; and I am forced to offend you, because ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. Ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder to make ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Borrow his manuscripts passed into the possession of his step-daughter, Mrs. MacOubrey, from whom the greater part were purchased by Mr. Webber, a bookseller of Ipswich, who resold them to Dr. William Knapp. These Manuscripts are now in the hands of the Hispanic Society, of New York, and ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... which had been effected under the hands of that great and good man the late Bishop of Jerusalem, he had taken to live with him a lady who was— Mrs. Carbuncle did not quite recollect who the lady was, but remembered that she was connected in some way with a step-mother of Mr. Emilius who lived in Bohemia. This lady had for awhile kept house for Mr. Emilius;—but ill-natured things had been said, and Mr. Emilius, having respect to his cloth, had sent the poor lady back to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... jeopardy. Arming himself with a heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and killed him. In the course of a few days, the female had procured another mate. But naturally enough the step-father showed none of the spirit and pluck in defence of the brood that had been displayed by the original parent. When danger was nigh, he was seen afar off, sailing around ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... from the Duke of Lorrain to the English Government. This favourable disposition on the part of Anne proves that she gave no credence to the report of the supposititious birth of the Prince; although, in her youthful days, and when irritated against her step-mother, she had entered into the Court gossip on that subject, with all the eagerness of a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... French parents, at Bordeaux, the 21st of May, 1750, and his home—owing to his mother's place having soon been filled by a step-mother—appears to have left no pleasant reminiscences. At fourteen years of age he took to the sea. Subsequently, as master and part owner of a small vessel, he arrived, in the year 1777, at Philadelphia for the first time, and commenced business as a merchant; ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... half-pay lieutenant of dragoons, with literary and artistic tastes, and his wife, Jane, had a sweet, engaging manner, and a good singing voice. Then there was the exciting discovery of the Countess Emilia Viviani, imprisoned in a convent by a jealous step-mother. All three of them—Mary, Claire, and Shelley—at once fell in love with the dusky beauty. Impassioned letters passed between her and Shelley, in which he was her "dear brother" and she his "dearest sister"; but she was soon found to be a very ordinary creature, and ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... the chief political events of this period was the usurpation of power by the Empress Wu—at first, as nominal regent on behalf of a step-child, the son and heir of her late husband by his first wife, and afterwards, when she had set aside the step-child, on her own account. There had been one previous instance of a woman wielding the Imperial sceptre, namely, the Empress ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... white fellow citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best, only his step-children; children by adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... of telegraphy in which in the receiving instrument a hand is made to move step-by-step, with an escape movement around a dial. For each step there is a letter and the hand is made to stop at one or the other letter until the message is spelled out. (See ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... having carried a step-ladder to the back door, had then been abruptly dismissed. Under the handle of her scrubbing pail, the ministering angel had slipped the tray ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation of Oscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the Luxembourg a picture of Hippolytus and Phxdra, in which the beautiful young man, who had kindled a passion in the heart of his wicked step-mother, always reminded me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings of the living face as compared with the ideal. The painted youth is still blooming on the canvas, but the fresh-cheecked, jaunty young author of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... n't understand what he did do with them an' so I asked, but it seems it was just as awful for he grated the whole cake o' that soap on her front teeth to teach her not to never refer to the deacon again, an' he dropped the cheese square on her head when he was up on a step-ladder an' she was in a little cupboard underneath leanin' over for a plate, an' then he tried to make out as it was an accident. She says it was n't no accident though. She says a woman as gets a cheese on the back of her head from a husband as is on a step-ladder over her, ain't to be fooled ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... Highgate, the old gentleman, with a step-fatherly anxiety, bade them take care of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... stalwart form and rugged features of Sir John Chandos; the slender figure and dark sparkling southern face of the Captal de Buch; the rough joyous boon-companion visage of Sir Hugh Calverly, the free-booting warrior; the youthful form of the young step-son of the Prince, Lord Thomas Holland; the rude features