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Sill   Listen
noun
Sill  n.  A young herring. (Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sill" Quotes from Famous Books



... ambulatory, conspicuously in the three recesses in the exterior wall on the north, each of which contains a three-light window in that style. The first and second of these recesses, or small chapels, are open to the ground level; but the third (nearest the east) has been walled up beneath the window sill. Beyond it is the door of the clergy vestry, which occupies the site of another chapel: and in the curve of the wall towards the Lady Chapel there is a tablet which usually attracts attention for the curious device upon it—three pillars ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... close of the week, he locked up the chateau, with a vow never to cross its sill again, and left the keys in the keeping of St. Jean, who owned a little house near Clameran, and would continue to live ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... a linen draper in the town sank one-fifth of its height between the years 1881 and 1891, and in the seven years since it has sunk nearly another fifth. One kitchen window looks out on the river, and the water is now but a few inches below the window sill. When I saw it the moon was shining on the water, making the scene singularly effective. At one time the kitchens were lofty rooms, now one can hardly stand upright in them, for the floors and the walls have ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. For the same reason, probably, a neighbouring bee-hive had swarmed, and the new colony, pitching on the window-sill, was making its way into the room when the horrified nurse shut down the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only abstained from her ill-timed interference, the swarm might have settled on my lips, and I should ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... sauntered on, asseverated that Amy Waring was an odd sort of girl; and finally went in to the Washington Hotel, where each lolled back in an armchair, with the white duck legs reposing in another—excepting Mr. Dinks, who poised his boots upon the window-sill that commanded Broadway; and so, comforted with a cigar in the mouth, and a glass of iced port-wine sangaree in the hand, the three young gentlemen labored through ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

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

... followed the old negress out. She went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms across the sill. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... hair falling in waves upon her shoulder. She stood for a moment at the closed window, then opened it and looked out. The night was cold and dark; but she braved it, and sat humming a tune, her hand playing with the ivy that crept up to the window-sill. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... was upstairs, the golden bird came again to perch on the window-sill, and called in his clear voice to the head scullion, who ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

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

... the Tabernacle of God's Will This woman's form enshrineth. What is this, More glorious than all our age-long bliss, Which shines within the shadow of her sill? How shall we lift this strangeness which doth fill Her human heart to breaking,—we who miss In our immortal joy, the enlight'ning kiss Of sorrow's bitter lips whence comforts thrill? How shall we sing to her of joys to come, To her who bears ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy

... dismayed at the tale he bore her, magnified to cover his own shame. Francesco sat quietly drumming on the sill, his eyes upon the moonlit garden below, and never by word or sign suggesting that he might succeed where Romeo had failed. At last she ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... of sound that fell, heavy and lifeless as her soul, into the soggy fields. This was succeeded by a slow, reluctant scattering of the rain and wind, until there was nothing outside her windows but a gentle dripping and the swishing play of a cluster of wet vine against the sill. She was in a state half-way between sleeping and waking, with neither condition predominant ... and she was harassed by a desire to rid herself of a weight pressing down upon her breast. She felt that if she could cry the weight would be lifted, and forcing the lids ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... ye hae dune!" she cried, turning in anger on Kennedy, and her tears suddenly ceasing. "Never but ill hae ye brocht me! What business had ye to come efter me this gait, makin' mischief 'atween my lord an' me? Can a body no set fut ayont the door-sill, but they maun be followt o' them they wud ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... its parents, and we were pleased to see one of them fly into the room and carry it food. As they seemed so anxious, and we thought they knew better than we how to feed it, we placed the little thing on the window sill, watching near it to prevent it meeting with any accident, as it was too young to fly more than a few yards by itself. It had scarcely been there a few seconds before its mother flew down to it and chattered, as we thought scolding it, but we suppose ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... there was upon the face! It was from the open window of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread himself over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on both his hands, that what between this attitude and his being swoln with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated into twice his usual breadth. Mr Brass, on recognising him, immediately stopped ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... arose with her eyes full of tears, and walked sadly into the attic room where she sat down looking with sorrow on all the little preparations that she had made. She crept to the window, and clinging with both hands to the sill, lifted herself up to see, by the shadows that lay among the chimneys, and the slanting gold of the sunshine which, thank God, warms the tenement house and the palace towers alike, how fast the hours ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... represented by a jug of water with a towel laid upon it, and a bit of common soap. Two ancient hats hung to their respective nails, near which also hung the self-same blue box-coat with three capes, in which the countess had always seen Schmucke when he came to give his lessons. On the window-sill were three pots of flowers, German flowers, no doubt, and near ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... ash-tree had grown and broken the wall, but over against the broken wall were great stones, and one of these I liked best of all, for it made the blood tingle down my back and my eyes see visions. On a warm Sunday I lay half in the window resting on the sill, for the walls were very thick, and I gazed at the foot of the great stone where a plumed helmet was carved, and a sword in its sheath; and round the helmet and sword battle-gear lay as though the warrior had flung down his harness as he ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... for you," Miss Armytage reminded him. She was leaning on the sill of the balcony. Standing erect beside her, he considered the graceful profile sharply outlined against a background of gloom by the light from the windows behind them. A heavy curl of her dark hair lay upon a neck as flawlessly white as the rope of pearls that swung from ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... was left alone, Miss Betty put out the lamp, moved the flowers away from the corner window, and seated herself on the window-sill with her feet upon ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... handles; ten baiocchi,' replied Rocjean, 'You must have noticed them; why, look out of that window: do you see that girl in the house opposite. She has one on the window sill, under her nose, while her hands are both held over the charcoal fire that is burning in it. If there were any proof needed that the idea of a future punishment by fire did not originate in Rome, the ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... which fills the streets of Paris, they felt the icy chill of crypts about them. A damp air came from an inner courtyard which resembled a huge air-shaft; the light that entered was gray, and the sill of the window was filled with pots of sickly plants. In this room, which had a coating of some greasy, fuliginous substance, the furniture, the chairs, the table, were all most abject. The floor tiles oozed like a water-cooler. In short, every accessory was in keeping with the fearful ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

