"Complacently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only my appetite has been a good deal affected. I don't think I have eaten as much in a week as you would in a day," he added, complacently. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... lintel and the back garden that rents the hoose," remarked the draper complacently in broad Scotch that I cannot reproduce. He is a house-agent as well as a draper, and went on to tell us that when he had a cottage he could rent in no other way he planted plenty of creepers in front of it. "The baker's hoose is no sae bonnie," he said, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... coffee in the world?" said Beaufort, sipping his complacently and looking about the crowded room for a familiar face. Apparently he found none, for, leaning across the table and speaking to Calvert quite loudly and in an insolent tone, he said, "'Tis a good thing the coffee ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... into the wide snow-clad world, hand in hand, our hearts big with expectation,—complacently confident that by a few smudgy traces in the snow we were in a fair way to capture a half-grown specimen ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... and woof, there is no white thread of heaven in him. Shall I number you the beads in his chaplet of vices? The seven deadly devils wanton in his heart; his spirit is of an incredible lewdness; he is prouder than the Pope, more cruel than a mousing cat—all which I complacently forgave him till he touched at my top-knot, but now ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... on Mr. Walker's whiskers being concluded, he was arranging his toilet before the glass in an agreeable attitude: his neck out, his enormous pin settled in his stock to his satisfaction, his eyes complacently directed towards the reflection of his left and favourite whisker. Eglantine was laid on a settee, in an easy, though melancholy posture; he was twiddling the tongs with which he had just operated on ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to tell Your Highness that I shall be able to finish in time to start by four o'clock this afternoon," said he complacently. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... business of every description and it was contended that the passage of this measure would give employment to thousands of people; that the rumbling of the locomotive would soon be heard in every corner of the state, and that the dealer in town lots and broad acres would again be able to complacently inform the newcomer the exact locality where a few dollars would soon bring to the investor returns unheard of by any ordinary methods of speculation. The campaign was short and the amendment carried by an immense majority. So nearly unanimous was the ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... one of his favorite cigars. The gambler turned it over and inspected the carnelian label, realizing that this was expected of him. Mallow smiled complacently. They might smoke as good as that at the government-house, but he rather doubted it. Trust a Britisher to know a good pipe-charge; but his selection of cigars was seldom ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... calmly forward and turned up the solitary kerosene lamp that shed uncertain light over the proceedings. He then sat down in the teacher's chair, folded his arms, and looked complacently ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... head. "I don't s'pose we're any worse than some that read their Bibles every day," she said, complacently. She had often heard others say that, and thought ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to meet with one who thinks as I do," she said complacently, and plucking a half-blown rose that hung near her, she turned its petals sharply down as if they were plaits of a hem that she was about ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... drove home, about the middle of the afternoon, she was still smiling complacently at this good idea, and wondering how she might carry ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... shake off if possible? And had such masters been members of the Corinthian church, what inferences must they have drawn from this exhortation to their servants? That the apostle regarded slavery as a Christian institution?—or could look complacently on any efforts to introduce or maintain it in the church? Could they have expected less from him than a stern rebuke, if they refused to exert themselves in the cause ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... would have made our meeting more awkward. There were with him, Mr. Steevens[316] and Mr. Tyers[317], both of whom I now saw for the first time. My note had, on[318] his own reflection, softened him, for he received me very complacently; so that I unexpectedly found myself at ease, and joined in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... what we ought to do. He suggested more improvements in the first three days of his sojourn with us than I had thought of since we commenced housekeeping. And what made the matter worse, his suggestions were generally very good ones. Had it been otherwise I might have borne his remarks more complacently, but to be continually told what you ought to do, and to know that you ought to do it, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... "hang," still more beautifully bedecked. The difficulty was that it would also make her feel herself still more sharply in a state; which was exactly what she proposed not to do. The only drops of her anxiety had been when her thought strayed complacently, with her eyes, to the front of her gown, which was in a manner a refuge, a beguilement, especially when she was able to fix it long enough to wonder if it would at last really satisfy Charlotte. She had ever been, in respect to ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... Easy, sitting down, and crossing his legs complacently, with his two hands under his right thigh, according to his usual custom when much pleased with himself—"why, my dear son, that is not exactly the case, and yet you have shown some degree of perception even in your ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in his message to congress] says the people did it. He forgets that the 'people,' as he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes.... All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were divided between Fremont and Fillmore. ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... receiving congratulations throughout the afternoon. Many of the old men came to his lodge to smoke with him, and the host was more than gratified, for he was of a common family and had never before known what it is to bask in the sunshine of popularity and distinction. He spoke complacently as he crowded a handful of tobacco into the bowl of the ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... said he to them, "that was well done. One would easily be telling that I was an ex-trooper of the king." He rode out to us complacently. "'Tis a good horse, if only he steered with a tiller instead of these straps," he remarked, "and he goes well ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... friend, I don't acknowledge quite so fast I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes Enumerated so complacently, On the mere ground that you forsooth can find In this particular life I choose to lead No fit provision for them. Can you not? Say you, my fault is I address myself To grosser estimators than should judge? And that's no way of holding ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... embers, as was also her old-time foe, Aunt 'Phrony, and the banjo was in the hands of Tim, a plow-boy, celebrated as being the best picker for miles around. Lastly, there were Aunt 'Liza and her latest conquest, Sam, whose hopes she could not have entirely quenched or he would not have beamed so complacently on the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... her head complacently. It had always been the same since the war. One room after another had been shut off until the wide halls dividing the house, the living-room, dining-room, kitchen and three upper bedrooms were all that were left for ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... steady shade, When resting from our walk, How pleasant was her talk! Elegant deer leaped o'er the glade, Or stood with wide bright eyes, Staring a short surprise: Outside the shadow cows were laid, Chewing with drowsy eye Their cuds complacently: Dim for sunshine drew ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... felt that ordinary confusion which the chaste man experiences in presence of the woman, for hitherto his sight bad only paused complacently upon pretty fresh faces, and if his thought wandered beyond, he drove it back with care to his very inmost being; but now that he had seen the naked breast of a pretty girl, that he had relished it with his gaze, embraced it with his desire, that he had yielded ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... through the throng again into the board-room, even the staircase was packed. McGaw pulled off his fur cap and struggled past the rail, bowing to the president. The justice's brother stood outside, within reach of McGaw's hand. McGaw glanced at the clock and winked complacently at his prospective partner—not a single bid had been handed in. Then he thrust out his long arm, took from Rowan's brother the big envelope containing the higher bid, and ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... complacently. He sits down beside her, and tries to coax her into good humor, but she is not to be coaxed. In ten minutes another partner comes up and claims her, and she goes. The pretty, dark girl in white, is greatly admired, and has no lack of partners. For ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... neophyte who stumbled into the kitchen a few seconds later. The twins were bending earnestly over their Latin grammars by the side of the kitchen fire, and did not raise their eyes as the Seeker burst into the room. Constance sat down, and gasped and quivered for a while. Then she looked down complacently at the little black bow with its smudge of red ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... channel south of the Isle of Orleans; twenty ships of the line, twenty frigates, and a swarm of transports, bearing in all about nine thousand men. But Quebec, so often threatened in the past, and ever fortunate in resistance, gazed complacently down upon this imposing fleet. Montcalm feared but one contingency, the co-operation of Amherst with Wolfe from the west; and this, as we have seen, was a needless anxiety. Disembarking, Wolfe pitched his camp at ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... for the sake of getting the curtain rapidly down over the benedictory guardian and the virtue-rewarded fair, who are impatient themselves to be off to a very different distribution of cakes and ale. We know that the hero and the heroine walk complacently away in the company of the dejected villain to wash off their rouge and burnt cork, and experience the practical domestic felicity which is ordered for them on the same principles as for us who sit in the pit and applaud. If it were not so, and if we did not know it to be so, and if we did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... down to their necks, had stopped midway and were sparring with their racquets. Miss Demme, the governess, was chiding and pushing fourteen-year-old Erika before her, and Erika opposed her by moving but sluggishly her thin legs in their black stockings. The two old gentlemen complacently let this wave of youthful life swirl by them. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... not have much to say about it, but through the remainder of the day often hummed, or smiled and chuckled complacently. When Aunt Stanshy had lighted the kerosene lamp that had a big lion's claw for a base and boasted a yellow shade covered with green shepherdesses and blue sheep, then Charlie sat down at the center-table and for an hour was exceedingly busy. About eight ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... and of Mejnour's desertion faded from his mind. The casement was open, the breeze blew, the sun shone,—all Nature was merry; and merry as Nature herself grew Maestro Paolo. He talked of adventures, of travel, of women, with a hearty gusto that had its infection. But Glyndon listened yet more complacently when Paolo turned with an arch smile to praises of the eye, the teeth, the ankles, and the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... desired effect. Some complacently united to humor their host's whim, as they called it, and others, immediately recognizing its utility and decency, took notes with a view to modifying ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... from his escort had not carried the Bishop's message to the Sheriff very far ere his master would have wished to change it. In a moment, whilst my lord of Hereford was complacently gloating over his capture—whilst indeed he was himself peering into the dark cottage in order to catechise his prisoner—there appeared on the high road the shabby figure of that very old woman who had innocently helped to set ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... battered condition which is the natural consequence of a long and weary tramp. He walked as if he had no particular objective point, and looked like one of those peripatetic gentry who toil not neither do they spin, the genus "tramp." He complacently puffed a short clay nose-warmer, with his hands in his pockets, and taking first one side and then the other of the road, as his fancy dictated, found himself near the old distillery at the outskirts of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... I don't fancy I've much to feel hurt about,' he said, in a drawling tone, complacently stroking his moustaches. 