of the Breton Knight, Sir Oliver de Clisson, soon to be the bitterest foe of the standard beneath which he was now fighting. Many were there whose renown had charmed the ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a barrister and humanitarian, a friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and afterwards step-father-in-law of Procter. He was born in 1770 and lived until 1851. Lamb probably addressed to him many other letters, also to his third wife, Carlyle's "noble lady." But the correspondence was destroyed ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... to deceive ourselves with pagan paeans in praise of Nature, for as Leopardi, that Christian atheist, said with profound truth in his stupendous poem La Ginestra, Nature "gives us life like a mother, but loves us like a step-mother." The origin of human companionship was opposition to Nature; it was horror of impious Nature that first linked men together in the bonds of society. It is human society, in effect, the source of reflective consciousness and of the craving for immortality, that inaugurates the state ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... mother had lived in high-bred, self-congratulatory ignorance of what she believed did not concern her, and because he has for a sister, who's a step-sister, a silly, snobby person, he is not justified in withholding from me what he naturally withheld from them. One can be a human being as well as a lady. It's this that is difficult to make ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... riches are always the mark of envy. But if the heiress is married to a good Catholic and loyal subject of the king, who can cavil at rights sanctified by the laws of God and man? Think it over, my dear Adrian, think it over. Step-mother or wife—you can take ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in art nothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which helped him to work at a large high painting, now nearly finished. Criticising himself, honestly admiring himself, floating on the current of his thoughts, he then lost himself in one ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... I glanced askance at my neighbors; on my left sat my cousin Dorothy Varick, frankly absorbed in a roasted pigeon, yet wielding knife and fork with much grace and address; on my right Magdalen Brant, step-cousin to Sir John, a lovely, soft-voiced girl, with velvety eyes and the faintest dusky tint, which showed the Indian blood through the carmine in her ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... not mean to be so, sire. But consider, sire, that my mother was a queen, and that it would be strange indeed if for a step-mother I had a—" ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said I, airily. "And don't tell her you want her to be better acquainted with your cousin and step-cousin. Just remark that it will be a jolly excursion, eh? And you might add that Brederode and I—particularly I—are awfully keen on ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... veteran of seventy winters, fell as they ascended. The remainder of the scene is best described in the words of an eye-witness and participator in the tragedy, Mrs. Helm, the wife of Captain (then Lieutenant) Helm, and step-daughter of Mr. Kinzie. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... pony with such a delicate sigh when he offered it. "I have nobody to ride with in London," she said. "Mamma is timid, and her figure is not pretty on horseback. Sir Francis never goes out with me, He loves me like—like a step-daughter. Oh, how delightful it must be to have a father—a father, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pronounced against an intentional parricide by the domestic tribunal of Arius. Adrian transported to an island the jealous parent who, like a robber, had seized the opportunity of hunting to assassinate a youth, the incestuous lover of his step-mother. A private jurisdiction is repugnant to the spirit of monarchy; the parent was again reduced from a judge to an accuser, and the magistrates were enjoined by Severus Alexander to hear his complaints and execute his sentence. He could no longer take the life of a son without incurring ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... year of struggle! Narrow means, Discouragement, the haunting fear of debt! One summer day, a day reminding her Of days supremely beautiful, immortal, (Since hallowed by undying love and joy), A little girl, the step-child, much endeared, Of a poor artisan who dwelt near by On the same floor with Linda, came to her And said: "You promised me, Miss Percival, That some fine day you'd take me in the cars Where I could see the grass and pluck the flowers." "Well, Rachel Aiken, we will go ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... they know best what is good for them; though, of course, their ways seem peculiar to her, and she can never entirely sympathize with their fancy for going into water. I need not be told that the hen is after all only step-mother to her ducklings, since I am contending that the civilized woman—the artificial product of our self-imposed conditions—cannot have the same relation to her offspring as the uncivilized woman really has to hers. The comparison, therefore, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... not related. The concurrent existence of both mothers is, of course, presumed here. The question remains to be asked, would the children of the one sister, were their mother dead, be as well loved and cared for by the surviving sister, were she called upon