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

... the lady," said the mother, trying to pull the child away. "My land, if I ever live to get you children to your grandmother's I'll be thankful! Lottie, stop making scratches on that window sill!" ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... cabin going over his accounts. When it grew dark he lighted his kerosene lamp and drew a chair beside his desk. As he bent over and unlaced his shoes the sash of the square cabin window in front of him was raised cautiously and four bony fingers slipped in and gripped the sill. As he sprang to his feet the gaunt face of a man rose slowly above the window sill and a pair of brilliant, cavernous eyes, framed in a shock of unkempt beard and sandy ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... a comfortable chair for the nurse-maid. White muslin curtains with side hangings of washable chintz or linen or some special nursery design in cretonne should hang to the sill. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop

... should have done. Very well, sir, as you have nothing to tell me, I will leave you. I must confess that I did not think you were such a coward." And she prepared to go, gathering up the skirts of her habit, and taking up the whip which she had laid on the window-sill. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

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

... air; and just as the sun arose, touching the pine-tree tops with fire, he came to his father's hut, where the eight children were rubbing their eyes and Zitza crying for her breakfast. No one knew that Mihal had been farther than the door-sill, nor did he tell the clamorous brood of children what he had seen, lest they should mock it as a dream, or attempt the ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... in bitterness. Without offering any word of departure, he pulled open the door and stepped across the sill. The door closed, and I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... nodded, whereupon Grant led the others upstairs to wash. From the bathroom he looked out over a darkening landscape. Doris's dormer window was open. She was leaning on the sill, but he could not tell whether or not her eyes were turned his way. Her attitude was pensive, disconsolate, curiously forlorn for a girl normally high-spirited. He was on the point of signaling to her when he remembered Furneaux's presence. There was something ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... room overlooking the canal and the theatre square, wishing her a good-night full of German blessings. The water ran boiling out of the tap, and the smoke curled up over the looking-glass and the window-sill. ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

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

... out. A thick group of trees hid the window from the avenue beyond the campus wall, and below us, at a corner of the building, was a clump of rhododendrons. As Craig bent over the sill, he whipped out a ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... was still waiting, and hoping for the best, he heard his comrade whisper down to him as he hung suspended, clutching the sill ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... laughed again, and drew back her head as if to see whether there were any one in the room behind her, her white hand lying over the stone sill, meanwhile, as if to show that she was not going away. Gilbert even thought that the slender fingers tapped the stone ledge in a reassuring way. Then she looked out again. A few late flowers and sweet herbs grew in an earthenware trough in one division ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... at the window, and then a strong electric light swept into the room. Jimmie jumped forward and bumped into Ned, who was clambering over the decayed window sill. ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... and then three weeks, passed without a sign from Bisesa. Trejago, thinking that the rupture had lasted quite long enough, went down to Amir Nath's Gully for the fifth time in the three weeks, hoping that his rap at the sill of the shifting grating would be answered. He ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... said Billy, and he closed the door and went again to the window, where he was turning his socks over and over in the streak of sunlight that warmed a part of the window sill. ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

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

... it was—a peculiar combination, in polished copper, of triple glasses fixed to the sill of a second-story window in the house directly opposite. The device is in common use in Philadelphia and Baltimore, but here in New York it must be classed as an exotic. Its very name is unfamiliar, and I dub it the "Philadelphia Quizzing-Glass" ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... outer edge of an ellipse Which brought her fair form to the window again, From the arms of her partner incautiously slips! And a shriek fills the air, and the music is still, And the crowd gather round where her partner forlorn Still frenziedly points from the wide window-sill Into space and the night; for Miss Addie was gone! Gone like the bubble that bursts in the sun; Gone like the grain when the reaper is done; Gone like the dew on the fresh morning grass; Gone without parting farewell; and alas! Gone with a flavor of ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... he shows, with great logical skill, as well as with some humour, how the man who, on rising in the morning finds the parlour- window open, the spoons and teapot gone, the mark of a dirty hand on the window-sill, and that of a hob-nailed boot outside, and comes to the conclusion that someone has broken open the window, and stolen the plate, arrives at that hypothesis—for it is nothing more—by a long and complex train of inductions and deductions of just the same kind as those ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... youth. How many decrepit, hoary, harsh, writhen, bursten-bellied, crooked, toothless, bald, blear-eyed, impotent, rotten, old men shall you see flickering still in every place? One gets him a young wife, another a courtesan, and when he can scarce lift his leg over a sill, and hath one foot already in Charon's boat, when he hath the trembling in his joints, the gout in his feet, a perpetual rheum in his head, "a continuate cough," [4740]his sight fails him, thick of hearing, his breath stinks, all his moisture ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