'No, only, look here, Fedya,' he went on with the manner of a preceptor, 'I was only going to point out that you're altogether out of it about women, my lad. You believe me, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... smiling complacently—'I cannot blame you for conceiving a passion for our handsome young pastor. To confess the truth, I myself view him with high admiration, not only as a talented preacher, but also as one who would make ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the same for me," thought Pocket—and was bitterly ashamed next moment to catch himself thinking complacently of any aspect of his deed. Its other ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... said Mrs. Derrick, rocking complacently and making her knitting needles play in a style that certainly might be called work,—"I've got over it now. To be sure I was tired to death, but I like to ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... said Chris, complacently. "She didn't tell me nothing, hardly. But I told her lots. My apple fritter got cold whilst I was telling it. She sent it away, and had two hot ones, new, on ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... injunctions to be absolutely obeyed; at any rate, a certain amount of whispering went on among the girls, who collected in little groups to take the required repose, while a low laugh every now and then did not indicate sound slumber. Avis piled up a pillow of sand, and closed her eyes complacently, until she found Winnie was tickling the end of her nose with a piece of seaweed; Enid lay curled up under the shadow of a rock, looking at her watch every few minutes; and Jean and Patty played a silent ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... a cock, and a duck, and amid the acclamations of the multitude, rose a few hundred feet and descended half a mile away. The cock was found to have sustained an unexplained mishap: its leg was broken; but the sheep was feeding complacently, and the duck was ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... altogether," said he, complacently, "it is rather a neat box, and I let myself loose on it. I had all these ideas I gathered knocking about the world, and I gave them to Willis, of Philadelphia, to put together for me. But he's honest enough not to claim the house. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you were a poet, Corny," returned my mother, smiling still more complacently, for it is something to be the parent ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... of steel, a mould of stone were he, Who could complacently behold thy pains I came not here as craving for this sight, And, seeing it, I ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... his sojourn in France, made many partisans, who urged upon their sovereign the expediency of still affording to the Duke an opportunity of redeeming his pledge; and Henry, even against his better reason, listened the more complacently to their counsels that Madame de Verneuil was about to become a mother, and he shrank from the idea of separation from her at such a moment. Thus he delayed his journey until Sully, who was not long in discovering ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... tenant apparently possessed a combination of business shrewdness and brusque frankness that strongly impressed his landlord. "You see, Rosey," said Nott, complacently describing the interview to his daughter, "when I sorter intimated in a keerless kind o' way that sugar kettles and hair dye was about played out ez securities, he just planked down the money for two months in ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... let us mark with what sentiments they inspired him, and in what way love always presented itself to his heart or his imagination. Ever dealing out toward him the same measure of justice and truth, people have gone on complacently repeating that his love sometimes became a very frenzy, or anon degenerated into a sensation rather than a sentiment. And his poetry has been asserted to contain proof of this in the actions, characters, and words of the persons there portrayed. I think, then, that the best way of ascertaining ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... seen someone she knew in here," remarked Hutchins, complacently. He was always pleased when people noticed Eliza, for he considered her a credit ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... parliamentary fiction that they are not. If a member in debate should inadvertently allude to the possibility of his observations being heard by a stranger, the Speaker would immediately call him to order; yet at other times the right honourable gentleman will listen complacently to discussions {84} arising out of the complaints of members that strangers will not publish to the world all that they hear pass in debate. This is one of the consistencies resulting from the determination ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... complimenting her," replied Eleanor complacently, "but I feel sure that I can do more with it than she can. I did not do my best work to-day. Besides, Miss Pierson is too short. I am certain ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... colourless and blank by Wren, has never yet been finished. The Protestant choir remains in one corner, like a dry, shrivelled nut in a large shell. Like the proud snail in the fable, that took possession of the lobster-shell and starved there, we remained for more than a century complacently content with our unfurnished house. At length our tardy zeal awoke. In 1858 the Bishop of London wrote to the Dean and Chapter, urging a series of Sunday evening services, for the benefit of the floating masses of Londoners. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... oui," exclaimed the Frenchwoman, nodding her head complacently, and taking Patty's money, which she put in a box on ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... Daniel complacently accepted this testimony to his monetary worth and jogged out of the yard. Fortunately appearances do not count for much in Orham, except in the summer, and the spectacle of five in a carryall is nothing out of the ordinary. They ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... hang of it all right, now," he said complacently. "It's a simple sort of game. Make it more exciting, don't you think, if ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... lady took down the receiver and discovered that the telephone was in use. "I just put on a pan of beans for dinner," she heard one woman complacently informing another. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the end of the avenue expanded into a motor that was presently throbbing at the entrance. Undine, at its approach, turned from the window, and as she moved down the gallery her glance rested on the great tapestries, with their ineffable minglings of blue and rose, as complacently as though they had been mirrors reflecting ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... fancy to Lucian, which was just as well, seeing what was the object of his visit, and complacently watched the growing attachment between the handsome young couple, who seemed so suited to one another. But her duties as chaperon were nominal, for when not pottering about the garden she was knitting in a snug corner, and when knitting ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... been too much for her unformed mind," she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured a disciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it will broaden out before her as she ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... justify his security. The son of a rich man, he had also inherited a taste for business and the art of making money. Years of prosperity had confirmed his confidence, and he looked complacently around upon his family and talked of ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... fears, if I worked it rightly," said the old gentleman complacently. "I wasn't coming without her, Marian, if it could possibly be managed. The truth is, that Phronsie had been pining for Polly to such an extent, that there was no other way but for her to have Polly; and her mother was just on the point, although it almost killed her, of sending ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... great, for his decision—had in the outset been born of radical and uncomfortable disagreements with him. And as for Gustavus himself, if anybody had hinted to him that his frau could think, or ever had thought, any word or deed of his other than right, he would have chuckled complacently at that person's blind ignorance of ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the village,' replied Mrs. Gould, rubbing her shins complacently; 'that's what I used to hear of in my day, and I believe the custom isn't ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... created an unutterable fear, so that by the time we reached our destination, our khaki clothing was black with sweat, and we were literally drenched with fear. Of course, we put on a brave front and smiled complacently as we delivered the orders, and when it was suggested that we remain overnight in the fort, I nonchalantly refused the offer under the pretence that we were expected back. The same thing happened ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... takes care that Tiny does n't grow too miserly. "If there's anything I can't stand," she said to me in Tiny's presence, "it's a shabby rich woman." Tiny smiled grimly and assured me that Lena would never be either shabby or rich. "And I don't want to be," the other agreed complacently. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... statements continually made with regard to the extravagant titles assumed, or complacently received, by the bishops of Rome being both interesting and important, the inquiry of J.B. (Vol. ii., p. 167.) is well deserving of a reply. Speaking of a passage cited by Joannes Andreae, in his gloss on the preface to the Clementines, he asks, "who is the Anglicus Poeta?" ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... an instant, to draw breath, and rally for another raid. Feeling his little army now well in hand, he burned for fresh conquests. In glancing triumphantly around, his eye fell on a certain benign smile then flitting over the face of his predestined Satellite. Complacently nodding thereto, straightway the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... was happy again. Mrs. Slater never ventured into the gardens; they were for her superiors, and she complacently accepted a world in which things were so ordered as the only world possible. But there was plenty of life ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... readily, and I am afraid we were needlessly cold and dry; but we were taken by surprise when my brother brought her into the sitting-room. It was not very easy to welcome the woman who was going to turn us all out, and under such a stigma; and she—she could hardly be expected to look complacently at the interlopers who had her place, and the title she had a ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and moonstruck. I mean that piece of peculiarly American enterprise a premature engagement—to take effect, but too complacently, at ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... the room, Babs complacently enough, Judy unwillingly. Babs was sleepy, and was very glad to lay her little head on her white pillow; but sleep was very far ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... wrote, "and the measure of my success is the measure of my happiness. I am bringing consolation to a wayward and tormented spirit. A year has swept aside the petty feminine vanities, the opera-glasses, so to speak, through which a woman complacently views her influence over a man, and it has cleared my vision. A year has proved beyond mortal question that without me this wayward and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the very soul of a man. What more dare a woman ask of the ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... dined with the Arabs, there was indeed a kind of dark molasses-gingerbread-looking cake, with curds in it, that she found it hard to eat. "But they like it," she said complacently. ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... together a number of different elements, with none of which he could well have been classed—your pardon for the amazing success which had raised so high such a worthless winged grub. It was remembered that at an official dinner he had said of himself complacently, as he bustled round the table with a napkin on his arm, 'What an excellent servant I should have made!' And it might have ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... thought also how pleasant it would be to tell these things in front of a nice bright fire. As we approached the ship, however, Hodgson came out to greet us, and his first question was, "What temperatures [Page 155] have you had?" We replied by complacently quoting our array of minus fifties, but he quickly cut us short by remarking that we were ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... over some not very brilliant joke; we three were a little apart. Courvoisier, stately and imposing-looking, and with that fine manner of his, politely answering his interrogator, a small, sharp-featured man, who looked up to him and rattled complacently away, while I sat upon the table among the fiddle-cases and beer-glasses, my foot on a chair, my chin in my hand, feeling my cheeks glow, and a strange sense of dizziness and weakness all over me, a lightness in my ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... trace its immediate influence in the writings of a man like the Curate of Los Palacios, naturally, as it would seem, of an amiable, humane disposition; but who complacently remarks, "They (Ferdinand and Isabella) lighted up the fires for the heretics, in which, with good reason, they have burnt, and shall continue to burn, so long as a soul of them remains"! (Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 7.) It becomes more perceptible in the literature of later times, and, what is ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... I'm rather good at thinking of things," Virginia owned complacently. "And then," she continued, "I poked around the rose bush, and peeped