to exercise the functions of a step-mother; and would the children of the dead sister love the children of the living sister, were they not viewed upon the same footing as ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... through her intrigues became a favourite chief of the Importants. Amongst the earliest to swell the ranks of that faction were two other personages who had played a very conspicuous part during the reign of Louis XIII. The first of these, Madame de Montbazon's step-daughter, was the witty, beautiful, and errant Duchess de Chevreuse, whom Louis had judged so dangerous that he had expressly forbidden by his will, when on the point of death, that she should ever be recalled from exile to Court. By the same prohibition was affected the former Keeper ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... maintain. Well, but if I am excluded and barred out, every man would be so far from being able to bear with others, that he would be burthensome to himself, and consequently incapable of any ease or satisfaction. Nature, that toward some of her products plays the step-mother rather than the indulgent parent, has endowed some men with that unhappy peevishness of disposition, as to nauseate and dislike whatever is their own, and much admire what belongs to other persons, so as they cannot ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... bracelets, rings, dog collar, gold-mesh bag, vanity case—Oh, you could see at a glance that she was one of them Broadway social favourites you read about. And both grouchy, like I said. He scowled till you knew he'd just love to beat a crippled step-child to death, and she—well, her work wasn't so coarse; she kept her mad down better. She set there as nice and sweet as a ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... such matters," she insolently asserted. "At all events, however, you are to receive no more attentions from Mr. Palmer. He—is the son of the gentleman whom I expect to marry, and I have no intention of allowing my seamstress to angle for my future step-son." ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... cause Of your distress. It is the queen whose sight Offends you. With a step-dame's spite she schemed Your exile soon as she set eyes on you. But if her hatred is not wholly vanish'd, It has at least taken a milder aspect. Besides, what danger can a dying woman, One too who longs for ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... is only her step-father. She had just been born when her father, her real father, died. Jeanne's mother then married a cousin of her husband's, a man bearing the same name, and she died within a year of her second wedding. ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... on real events I cannot determine, but they are admirably fitted to raise the passion peculiar to tragedy. Vanoc Prince of the Cornavians married for his second wife Cartismand, Queen of the Brigantians, a woman of an imperious spirit, who proved a severe step-mother to the King's daughter Gwendolen, betrothed to Yvor, the Prince of the Silurians. The mutual disagreement between Vanoc and his Queen, at last produced her revolt from him. She intrigues with Vellocad, who had been ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... of the Deity is of the vaguest kind, but he has a religion of generosity and love which in the end nothing can repress—which survives the effects of a temper soured by systematic coldness and opposition on the part of a rebellious son and step-daughter. While in his relations with his womenkind—the tractable section of them—there is nothing of that quaint American delicacy and reserve noted by Howells, there is in its stead an absorbing tenderness ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... person turned in a fire alarm, Neale, with the help of Luke Shepard and Uncle Rufus, set up the step-ladder directly under the squalling cat and her kittens. From the top step, on which he perched precariously with Luke and the old negro steadying the ladder, Neale reached up with a rake and unhooked the hanging basket from ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... of weariness, that dismissed the subject, conveyed so vividly how much such a fancy was not Mrs. Beale's own that our young lady was led by the mere fact of contact to arrive at a dim apprehension of the unuttered and the unknown. The relation between her step-parents had then a mysterious residuum; this was the first time she really had reflected that except as regards herself it was not a relationship. To each other it was only what they might have happened to ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... cried Rudorf, suddenly turning to Conrad the apprentice; 'look yonder how your step-father is enjoying his bread and bacon. Only see, too, what a fat bottle of beer he has got standing by him! Step across to him and ask him to give you a share of his good things, and to lend us his bottle for ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... son wore the crown; and his step-mother knew that her own son could not wear it while he lived, therefore she looked on and said nothing. Now he was known to all the people of his country, because of his right to the throne, as the king's son; and his brother, the child of the second wife, was called ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... the lame ploughman, smiling and limping forward round the corner of the house; Trudie, the house girl, trying to pass him by; Johanna wildly dancing; Aunt Virginia, her hands up, calling to heaven from the red cavern of her mouth; Uncle Leviticus, her husband, Cornelius's step-father, holding the pawing steed; gladness on every face, and the mistress of Rosemont drawing from the horseman's arm to welcome her ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... women have always great influence in court factions, and she shewed that they are not incapable of managing business. This history will discover a noble prince, an excellent wife, a faithful counsellor, a crafty step-mother, an ambitious son, a cunning favourite; all reconciled by a patient king, whose heart was not understood by any of them all. But this will require a separate place,[209] as not fit to be mingled with matters of ordinary business. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... which he left to his son-in-law, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. During the Earl's occupancy the mansion went through some stormy scenes. It was here that he assembled his fellow-conspirators which he left to his step-son, Robert Devereux, to arouse the people to aid him to obtain possession of the Queen's person, but he found his popularity unequal to the demand. The people turned against him, and he was driven back to his own house, which he barricaded. But his resistance was useless. Artillery was employed ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... the principles involved in compounding a point, seems to have discarded the ways of transmitting magnetic impulses of varying strength commonly in use. His method he calls the "step-by-step" principle, and it is a striking example of what patience and ingenuity may accomplish in the management of what is reputedly the most elusive and difficult of the powers of nature. The machine was some six years in being brought into practical form, and was perfected ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... orders to deliver early on the morning of this day a chaplet of laurel. With it in my hand, I reach by a step-ladder the nobly arched embrasure that is above my central book-case, and crown there the marble brow of him whose name is the especial glory of our literature—of all literature. The greater part of the morning is spent by me in contemplation ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... not take a leaf out of Mrs. Duckworth's book, and begin to be censorious. You saw how relieved she was to have me, her own blood relation, to turn to, instead of that empty braggart of a fellow. Besides, a man does not bring his step-mother when ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the reign of Sigismond, the son of Gundobald. The Catholic Sigismond has acquired the honors of a saint and martyr; [43] but the hands of the royal saint were stained with the blood of his innocent son, whom he inhumanly sacrificed to the pride and resentment of a step-mother. He soon discovered his error, and bewailed the irreparable loss. While Sigismond embraced the corpse of the unfortunate youth, he received a severe admonition from one of his attendants: "It is not his situation, O king! it is thine which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... pocket. By nature, Lance was no dandy; but Roy had not failed to note that he was apt to be scrupulously well turned out on certain occasions. And, at sight of him, he promptly 'remembered he had forgotten' the very particular nature of to-day's occasion: the marriage of Miss Gladys Elton—step-sister of Rose—to a rising civilian some eighteen years older than his bride. It was an open secret, in the station, that the wedding was Mrs Elton's private and personal triumph, that she, not her unassuming daughter, was the acknowledged ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the uppermost strata appearing first, they are weathered most. Hence the recession of the uppermost cliffs is greater than that of the cliffs lower down. The differences in hardness and resistance to weathering are alone responsible for the step-like profile of cliffs and terraces. The lower platform owes its width entirely to the rapid weathering and recession of the soft shales, which overlie the Tonto sandstones. The red-wall limestone, on the other ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... the son of an old friend named Gilbert—Cyril Scott could play him nicely—who was becoming a successful painter as fast as he could squeeze the paint out of his tubes. Another member of the household was Barbara Ross, a step-niece. Man is born to trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took ...
— Options • O. Henry
... it has been put up. He'll win through; and of his own sheer will and courage. But now, because I ask it, and this poor child here entreats it, you will say nothing to a living soul about the matter, say, till Friday? What step-by-step creatures we are, to be sure! I say Friday because it will be exactly a week then. And what's a week?—to Nature scarcely the unfolding of a rose. But still, Friday be it. Then, if nothing has occurred, we will, we shall HAVE to call a friendly gathering, we shall be compelled ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... child," she urged; "James, if he loves you, will wait for you. Don't marry until the boys are all old enough to be out of trouble. Think, Lizzie, of the misery a step-mother might cause with your brother Jack's impetuous temper, and Sam's hopeless, despairing disposition—each one would be hard for a step-mother to guide. Be a mother to them, my girl; down on your knees, and to make your mother's heart easy, promise before God that you will guide them, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... dance,' said Birkin to Ursula, standing before her with a sardonic, flickering laugh on his face. And in another second, he was singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in front of her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering palely, a constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo, and his body seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... arrived, dinner had already been announced, and Palla and Ilse Westgard were in the unfurnished drawing-room, the former on a step-ladder, the latter holding that collapsible machine with one hand and ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... bride of Sir Gawaine, while under the influence of the spell of her wicked step-mother, was more decrepit probably, and what is commonly called more ugly, than Meg Merrilies; but I doubt if she possessed that wild sublimity which an excited imagination communicated to features marked ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to work. One carried and the other poured, standing on the short step-ladder in order to better ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... had been married a little over two years, a little girl came to them, and the older sister loved the tiny baby as dearly as she loved her beautiful, young step-mother." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... if she had expected reward, reaped none. Her husband was a supremely selfish man, and his daughter inherited his sublime ability to protect his own pleasure at any cost. Carol admired her step-mother, but she was an indolent and luxury-loving little soul, and even as early as her twelfth or fourteenth year she had been deeply flattered by the evidences of her own power over her father. Into her youthful training no reverence for parents—real or adopted—had been infused; ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... homage to your Majesty," returned the leader. "What ho! there! Let Brother Step-and-Fetch-It pass the Queen around that we may do her honour." Observing that Polly shrank slightly back, he added: "Fear nothing, the man who hurts a hair of Her Majesty's head, dies ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... like sisters twin, In feature, form, an' claes; Their visage wither'd, lang an' thin, An' sour as ony slaes: [sloes] The third cam up, hap-stap-an'-lowp, [hop-step-and-jump] As light as ony lambie, An' wi' a curchie low did stoop, [curtsey] As soon as e'er she saw me, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... talent, I saw Mr. Hay figuring as Cupid in Mrs. Jarley's wax-work show. He looked and acted his part, turning gracefully on his toes to show his wings and quiver of arrows. And Mr. Reid, mounted on a step-ladder behind a draped clothes-horse, represented the distressed Lord Ullin whose daughter was seen eloping in a boat with her Highland chief, the tossing waves being ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... poor child, she would need a friend, as never before, with only her step-mother, as she had told him, in the world to befriend her. A man's hand, a ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... step-like rocks lying in nearly horizontal strata, or inclining very gradually; as a "shelving bottom," or a "shelving land." Applied to the shore, it means that it ascends from the sea, and passes under it at an extremely low angle, so that ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... is dull, but in the neighborhoods where there are plenty of children he is pretty sure to find some work. Cane-seated chairs are durable, but they will not stand the rough usage of those little boys and girls who treat them as step-ladders and stamp upon them. It often happens that a neat English house-maid appears at the area railings with a chair that has a big, ragged hole in the seat, through which Master Tommy has fallen, with his boots on, in an effort to reach ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... or court a ladder, with rungs about two feet apart, leads into the Sultan's house, and a step-ladder into the women's house. Two small boys, entirely naked, were incongruous objects sitting at the foot of the ladder. Here we waited for him, two files of policemen being drawn up as a guard of honor. He came out of the women's house very actively, shook hands ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... the kind assistance of Prudy, was hunting for Dotty, Mrs. Parlin was in Judge Vance's parlor, talking with Jennie's step-mother. Mrs. Vance was shocked to hear of her daughter's conduct, for she loved her and wished ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... the Boy of whom I speak, In summer tended cattle on the Hills; But, through the inclement and the perilous days Of long-continuing winter, he repaired To his Step-father's School,"-etc. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... been wished on you as a sort of step-uncle, there's something I'd like to suggest—if I don't seem to be fairly jimmying my way ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook, Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they, When girded with the quiver! Media yields The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste Of the blest citron-fruit, than which no aid Comes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cup With simples mixed and spells of baneful power, To drive the deadly poison from the limbs. Large the tree's self in semblance like a bay, And, showered it not a different scent abroad, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil |