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

... twenty, and her name was Florence; that she trimmed hats in a millinery shop; that she lived in a furnished room with her best chum Ella, who was cashier in a shoe store; and that a glass of milk from the bottle on the window-sill and an egg that boils itself while you twist up your hair makes a breakfast good enough for any one. Florence laughed when she ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... staunch the flood, taking no notice of the figure on the landing in the towel, but Mrs. Fisher did not know what the noise could be, and coming out of her room to inquire stood rooted on the door-sill. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamorous mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman's bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

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

... Up!" called Mr. Bobbsey, as the children's pet came leaping along beside the track. Snap gave one look up at the high sill of the baggage car door, and then, with a loud bark, he gave a great leap and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope

... approach is by a rough country lane, the place is somewhat inaccessible, but it possesses much antiquarian interest. The church (Perp.) is poor, but contains (1) rood-loft stair and part of a small Perp. screen; (2) early Norm, font; (3) piscina in sill of sanctuary window; (4) some mediaeval tiles near altar, bearing arms of Montacute (according to some, Ferrers) and De Staunton; (5) curious squint, looking towards S. chapel (cp. Mark); (6) a few old ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... to the organ the psalm is earthy and suffocating. It comes from out the very depths of the sepulchre, while the 'Dies irae' has its source only on the sill of the tomb. The first is the very voice of the dead, the second that of the living who inter him, and the dead man weeps, but takes courage a little, when those that ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... cabin; while one lit the lamp and went for a sack of ice, the other kindled a fire. These tasks accomplished, by mutual consent, but still without exchanging a word, they approached the table. From the window-sill Tom took a coin and balanced it upon his thumb and forefinger; then, in answer to his bleak, inquiring glance, Jerry nodded and he snapped the piece into the air. While it was still spinning Jerry ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

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

... the western horizon in patches. Bowers points out a continuous dark band. Is this the dolerite sill? ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

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

... looked after the stage. Then, with a movement singularly swift for so stout a person, she made a few paces down the walk, and, turning, looked up at the windows of the houses on either side of her own. In both houses a figure was leaning from a window, thrown half out over the sill, in an attitude of eager inquiry. At sight of Mrs. Mellen they dodged back, and only a slight waving of curtains betrayed their presence. The good woman folded her arms deliberately, and stood for five minutes, absorbed in the distant landscape; then she turned, and went slowly back ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... name appearing in his "Book of Sitters" in July 1788, when she was just over three years of age, and is one of the most famous child-pictures by that great master. The picture shows Little Penelope in a white dress and a dark belt, sitting on a stone sill, with trees in the background. Her mittened hands are folded in her lap, and her eyes are demurely cast down. She is wearing a high mob-cap, said to have belonged to Sir ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... their picking and stealing and fighting and financing. They ain't steam-boating any longer. They're using good boats to play checkers in Wall Street with. Well, son," he mourned, hanging dispiritedly over the sill of the window and staring up the wind-swept Chesapeake, "I ain't going to whine—but I shall miss the old packet and the rumble and racket of the old machine down there in her belly. I'd even take the job of watchman aboard her if he would ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... behind those great curtains. But they were too heavy for her to put aside, so she crept underneath them to get to the window. But these again were so high that she could only just get her head above the sill to peer out. Even then she could not see what she longed for. In vain she went first to one and then the other of the windows—she could see nothing but walls and windows and again walls and windows. Heidi felt quite frightened. It was still early, ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... slouching figures of the clansmen, she seemed to shrink from the stature of a woman into that of a child, and, as she felt his eyes on her, she timidly slipped farther back into the shadowy door of the cabin, and dropped down on the sill, where, with her hands clasped about her knees, she gazed curiously at himself. She did not speak, but sat immovable with her thick hair falling over her shoulders. The painter recognized that even ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... along toward morning, he had sleepily asked his wife, who was softly moving about the room, to give him a little water. The "monkey" stood usually on the window sill, its cool and dewy surface close to his hand; but he remembered later that she did not then approach the window—did not immediately bring him the glass. He had retired very late, yet was hardly surprised to find her wide awake and more than usually ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... the house; every time she turned she saw the mouse galloping after her, and laughing with a mocking air. Arrived at the house, she tried to crush the mouse in the door, but it remained open in spite of every effort she could make and the mouse remained quietly upon the door-sill. ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur

... longer for the chintz hangings and gold-framed fruit pieces of Mrs. Purdy's cottage, but looked instead toward the immaculate and austere bedroom of Miss Stanley, with its "Melodonna" over the bed and a box of blooming plants on the window-sill. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... was broken the rest was fairly easy, the only danger being the pieces of glass. He took off his coat and flung it on to the sill of the upper window. In a few seconds he was up himself without injury. He found it a trifle hard to keep his balance, as there was nothing to hold on to, but he managed it long enough to enable him to thrust an arm through the gap and turn the handle. After this there was a bolt to draw, which ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... had gone, Oliver turned back to the window, and resting his arms on the sill, leaned out into the velvet softness of the twilight. His wide vision had deserted him. It was as if his gaze had narrowed down to a few roofs and the single street without a turning—but beyond them the thought of Virginia lay always like an enclosed garden of sweetness and bloom. To think of ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... water, and mixed it with the syrup again, and her mother drank of it eagerly; then she laid her head wearily upon the low window-sill, and beckoned her little daughter to come to her side. It seemed to the child that her mother could not be comfortable, and she fetched a pillow from the bed, and placed it carefully under her mother's head. Then she sat down close to her side on a footstool, ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... reserve. In my childhood I had devoted myself to a solitary way of life, and had, so to speak, consecrated my heart to it. One day my father, solicitous about my future, spoke to me of several careers among which he allowed me to choose. I was leaning on the window-sill, looking at a solitary poplar-tree that was swaying in the breeze down in the garden. I thought over all the various occupations and wondered which one I should choose. I turned them all over, one after another, in my mind, and then, not feeling inclined to any of them, I allowed ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... the old man stood mute. So, logwise,—down to floor Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,— Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... evidently at home in a door-yard on the opposite side of the street, adjoining the Hubbard "Park." On the door of that bright-coloured, spruce-looking brick house, you will see the name of W. C. Clapp; and there are a pair of boots resting on the window-sill of an adjoining office, which probably belong to the person of the lawyer, himself. Now, we may observe Mrs. Hilson and Miss Emmeline Hubbard flitting across the street, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... climbed the attic ladder (they called it the 'mainmast tree' out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with might and main,' as the ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck window-sill. He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

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

... broad sill by the open window to wait for the girls, lost in her own happy thoughts, until Miss Greatorex ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... and, amid straight walks and dwarf yews, in the fulness of the moonlight, there shone a white house, with large French windows and a tower at the further end. A white peacock asleep on a window-sill startled Mike, and he thought of the ghost ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... sweethearts," she said, in an aside to Miss Meeke, as she pointed to the youthful pair, who, seated on the cushioned sill of the bay window, were exchanging their last confidences. "Them young uns is sweethearts, as sure as you're born. And why she didn't choose him, instead of choosing my beat, beats me. But perhaps ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

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

... great that a leap from the window meant almost certain death. They could be plainly seen frantically calling for help. There was no possible way to reach them. Finally Charles Mueller jumped out on the window sill and made a leap for life, and an instant later he was followed by his brother. The bewildered spectators did not suppose for a moment that either could live. They were too much horrified to speak, but when it was over and they were lifted into beds provided ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... off my hat and pay a respectful compliment to Jan Steen, Esq.? He is a glorious composer. His humor is as frank as Fielding's. Look at his own figure sitting in the window-sill yonder, and roaring with laughter! What a twinkle in the eyes! what a mouth it is for a song, or a joke, or a noggin! I think the composition in some of Jan's pictures amounts to the sublime, and look at them with the same delight and admiration which I have felt before works ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... curtains of the bedroom weren't extra close, and if I could get up on the veranda without too much of a creaking I knew I could see in all right. There's a lot of cat in a sailor, even to the nine lives and the dislike of getting wet, and I was soon on my knees at the sill, taking in the performance. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... crept out of her window and along the balcony, which ended a dozen feet from Roger's room. From thence on there was merely a decorative stone ledge, barely four inches wide. The closed window of the bedroom came first, its projecting sill offering something to cling to, but on each side of this was a space where the only support was the creeper on the wall. It was a perilous undertaking. In some fashion she had evidently made her way along the ledge. Roger did not yet know whether the accident had occurred on the ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... wouldn't come if you tried to call and coax her. You said her father was like that, didn't you? Well, with that kind of wildness, or shyness, one can't put out a cage, you know. The only way is to scatter crumbs on the window-sill and then stand and wait. Will you let me ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... close to the sill, and stepped on it to take another view of the latch. For Elsy was enterprising, and had no more idea than have other two-year-old babies of remaining in ignorance of any new and untried danger. Of course she succeeded at last, and so easily that she pushed the door open and let herself ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... I swung the muzzle of the gun around on the window-sill until the bead drew dead upon the thief. The cow in her stall beside me did not stir. I knew that four small boys in the bedroom window had their eyes riveted upon that fox waiting for me to fire. It was a nervous situation, so early in the morning, in the cold, white fog, and without ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... the inn, I found in the public room a young German of some one or two and twenty, who, in making the tour of Scotland, had extended his journey into Orkney. My specimens, which had begun to accumulate in the room, on chimney-piece and window-sill, had attracted his notice, and led us into conversation. He spoke English well, but not fluently,—in the style of one who had been more accustomed to read than to converse in it; and he seemed at least as familiar with two of our great British authors,—Shakspeare and Sir Walter Scott,—as ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... west end, but the old Saxon portion is composed of large chestnut trees split asunder and set upright close to each other with the round side outwards. The ends are roughly hewn so as to fit into a sill at the bottom, and into a plate at the top, where they are fastened with wooden pins. There are 16 logs on the south side where are two doorposts, and on the north side twenty-one logs and two spaces now filled with rubble. There is a tradition that this church was ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... pilot-house, a figure had collapsed across the sill of an observation window. And the engines, purring softly, told that all had been in readiness for the throwing-in of the clutches that would have set the vast propellers ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... left the hot water, said a few words, and went to wake Rogron and do the same offices for him. Then she went down to take in the milk, the bread, and the other provisions left by the dealers. She stood some time on the sill of the door hoping that Brigaut would have the sense to come to her; but by that time he was already on his way ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... the window, secured the ladder again and more firmly, then getting up on to the sill and holding to the bars with one hand, he stretched out the other to the queen, who, as resolute as she had been timid a moment before, mounted on a stool, and had already set one foot on the window-ledge, when suddenly the cry, "Who goes there?" rang out at the foot of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... sexton, on the left jambs of all the windows in the north and south aisles, both inside and out. It is in the form of a circle with eight radiations, and always occurs about half-way between the shoulder of the arch and the sill. During the late restoration of the church, it has been covered with plaster in every case in the interior, save one in the north aisle, which is left very distinct. It does not appear on any of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various

... rejoined the boy, resting his ragged arms on the window-sill, and looking down on the weather-beaten man with an expression of patronising interest, "you've come to the right shop, anyhow, for that keemodity. In Lun'on we've got old women by the thousand, an' young uns by the million, to ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... over the window-sill, looking down into the dusky green of clambering foliage, and saw a familiar face smiling up at her. She uttered ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... round her own person, and perceived, besides, almost without looking, that an entrance had been made by the window, which stood wide open to disclose the topmost rounds of a garden-ladder, borrowed doubtless from the tool-house, propped against its sill. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... which her husband inspired; but how different, she did not know. They filled her with a sort of ecstasy, and she gave herself up to them. Exhausted at last by these vivid thoughts and emotions, she rested her head upon her arms across the window sill and fell asleep. It must have been that the young Quaker followed her into the land of dreams, for when her husband aroused her at midnight a faint flush could be seen by the light of the moon on those ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... blue; a day innocently bright like a child with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young girl, suave in welcoming one's respects like—like a Roman prelate. I love such days. They are perfection for remaining indoors. And I enjoyed it temperamentally in a chair, my feet up on the sill of the open window, a book in my hands and the murmured harmonies of wind and sun in my heart making an accompaniment to the rhythms of my author. Then looking up from the page I saw outside a pair ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... touched, and, full of melancholy, went and leaned against the sill of the open window. The moon had just risen, the sky was beautifully clear, whiffs of delicious perfumes assailed my nostrils. I saw in the shadow of the trees glowworms sparkling on the grass, and, in the masses of verdure lit up mysteriously by the moon, I traced strange ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