in at the window, and sure enough she was there, brushing the hearth. She saw me and came to the window, and when I ran away, 'cause I thought maybe she was mad, she rapped, ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... hash," said Ukridge complacently. "Nothing like resource, Garnet, my boy. Some men would have gone on letting a good ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... who I mean," pursued Sproul, complacently, "seein' that you've had fifteen years to study on her name. Now, bein' as I'm one of the fam'ly, I'm going to ask you what ye're lally-gaggin' along for? Wimmen don't like to be on the chips so long. I am speakin' to you like a man and a brother when I say that married ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... could have recovered it if I had not used my influence in your favor," remarked Simon, complacently. "I went to his office, and assured him my friend the mayor had already taken the matter in hand. I talked pretty severely to him, and he got frightened. After all, the best way is to use very pointed ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... which blamed Andreyev vehemently and requested that this "skunk" of literature be called to order according to his deserts. These protestations were reenforced by an ardent letter from Countess Tolstoy, the wife of the great author, who reproached Andreyev for having so complacently painted such sombre pictures, with such low and violent scenes, all of which tended to pervert youth. The writers were not the only ones to take offence. Two important Russian newspapers organized ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the tune of "Paddle your own canoe," was not sufficiently disengaged to remark her mother's companion. His eyes followed her with a keen, comprehensive glance, which Mrs. Rolleston observed complacently. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... company by the magic scream of his fiddle—luring discreet matrons in turban-shaped caps, nay, Mrs. Crackenthorp herself, the summit of whose perpendicular feather was on a level with the Squire's shoulder—luring fair lasses complacently conscious of very short waists and skirts blameless of front-folds—luring burly fathers in large variegated waistcoats, and ruddy sons, for the most part shy and sheepish, in short nether garments and ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... just right," said Mrs. Mumpson complacently, "and feeling sure that it was made just to suit you, I filled the coffeepot full from the kettle. We can drink what we desire for breakfast and then the rest can be set aside until dinner time and warmed over. Then you'll have it just to suit you for the next meal, and we, ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... were made clear to me in sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible to understand my motives of action,—because, in fact, there were no motives,—complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... carriage betrayed his purpose, and the man with the blue-serge garment on his arm kept his ground complacently. The man with the horse mounted and ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... which a bachelor is forced when he has no other servant than his own ready will. While I was pursuing my deductions, I had blacked my boots, brushed my coat, and tied my cravat; I had at last arrived at the important moment when we pronounce complacently that all is finished, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Scipio's meaning. "DON'T CHANGE YOURS CLOTHES." Innocent Molly appreciated these words no more than the average reader who reads a masterpiece, complacently unaware that its style differs from that of the morning paper. Such was Scipio's intention, wishing to spare ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... the Court, returned the bows of counsel, and took his seat upon the Bench. With a sharp jingle the usher drew the green curtains across the door which led into the Judges' corridor, descended into the well of the Court, and looked complacently about him. Two or three cases were mentioned, the jury was sworn, and the Associate, after inquiring nonchalantly whether the King's Counsel were prepared, called on the case of Pleydell against Bladder, and sank back in his seat with ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... weekly, goes into ecstasies of admiration over the advantages and beauty of a steel mastodon on Park Row, a building that has the proportions of a carpenter’s plane stood on end, decorated here and there with balconies and a colonnade perched on brackets up toward its fifteenth story. He complacently gives us its weight and height as compared with the pyramids, and numerous other details as to floor space and ventilation, and hints in conclusion that only old fogies and dullards, unable to keep pace with ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... hearrd you the first time," Terence Reardon replied complacently and reached for his pipe. "All I ask from you is a square deal. I'll have it from the captain ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Watty Wilkins, one evening at supper, while his eyes rested complacently on the proceeds of the day's labour—a little heap of nuggets and gold-dust, which lay on a sheet of paper beside him; "a carriage and pair, a town house in London, a country house near Bath or Tunbridge Wells, and a shooting-box ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... at the sight of the sun, leaving as a relic of existence its last meal—a handful of grit-covered with a transparent film of varnish, which the first wavelet of the flowing tide dissolves. Yet on the reef in a pool such an individual endures complacently water heated to a temperature of 108. Though feeble and of such readily dissolvable texture, bche-de-mer may be regarded as among the mightiest agents in the conversion of the waste of the coral reef into mud—the sort of mud of which some of the toughest of rocks are compounded. Graded by ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... but it was all very joyous, gripping hold of the tangible world for the first time. And when I came to you, warm with the glow of adventure, you looked blankly, then smiled indulgently and did not answer. You regarded my ardour complacently. A passing humour of adolescence, you thought; and I thought: "Dane does not read his Draper on his knees." Wordsworth was great to me; Draper was great also. You had no patience with him, and ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... generous burst of high-mindedness and loyalty will not bear analysis. Both the Princes had discovered that the professions to which they had so complacently listened, and which had induced their recent return to Court, had merely been intended to lure them thither at a period when their presence was more than ever essential to the interests of the Regency; and while M. de Conde found his ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... gentleman's address, that it might be properly inserted in the printed list of subscribers. 'I shall print no list of subscribers;' said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;—one, that I have lost all the names,—the other, that I have spent all ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... rest of the day off," remarked Casey, complacently. "Shane, yez are dom' quiet betoimes. An' Mac, I shure ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... And he nodded complacently towards the wife as stout as himself, who was sitting a few yards away. She, hearing her name, nodded back, with smiles aside to the bystanders. Most of the spectators, however, were already acquainted with a conjugal pose which was generally ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Heavens! what a bitter contrast to his own thoughts! But he stood rooted, as if spell-bound, to hear it to the end. The lark's upward flight was over; and Elsley heard him come quivering down from heaven's gate, fluttering, sinking, trilling self-complacently, springing aloft in one bar, only to sink lower in the next, and call more softly to his brooding mate below; till, worn out with his ecstasy, he murmured one last sigh of joy, and sank into the nest. The picture flashed through Elsley's brain as swiftly as the notes ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... work done early," he said; and added complacently, "As a matter of fact I've had a ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... received this new order as complacently as the first. It suited him better. In that steaming, reeking river station he was more at home about his ship than tramping through an ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the President. St. John is built on a steep sidehill, from which it would be in danger of sliding off, if its houses were not mortised into the solid rock. This makes the house-foundations secure, but the labor of blasting out streets is considerable. We note these things complacently as we toil in the sun up the hill to the Victoria Hotel, which stands well up on the backbone of the ridge, and from the upper windows of which we have a fine view of the harbor, and of the hill opposite, above Carleton, where ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ill-humour suddenly burst into a flame of rage. When at length rough hands fell upon the Quaker's shoulders and set all his alchemy buttons a-jingling, Mr. Justice Sawrey leaned against the back of his high wooden pew, crossed his legs complacently, and laughed long and loud at the joke. The crowd took this as a sign that they might do as they chose. They fell upon Fox, knocked him down, and finally trampled upon him, under the Justice's own eyes. The uproar became so great that the quieter members ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... elaborate pattern, was at least a foot wide. It glittered and twinkled in the morning light, and looked, to Newman's eyes, wonderfully splendid and precious. It seemed to him a very happy purchase, and he felt rich in the possession of it. He stood looking at it complacently, while he proceeded with his toilet, and M. Nioche, who had dismissed his own attendant, hovered near, smiling and ...
— The American • Henry James
... or two like this, and we needn't be ashamed to face the men back at Clowdry," observed Lieutenant Prescott complacently. "Six bears and a buck antelope in one day is no fool work, even if one ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... not be surpassed. Yet hardly elsewhere has the great master approached so near to positive vulgarity as here in the conception of the fair Europa as a strapping wench who, with ample limbs outstretched, complacently allows herself to be carried off by the Bull, making her appeal for succour merely pour la forme. What gulfs divide this conception from that of the Antiope, from Titian's earlier renderings of female loveliness, from ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... require that her future companion be a man of Intelligence. "Mental attractions alone can gain a lasting empire. Where these are wanting, as the object loses its novelty, and becomes common, its beauties fade away, and the imagination, and the eyes which complacently and admiringly, rested upon them, begin to wander.—Love, if it ever existed, rapidly abates; one or both regret precipitation;—glaring defects stand out in bold relief, in place of the perfections which the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... earthly worries. The cardinal rule of his existence was not to let himself be 'worried.' . . I remember his advising me to try it myself, one day when I spoke to him about Kate's bad health, and her need of a change. 'I never let myself worry,' he said complacently. 'It's the worst thing for the liver—and you look to me as if you had a liver. Take my advice and be cheerful. You'll make yourself happier and others too.' And all he had to do was to write a cheque, and send the poor girl off for ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... explained Drew, as the captain set down the glass, smacking his lips complacently, "that we'll have that windlass over to you by to-morrow, or the next day at the latest. The factory ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... so much to make up already, you mean," Eleanor went on complacently. "Oh, I shall manage ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... foot of the staircase she met Mr. Secretary Craggs, who, seeing her leave so early, enquired if the King had retired, but she reassured him on that point, and dwelt complacently on the King's reluctance to let her go. Craggs made no remark, but took her in his arms, ran upstairs, and deposited her in the ante-chamber, whereupon the pages at once threw open the doors ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... cultivated and accomplished women of the day, is fixed by some verses printed in the "Morning Herald" of March 12th, 1782, which attracted much attention. They were commonly attributed to Mr. (afterwards Sir W.W.) Pepys, and Madame d'Arblay, who alludes to them complacently, thought them his; but he subsequently repudiated the authorship, and the editor of her Memoirs believes that they were written by Dr. Burney. They were provoked by the proneness of the Herald to indulge in complimentary allusions to ladies ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... look upon a very different scene. Their dim-eyed grandparents complacently beheld the push boat, that crude ark which was urged along the stream by means of long poles. It gave way to shallow drift steamers. And in turn the steamers were shoved aside for the railroad which was quicker. The boats, Red Buck, Dew Drop, once the pride of the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... packing up her young mistress' things, had fallen asleep in an arm-chair. Unconscious of the terrible events which were rapidly succeeding each other in the house, the worthy old soul was snoring peaceably, with her hands complacently ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... complacently as he examined the shrunken bait. "Something has been at it and sucked all the goodness away. I wish that fisher-boy was here to ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... and then complacently continued: "My wives at this moment receiving the sound of one of my voices, closely followed by the other, and perceiving that the latter reaches them after an interval in which sound can traverse 6.457 inches, infer that one of my mouths is 6.457 inches further from ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... complacently lean back upon victories won, as he can in the older European countries, and depend upon the glamour of the past to sustain him or the momentum of success to carry him. Probably the most alert public in the world, it requires of its leaders that they be alert. Its appetite for variety is insatiable, ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... home in rags, and grow up a day-laborer," said Sinclair complacently. "When I'm a rich man I'll give him work. He won't feel like putting on ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... from the stolid crowd, which had complacently been listening to her passionate outpourings, she seemed relieved at finding some one to whom she could appeal to oppose these horrible proceedings with all his might. I met her on another occasion at ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... still it is not for us to deny the connection." She brought a cold sweat out upon me by suggesting that she should make things easy by writing to Lord Saltire and explaining our respective positions. Several times during the evening I heard her murmur complacently that they were ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... confess now, Kuprya,' Nikolai Eremyitch began complacently, obviously tickled and diverted himself; 'is it bad being stoker? Is ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... Tessa. "And now, Uncle St. Bernard, I'm going to drink to you. May you always have lots to laugh at! And may your prayers always come true! That rhymes, doesn't it?" she added complacently. "Do I drink all my wine now, or only ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... beauty," he murmured, complacently. "I never saw a handsomer ring of the size. What was it the boy said he was offered for it? Two hundred and fifty dollars! That'll give me a lift, and it doesn't come any too soon. My ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... stamp!" remarked Bumpus, surveying complacently his deeply-bronzed hands, which were only a shade darker than his visage; "well, I would like to know what ye call black if ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... to follow them. In the vestibule he came upon a figure which had halted before a large pier-glass. He recognized M. Delfosse, the French visitor, complacently twisting the peak of his Henri Quatre beard. He would have passed without speaking, but the Frenchman glanced smilingly at the consul and his buttonhole. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I don't believe in constancy for longer than a week. It does one's heart good to see how right one is; here's what I call proof. My sentimental spark kisses Emily Warren, and marries Amy Stuart." The captain, happier than before, called complacently for Cayenne pepper, and relished his mock-turtle with a ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... rare longevity are carefully treasured up and even placed on record. As whenever a human being is carried away, causes from which we are supposed to be free, or against which we take precautions, are complacently sought for, so instances of longevity are studied to discover what habits and manners, what system of diet, or conduct, and which environing circumstances, have most tended to ensure ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... this part of Ireland. The kitchen, with its red-tiled floor, is a capital smoking room, warm and cosy, and while tobacco is leisurely puffed, and that eternal subject, "the state of the country," discussed, the eye reposes complacently on the treasures suspended from the hooks on the ceiling, plump hams and sides of well-fed bacon giving assurance that the garrison is far from being reduced to extremities. But there are in the kitchen other objects less suggestive of festivity. On the round table by the central column supporting ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... American soldier of fortune named Lee Christmas. He was a man nearing fifty, totally devoid of all the embroidery of life, golden toothed and graying at the temples, but still hardy and of youthful vigor, of the dress and manner of a well-paid American mechanic, who sat chewing his black cigar as complacently as if he were still at his throttle on the railroad of Guatemala. Following the latest revolution he had reorganized what, to use his own words, had been "a bunch of barefooted apes in faded-blue cotton rags" into the solemn military company that ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... there will be no actual trouble tonight," said the general, removing his cap and stroking his bald head complacently. "I have assured the boys that there will be no trouble. But this experience is excellent military training for them, and I'm pleased to note that they're thoroughly ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the one-eyed Chinaman, who sat complacently smiling at the visitors, consisted of a loose blouse, blue trousers tucked into grey socks, and a pair of those native, thick-soled slippers which suggest to a Western critic the acme of discomfort. A raven, black as a bird of ebony, perched upon the Chinaman's shoulder, ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... some, and the good-nature of others, the end is attained; and though I never met with any individual who had read any of her books, except the 'Conversations with Byron,' which are too good to be hers, they are unquestionably a source of considerable profit, and she takes her place confidently and complacently as one of the literary celebrities of ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... high road or to some human habitation. He was desperately tired after his day's hunting, a legacy of weakness that the fever had bequeathed to him, but even though he could scarcely sit upright in his saddle his mind dwelt complacently on the day's sport and looked forward to the snug cheery comfort that awaited him at his hunting box. There was a charm, too, even for a tired man, in the eerie stillness of the lone twilight land through which he was passing, a grey shadow-hung ...
— When William Came • Saki
... Competition between them, indeed, was about an end. Amelia claimed Mr. Sponge, should he be worth having, and should the Scamperdale scheme fail; while Emily, having her mamma's assurance that he would not do for either of them, resigned herself complacently to what ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... a hat manufactory as a favourable nursery for romance; but as the lady praised his song, he listened complacently to her hatting. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... blame you for preferring New York, when the Van Dams are so lovely to you," she said complacently. "But Ethel is delicate. Bermuda'll do her a world of good; though of course it's ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... the necessary orders. I chose a table in a snug corner, picked up a paper, and tried to read. Its one great item of news was the Holladay case, and I grew hot with anger, as I saw how unquestioningly, how complacently, it accepted the theory of the daughter's guilt. Still, I asked myself, was it to blame? Was anyone to blame for thinking her guilty after hearing the evidence? How could one ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... with admirably-acted surprise—"I heard a noise!" and as the soldier started back, she smoothed her dress complacently. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... thought, complacently: "My diagnosis was correct!" Aloud he said to his son and daughter, in a tone of hoarse consternation: "To think of our blundering in on the Major like this! Here! Away now, the pair ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Now I think of it, what didn't he talk about? He is one of the most agreeable gossips I ever met,—knows everybody and everything. He has at his finger-ends the history of all who were belles in my time, and" (complacently) "I find that few have done better than I, while some, with all their opportunities, chose very ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... of Mr. Braxton. Alas for his peace of mind!—the preacher of truth had gone past the dead letter, and revealed its spirit and its life. Suddenly he felt himself removed, as it were, to an almost impossible distance from the heaven into which, as he had complacently flattered himself, he should enter by the door of mere ritual observances, when the sad hour came for giving up the delightful things of this pleasant world. No wonder that Mr. Braxton was disturbed—no wonder that, in his first convictions touching those more interior truths, ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... covering. While his bald knee, the ugliest, weakest, most complicated and important joint in the frame, he no doubt regarded with as much veneration as the pious do the shaven crown of a monk. He therefore very complacently and coolly began to disencumber himself of this detestable article of the tailor's skill. I thought it best therefore to push off in time, to spare his daughters this spectacle, merely telling the doctor we would wait for him where we ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... then he is such a splendid success, so hardy and vigorous. I think he enjoys the cold and the snow. His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If the snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm he will complacently sit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bombshell,—a picture of native ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... at their own game," said the Commissary, self- complacently. "If that murder was not committed by Paolina Foscarelli, I will give you or anybody else leave to call me ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... trampling on the manuscript, the village mason striking down the monument, the court painter daubing the despised and priceless masterpiece into freshness of fatuity, he would not always smile so complacently in the thoughts of the little learnings and petty preservations of his own immediate sphere. And if every man, who has the interest of Art and of History at heart, would at once devote himself earnestly—not ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... her, had in them a smile that the girl instinctively resented. Was it a shade too possessive and complacently ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... in various directions were complacently chuckling over the security of their position, their quiet, unquestioning sheep obediently following whithersoever they might lead them. It was not always so in the Tyrol. In former ages, especially at the time of the Reformation, the people had used their independent judgment, allowing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... for a start, when he bounded across the chasm with the ease of a chamois. Jack had sauntered a rod back, as if with no special purpose in mind, when his object was to secure the impetus that would land him far in advance of his comrade. Standing thus, he complacently watched Fred, as his body rose in air, gracefully curved over, and landed at a safe distance beyond ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... all," he declared. "She'd be talking about the kids before she knew it, and patting me on the head." He said it complacently; Anne flirts, but ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in consequence; he could hardly help returning the magistrate's look with an imprudently scornful glance, "Is it true?" the latter commenced, with a complacently insolent air, "is it true that it is a judicial maxim, a maxim resorted to by all magistrates, to begin an interview about trifling things, or even, occasionally, about more serious matter, foreign to the main question however, with a view ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... industrious fishermen, but time had changed all that. They had been remodelled to suit the demands of business, and every house had now on the lower floor an expensive little shop with monsieur sitting complacently at the door and madame, fat and voluble, at the money-drawer, and on the floor above, a still more expensive suite of rooms to let—rooms panelled in white and gold, resplendent with rococo mouldings, and crowded with abominable furniture, intended to be coquettish—gilt chairs, scalloped tables, ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... when their turn comes for leaving the steamer. As we came near to Bellaggio, I looked up my own portmanteau, and, pointing to the beautiful wood-covered hill that stands at the fork of the waters, told my friend Greene that he was near his destination. "I am very glad to hear it," said he, complacently, but he did not at the moment busy himself about the boxes. Then the small boat ran up alongside the steamer, and the passengers for Como and Milan ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... intelligent animal, and had the same eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes, accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all contentedly—not to say complacently—as part of the day's work. Her husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maelstrom, into which fair fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... miller complacently, 'there's few of more consequence in a regiment than a trumpeter. He's the chap that tells 'em what to do, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... while," declared Louise, complacently. "I'm sure I know as much as most girls do, and there are more useful lessons to be learned from real ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne |