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

... an embrasure at Fort Clinton and a clubbed musket would have dashed these valuable brains out, had not Joe's sword whipped my rebellious countryman through the gizzard. Joe wore a red coat in those days (the uniform of the brave Sixty-third, whose leader, the bold Sill, fell pierced with many wounds beside him). He exchanged his red for black and my pulpit. His doctrines are sound, and his sermons short. We read the papers together over our wine. Not two months ago we read our old friend Howe's glorious deed ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wild cactus fencing it in; through the cactus she made her way as easily as a rabbit burrows; it would have been an impossibility to Cigarette to enter by any ordinary means; and balancing herself lightly on the sill for a second, stood looking ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... bitter, burning pang, a blur before his eyes, and then, folding his arms composedly upon the window sill, Dr. Grant stood looking in upon the occupants of the room, whistling at last to baby, as he was accustomed to whistle to the ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... chaises, I tell you what, There is always SOMEWHERE a weakest spot,— In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurking still Find it somewhere you must and will,— Above or below, or within or without,— And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, A chaise BREASTS ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... replied Shubin, and he leaned his elbows on the window-sill, 'it's better fun like this, more as if we were in Spain. To begin with, I congratulate you, you're at a premium now. Your belauded, exceptional man has quite missed fire. That I'll guarantee. And to prove my impartiality, listen—here's ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... the sill of the window, is looking at Daisy, who stands a little in the background, with that kissable white hand of hers shading the sun from as dangerous a pair of black eyes as ever looked "no" when they meant "yes." ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... for she had one cosy little corner which no one cared to dispute with her. The recess at the end of the upper hall she had curtained off, and besides the few blooming plants on the wide window-sill it held an old-fashioned but comfortable sofa, a big chair and a tiny table. It was here Dexie made up her housekeeping accounts, and performed such other duties as she could bring to her snug little corner. It was the one spot in the house ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... cheerful old lady living there, and shown Washington's room. It was very small, but they found it interesting. The old lady took them into it, and, leading-the way to an east window, said: "From here Washington could look to those slopes yonder and see a large part of his camp." Then, lifting a blue sill, she showed a little trap-door and beneath it a cavity, which she said had been arranged by Washington as a hiding place for ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... my cheese drip first the night before. Right through a cheese-cloth sack hung from a nail what my husband drove in for me under the window-sill." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... window. Suddenly it occurred to her that if she drew down the blind, which she could easily do by pushing her hand inside the window and then planting her fat little person on the window-sill, she would cause a shadow to come before the light on her ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... blinds were thrown open; Edith, in all the lithe magnificence of her wonderful form, stood out clear and beautiful against the light within; she pushed up the lower window in order to reach the upper one, and for a moment leaned out over the sill. Once more her wondrous profile traced itself in strong relief against the outer gloom. There came a cry from the street below, a feeble involuntary one, but still distinctly audible. Edith peered anxiously out into the darkness, but the darkness had grown denser and she ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... sill at a perilous angle, the bright coal of his pipe spilling comet-wise to the area-way below. He was only subconscious of having spoken; but this syllable was sufficient to spoil the enchantment. The Voice ceased abruptly, with an odd break. The singer looked up. Possibly her astonishment surpassed ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it, through an open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green leaves of a pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet with an official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high ceilings, spoke between ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... birds whistled, High up in the old roof trees; And to and fro at the window The red rose rocked her bees; And the wee pink fists of the baby Were never a moment still, Snatching at shine and shadow, That danced on the lattice sill! ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... cook-stove, a large bed, and a chest of drawers, there was an attempt to make it tidy. In a dark closet opening out from it was another large bed. As he knocked and opened the door, he saw that Gretchen was not at home. Her father sat in a rocking-chair by an open window, on the sill of which stood a pot of carnations, the Easter gift of St. George's, a wax-faced, hollow-eyed man of gentle manners, who looked round wearily at the priest. The mother was washing clothes in a tub in one corner; in another corner ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the street; and this confidence not only enables him to go on with his duty with more spirit, but his attention not being abstracted by thoughts of personal danger, he is able to direct it wholly to the circumstances of the fire. He can raise himself on a window sill, or the top of a wall, if he can only reach it with his hands; and by his hands alone he may sustain himself in situations where other means of support are unattainable, till the arrival of assistance. These are great advantages; but, as I said before, the ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... son of his father's chief vizier, when one of the arrows accidentally struck the wife of a merchant, who was walking about in an upper room of a house close by. The prince aimed at a bird that was perched on the window- sill of that room, and had not the slightest idea that anybody was at hand, or he would not have shot in that direction. Consequently, not knowing what had happened, he and the vizier's son walked away, the vizier's son chaffing him because he had missed ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... the rude sill. It was pale and grave, with the hawk eyes like glass. "It ain't so awful early," he ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... is to be found on the dead leaves, and not a winged insect is left to come flying {87} by; hence other food must be looked for in new directions. Emboldened by hunger, the Starlings alight at the kitchen door, and the Juncos, Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers, and Nuthatches come to feed on the window-sill. Jays and Meadowlarks haunt the manure piles or haystacks in search of fragments of grain. Purple Finches flock to the wahoo elm trees to feed on the buds, and Crossbills attack the pine cones. Even the wary Ruffed Grouse ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... "it's time that I was away," and so he jumped upon the window-sill and in a moment was flying away. And he flew and he flew till he was over the deep, deep sea, and yet on he flew till he came to his mother's castle. Now the queen his mother was taking her walk abroad when she saw the pretty dove flying overhead and ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... to it. This done, I put the ladder against the house wall, listened, measured the distance to the open second-floor window with my eye, listened again—and, finding all quiet, began my second and last ascent. The ladder was comfortably long, and I was conveniently tall; my hand was on the window-sill—I mounted another two rounds—and my eyes were level with the interior ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... it to smash other furniture. Then he began to beat out the glass which shut off the other private rooms which adjoined the main office. In that process he brought the terrified Craig into view. He dropped the chair, reached in, and dragged Craig over the sill of the compartment. "This has been coming to you on the Noda waters! I'm glad you're here now to get it!" He held the Three C's director helpless in utter dismay, at the full length of a left arm, and pummeled ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... lovely flowers and timidly thanked them. They applauded, sang a rollicking farewell, and were gone. If I could have removed my heart painlessly, I believe that would have gone out too. They had gone, but the blissful memory! I leaned on the window sill, and the moon with its bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But listen, hark! Only two doors beyond, the same voices, the same melodious tones, and alas, yes, the same words, every verse and the same chorus—same masculine ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

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

... to make him understand that I could not think of such a thing; and he lost his head and became violent. That is how the table fell:—I had started toward the door when he sprang back to block me, and the low window-sill caught him under the knees, and he fell ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... quite another matter. Thinking it over, I remembered that I had seen a short gardener's ladder hooked to the garden wall. If I could make a rope, by which to let myself down, I could, I thought, make use of this ladder to get back by, for it would cover nearly half the height to my window sill, a full thirty feet from the ground. If, by standing on the upper rungs, could reach within five yards of the window, I knew that I should be able to scramble up so far by a rope. There was no difficulty about a rope. I had a good eighteen yards of choice stout rope there ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... no farther than the sill of the entrance, where Melchior was able to hold him, while Dale reached over and gripped the boy by the belt and hauled ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... of all authority that does not own Him, and the subordination of all that does. The hirelings, the blind guides, that have misled and afflicted humanity for so many weary ages, shall be all sunk in oblivion. The false gods shall be discrowned, and lie shattered on their temple-sill, and there shall be no worshippers to care for or to try to repair their discomfiture. Bow your heads before Him, thinkers who have led men on devious paths and spoken but a partial truth and a wisdom all confused with foolishness! Lower your swords ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... smelled of sour fish, was very cold, very dirty, and very blue with cigar smoke. The remains of a delicatessen breakfast stood on a table near the only window, which was tightly shut, and under the sill of which a radiator emitted explosive symptoms of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... the direct way I might have expected of him by stepping quietly between us, giving a light leap, catching hold of the curving sill, chinning himself on it, and scrambling up into the plane so quickly that we'd hardly have had time to do anything about it if we'd wanted to. Pop couldn't be much more than a bantamweight, even with all his knives. The plane sagged an inch and ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... would," she said, breaking down and beginning to sob weakly, with her head resting on the sill of the carriage-window. "Oh, what have we not been through together, we two! Piece by piece I ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... Joey, putting down his mug of beer on the window sill. "I understand you've met Dick to-night afore this. Well, he's got something important to tell you—and all of ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... The omnibus had stopped in the lane, and they could hear the voices of the occupants clearly through the soft darkness. Some one was apparently getting out, and stumbled. A girl's soft laugh rang out distinctly above the man's exclamation. Duncombe was already stepping over the window-sill when he felt a clutch like iron upon his shoulder. He looked round in amazement. Andrew's face was transformed. He was ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... silence: "I didn't mean you to take me seriously," she said. She tried to laugh. It was no use. And, as she leaned there on the sill, her heart frightened her ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... must have it, it is in a bottle on the window sill,' said they, hoping that they might obtain their freedom at once. ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... Woman of Morocco!" But her head fell on the window-sill of the carriage. Ambroise lifted the weary head on his shoulder. His eyes were so dry that they seemed thirsty. The old glamour gripped him. The cabman held the reins and waited; it was an every-night occurrence for him. The starlight ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass below. The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy gray with autumn rains and rotting leaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful even in decay; but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very window-sill, summer still lingered. The beds of red verbena and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with fallen leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... American old maids, have poked their noses into these once genuine boulevards ... and, as if giving a further fillip to the scenery, clothing shops with windows haughtily revealing the nobby art of Kuppenheimer, postcard shops laden to the sill's edge with lithographs disclosing erstwhile Saturday Evening Post cover heroines, and case upon case displaying in lordly enthusiasm the choicest cranial confections of the ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright

... said, the office was located on the side street. Directly in front of the desk was a large window, opened to let in the fresh morning air. For me to think was to act. In less than a minute I was seated on the desk with my legs dangling over the window sill. ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... her forehead, and pressed back her hair with a little movement of impatience, expressive, perhaps, of a great suspense. She stood idly drumming on the window-sill for a few moments; then, with a quick little sigh, she went back to the piano. As she moved she gave a jerk of the head from time to time, as schoolgirls who have too much hair are wont to do. The reason of this nervous movement was a wondrous plait of gold reaching far below her ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... within it or not. There is an air of neatness, order, arrangement, grace, and refinement, that gives a thrill of pleasure, though you cannot define it, or explain how it is. There is a flower in the window, or a picture against the wall, that marks the home of taste. A bird sings at the window-sill; books lie about; and the furniture, though common, is tidy, suitable, and, it ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... hand convulsively grasps his staff; his foot falls lightly on the pavement; his carol is changed to a quick, sharp inhalation of the breath; for directly before him, just visible through the fog, a figure, lightly clad, leans from a window close upon the street, then clambers noiselessly upon the sill, leaps over, and dashes swiftly down Chambers Street, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... the window where he was standing. He put his tail about his waist and jumped off the window sill with ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... down on him a moment steadily, and a look of bewilderment came into his face. But he turned away again to the simmering pots. The boy went to the window and, leaning upon the sill, began to hum softly a sort of chant, while he watched a lizard running hither and thither in the sun. As he hummed, the old man listened, and presently, with his medicines in his hands and a half- startled look, he came over to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... inside of it), and their loud rapping often makes me think I have a caller indeed. I place fragments of hickory-nuts in the interstices of the bark, and thus attract the nuthatches; a bone upon my window-sill attracts both nuthatches and the downy woodpecker. They peep in curiously through the window upon me, pecking away at my bone, too often a very poor one. A bone nailed to a tree a few feet in front of the window attracts crows ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... of the big chair, her face, paler than its wont, in shadow, pallid like a face seen through still water. Then she saw also handsome Willie, dark against the small square panes of the window, the April sun gilding the curve of his ruddy cheek and making the pots of red geraniums along the sill blaze as brightly as the beautiful blossoms of painted wax that, under their glass shade, held an example of neat perfection ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... portrait, a lithograph by Rothenstein, hangs over my mantlepiece among portraits of other friends. He is drawn standing, but, because doubtless of his crippled legs, he leans forward, resting his elbows upon some slightly suggested object—a table or a window-sill. His heavy figure and powerful head, the disordered hair standing upright, his short irregular beard and moustache, his lined and wrinkled face, his eyes steadily fixed upon some object, in complete ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats

... her eye, and I would not reflect that she saw only dusk and vacancy. Then indignantly I stepped from the ilex and confronted her. A low, glad cry escapes her lips, she holds her arms toward me and would cross the sill, when a voice constrains her from within. It ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... engaged upon a succession of wrong notes that made her wince. She dusted the room swiftly, aware all the time of a watchful eye. Occasionally came a crisp comment: "You didn't dust that window-sill." "Cecilia, that table has four legs—did you only notice two?"—the effort to speak while playing generally bringing the performer with vigour upon a wrong chord. The so-called music became almost a physical torment to ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... frescoes on its wall; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... the great brute stood with its forepaws upon the sill, glaring into the little room. Presently it tried the strength of the lattice with its ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... long skirt and stepped grandly across the bare floor of the attic. As she stood by the window a boyish whistle floated up to her. She leaned over the narrow sill and peered through the evergreen ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... away. At last her reveries grew confused. She sat up very straight, and blinked very hard, to make sure that she was quite awake. Just as she had got herself most perfectly reassured on this point, her head sank gently forward upon the window-sill, and she slept deeply, with her cheek against the cold, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... seated herself on a bench beside the window, her face turned away, looking out—and warm drops fell on the sill. ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... generally about eight by six inches, made as described on page 9, and of the right length to fit some window-sill, or the corner or ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... for your subscription for the illuminated address he and Dr. O'Donoghue are getting up for the police sergeant. I promised the other day that you'd give something. If you sign a cheque and stick it out on the window-sill, I'll fill up the amount and hand it on to Doyle. I should say that one pound would be a handsome contribution, and I may get you off with ten shillings. It'll all depend on how the money is coming in. He's turning ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... work this minute," replied Pat, throwing off his blouse and hanging it on the sill of the open window, with the ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... feet, threw out his arms, and cursed savagely. Then, grown abruptly quiet, he dropped back into his chair, his two big hands loose about the wallet hidden under them. Steve threw a leg over the window-sill and came in, his gun ready, his eyes taking stock of Barbee while they appeared to be for Blenham only. And Barbee, white now as he had never been until now, shivered, filled his lungs with a long sigh, and fell back a couple ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... carefully tipped the dose down its throat. How it choked, kicked, and began again with "week! week!" when it meant "strong!" but it revived. Peggy held it in the sun till it grew warm, gave it a drop more, fed it with bread-crumbs from her own plate, and laid it on the south window-sill. There it lay when we went to tea; when we came back, it lay on the floor, dead; either it was tipsy, or it had tried its new strength too soon, and, rolling off, had broken ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... of the kitchen floor. The tiles were a little broken, and here and there they were sunk and worn; but they were as clean as hands could make them, as Mrs. Kane would have said. A little window at one side looked down the garden, and across it was a frilled curtain, and on the sill a geranium in full flower. On the other side was the fire-place, with chintz frill and curtains, and the grate filled with a great bush of green beech-leaves. A table set on the red tiles was spread for tea, and by it sat Mrs. Kane and ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland

... Jerry had retreated was an open window. Glancing out of it he saw that the roof of the next building was but six or eight feet below the window sill. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill

... the open window, and, flopping herself down on her knees, leant her two elbows on the window-sill and looked out. ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... open window, which was some little height from the ground, his arms upon the sill, and his head showing against the darkness just above them. He was, it seemed to Miss Schuyler, horribly deliberate, and she held her breath while she watched, as if fascinated, the long barrel move a little. Then its muzzle tilted suddenly, a train ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... morn, Commingles with my dreams:—lo! as I draw Aside the curtains of my couch, he sits, Deep over-bower'd by broad geranium leaves, (Leaves trembling 'neath the touch of sere decay,) Upon the dewy window-sill, and perks His restless black eye here and there, in search Of crumbs, or shelter from the icy breath Of wild winds rushing from the Polar sea: For now November, with a brumal robe, Mantles the moist and desolated earth; Dim sullen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... apron over her head and her arms, she hurried again to the side garden, to the window of the kitchen. Leaning on the sill, she could just see, under the blind, her husband's arms spread out on the table, and his black head on the board. He was sleeping with his face lying on the table. Something in his attitude made her feel tired of things. The lamp was burning smokily; she ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... there is no escape of water from the pond at any time, I must admit that I am wrong, but at present I don't know how to reconcile the impounding the water so completely with what he says about the flow of the water through the box at the bottom of the sill. Where does the water flow to, and ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... jig of the most perfect execution. The pat of his bare soles was exquisitely true. He raised the gown above his ankles, and would have seemed to float but for his response in sound. Yet through his most rapturous action he never ceased to be conscious of the shop. A step on the sill would break the violin's charm in the centre of ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... when Lulla has undertaken to investigate a tin of sweets that she most suggests Agassiz. The tin has a lid which fits tightly, and Lulla's fingers are very small and not very strong. The tin, moreover, is on the window-sill just out of reach, though she stands on tip-toe and stretches a little eager hand as far as it will go. Then it is you see persistence. Lulla finds another baby, leads her to the window and points up to the tin. The other baby tries. They both try together; if ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... finest lace for miles about," said Michael, unhearing, unheeding. "Rare tales she would be telling me and I no higher than the sill of the window there, and I'd thought to find her long dead and buried surely, the way she was always as old as the Abbey itself. But no—there she was still in her bit of a cottage, the time I was just home, the oldest old woman I ever saw out of a mummy's wrappings and like a witch ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... we devised a big window box which is suited for home use also; it is just as wide as the window and half as long again as it is wide. But this box does not stand outside on the window sill; if it did, the plants would freeze. One end only rests on the inside window sill where it gets the sun; the end is supported by two legs of the same height that the window sill is ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall



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



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