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Boyishly

adverb
1.
Like a boy.  Synonym: boylike.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Boyishly" Quotes from Famous Books



... there was a frankness and a directness about her almost boyishly clear-cut face which inspired confidence, and the girls who brought their difficulties to her found in her a wise and sympathetic counsellor. Eleanor was not beautiful like Catherine, not brilliant like Patricia—in fact it was with difficulty ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... Connie escorted them triumphantly down the walk to the waiting car where the young man in the new sentimental gray suit stood beside the open door. His face was boyishly eager, and his eyes were full of a satisfaction that had a sort of excitement in it, too. Aunt Grace looked at him and sighed. "Poor boy," she thought. "He is nice! Carol ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... said it aloud, for the vague pepper-and-salt took on familiar lines suddenly, and the matter-of-fact little features scattered so indistinguishably, as it were, though the boyishly round face became obviously one with the much-photographed trader-prince; it was Absolom Vail, the multimillionaire! ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... said boyishly. "Do you remember the night you wore it? And how we wandered in the square and made the plan that has brought us ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... straight in front of her, wondering if a single person in the room really understood what Charles wanted and what he meant. Whether they did so or not, Charles did not help them much, for in response to the toast of his health he rose, beamed boyishly at the company and said, 'I'm so happy to be back. Thank you very much. The theatre needs love. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... himself in his Sunday clothes and had put on a black derby hat and a stiff white collar, set off by a red necktie. The shining whiteness of the collar made his brown skin look almost black. He smiled boyishly and raised his hat ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson

... Judith boyishly tossed up her soft blue walking hat and caught it on one finger, loudly expressing her opinion of ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... useful to us, Boyne." I couldn't well disagree with him, after using her hint. We were getting out of the elevator on the office floor when he looked at me, grinned boyishly, and added, "What would you say if I told you I was ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... course—a rather boyishly splendid young creature of somewhere about twenty, with a heap of hair that had, in spite of its rather commonplace chestnut color, a sort of electric vitality about it. She was slightly prognathous, which gave a humorous ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... short, put a couple of the bruised oranges into his pocket, ran off, and delivered his parcel at Southview House. On the way back, he ate one of the oranges and, boyishly, threw the peel about outside Mr Brindley-Botton's side gate. He heard someone shouting to him and—but without turning his head—he shouted "Hell about it!" airily back. Then, as it was the dinner hour, ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... exclaimed Vanno, boyishly delighted with her intuition. "He was an Italian. He loved an English girl." The romantic dark eyes which had so often burned with gloomy fire in looking at her burned with a different flame for ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... springs of love and romance. For her the darkest night was lighted by stars; for her the birds sang of love and hope and happiness; for her the commonest flower was rich in beauty and perfume; and so the end of the three years found her a well developed, tall, boyishly athletic girl, with a color in her cheeks like an Okanagon peach, hair of richest brown, with little gleams of gold, waving back naturally from a high forehead; a firm chin, with a dimple; and great brown eyes, full of lights, and with a dazzling brilliance that registered ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... boyishly eager to get on his way and to become at once a part of the life in a new place. The gradual awakening of his mind had given him courage, and he thought of himself as armed and ready for association ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... Jimmy became serious and said, "Yes, I did try to get him to bury the hatchet when I met him on the train," and detailed that unhappy conversation. "You see," he added, boyishly, "I didn't care much what he thought of me; but I thought it was my duty to get the whole affair wiped off the slate if Mr. Sayers decided to give me a chance. It wouldn't be fair to Mr. Sayers to have a man of the ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... you know—simply drove him downstairs, and I could hear myself grunting as if it was really a physical effort; we drove him, step by step, downstairs. And—' He laughed outright, and boyishly continued his adventure. 'What do you think I did then, without the ghost of a smile, too, at the idiocy of the thing? I locked the poor beggar in the drawing-room. I saw him there, as plainly as I ever saw anything ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... struggled manfully, but alas! also boyishly, for though his spirit was strong his bodily strength was small—at least, as compared with that of the savage who held him. Yes, Tolly struggled like a hero. He beheld the Rose of Oregon taken captive, and his blood boiled! He bit, ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... you don't like the country, Tina, I am, truly," he said boyishly. "I've had such bully times in it. And I—I rather had the idea that we liked ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... boyishly enough to make her smile, but earnestly proceeding, 'Won't you try me? Will you not say that if I can be steady ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... about him with delight. "I say, this is great!" he cried, boyishly. There was something incurably boyish about Horace Allen, although he was long past thirty. "By George, that Chippendale sideboard is a beauty," he said, gazing across at a fine old piece full of dull high ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... exclaimed boyishly, still smiling at the girl, "We're friends already, because we've ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... I will," he said boyishly, at once pleased with himself and his sympathetic audience. "About five-thirty I happened to be in the club. Medford was there, and as usual catering to Jackson, when the latter was called to the 'phone. Naturally, I put two and two together." He paused ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... long stride across the room and hugged Mrs. Flynn, boyishly. "Didn't you tell me you felt like my mother? Don't you know mothers have to see through their boy's stupidity and selfishness down to the real trouble that lies underneath? No one will do ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... bulliest thing that ever happened," cried John boyishly. "Say, he thinks all manner of things about you, Lizzie, I ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... to come just to see you," he cried, gripping her hands tightly. "But it's sure worth it," he added, boyishly. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... There was something almost boyishly naive about him, notwithstanding his obvious bad temper. "You haven't told me any details yet," ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... pair of keen, humorous eyes, answered with her own smile Professor Tension's sudden charming one, lost her small hand in his big firm one. Then she listened to him talk, as he strode about the platform, boyishly shaking back the hair that fell across his forehead. After that he walked to the hotel with them, through dazzling seas of perfume, and of flowers, under the enchanted shifting green of great trees,—or so Margaret thought. There was a plunge from the hot street into the awning cool ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris

... he turned again to the prisoner. Two hours later, in the last glint of day, the door opened, and a woman came to his side, where he was finishing the last of many closely written sheets of paper. He looked up at her, boyishly, happily. Without waiting for her permission, he grasped her hand, and then, as though eager for her to hear, he turned to the worn-faced man, now slumped dejectedly ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... he cried, boyishly, holding it at arm's length; "see what I found on the steps! It's a pearl necklace, with a diamond in the clasp! Some of the stones are discoloured, but they're good and can be made right again, I've found ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... unselfconscious, and took it very much for granted that she had been blessed with russet hair which gave back coppery gleams to the sunlight, and with a pair of changeful hazel eyes that looked sometimes clearly golden and sometimes like the brown, gold-flecked heart of a pansy. She was almost boyishly slender in build, and there was a sense of swift vitality about all her movements that reminded one of the free, untrammelled grace of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... Gorry! And so I'm Jamie! I can't grasp it yet!" exclaimed the young man, springing to his feet, and restlessly moving about the room. "I wonder, now," he stopped, and colored boyishly, "do ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... a boy, and he acted boyishly at that moment, for in his rage and mortification he first of all struck at the hatch with his fist, and then shouted to the ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... boyishly shy and awkward then, looking at the floor and wriggling his toes, and taking back into his cheeks quite a supply of color in ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... the last few years, I noticed Lord Robert make a pencilled note on a slip of paper and pass it across the gangway with a nod of his head toward Lord Hugh. I watched the journey of this little paper and watched to see its effect. Lord Hugh unfolded the slip of paper, read it, smiled very boyishly all over his face, and, folding it up again, slowly turned his head and looked back towards his brother. The smile they exchanged was a Cecilian biography. One saw in the light of that instant and whole-hearted smile the danger of a keen sense of ironical humour. Both these men have the making ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie

... her boyishly and trotted over to the window. The fact that they were alone against the elements, with no apartment-house full of people to share the tumultuous night, weakened her, but delighted him. He cried out, with a ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... would have scarcely recognized in this willful beauty the red-haired girl whom he had boyishly hated, and with whom he had often quarreled. But there was a recollection—and with that recollection came an instinct of habit. He looked her squarely in the face, and, to the horror of his ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... a darn nice kid," he concluded, boyishly. His father would have been shocked at a ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... impulsively, when the conventional military acknowledgment would have been a salute. He always looked more like the real Lanny to her with his forehead bare. It completed the ensemble of his sensitive features. She saw that he was blinking almost boyishly at the compliment and noted the little deprecatory shake of his head, as much as to say that they were ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... heavens! Why not let yourself go—forever?" Travers's voice shook. "You have brought joy and youth to us all—to me, who never had youth. What—who are you?" he laughed boyishly. She sat rigidly erect and turned ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... to the lake to swim. He interests me by the careful study of his condition; is afraid that some sign of old age will develop to send him away, and is almost boyishly pleased to find himself able to do all the work. "And I hope," said he, "that I shall learn to stand straighter. One feels a certain pride when in uniform, and I try to fill mine out, if only to escape hearing some youngster say, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... passion like a puff of burning gunpowder, and it was over; yet it was enough. In that second was told the tale of a human life. In that and in the surreptitious sidelong glance following, that searched for an expression in the boyishly soft face of his companion. But the Indian was looking straight before him, looking as one who has seen nothing, heard nothing; and, silent as before the interruption, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... boyishly. It is a curious fact that people are often more avid of praise for the thing they cannot do, than for the thing they can. Channing, who had met with no small success as a novelist, secretly yearned to win impossible laurels as a composer of parlor music. "Talents usually ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... to do her full part—it would all help so much, if she only could. But this mood of Larry's was fraught with danger—did she not know? Success did not make him understanding and considerate; it made him boyishly dominant and demanding. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... beside the holy table. For such a scene, perhaps for any scene, he was a memorable figure. He had the dignity of early middle life, but none of its signs of advancing age. His hair was quite black, and curled on his temples boyishly; his mustache, not without a worldly cut, was as dark as his hair, and concealed a mouth so clean and fine that it was an ethical mistake to cover it. He had sturdy shoulders, although not quite straight; they had the scholar's ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... moment Keith was boyishly avid for the sights of the new city. In these modern days of long journeys, a place so remote as San Francisco, in the most commonplace of circumstances, gathers to its reputation something of the fabulous. How much more true then of a city built from sand dunes in four years; five times ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... exceptions among the older men, cared to take into account; or touched perhaps by some note in him, surprised in passing, of weariness or shrinking, as compared with the contemptuous tone of the College towards him. He showed his liking impetuously, boyishly, as his way was, and thenceforward during his University career Langham became his slave. He had no ambition for himself; his motto might have been that dismal one—'The small things of life are odious to me, and the habit ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... been talking a lot about parasites to-night and I'd like you to know that—money hasn't made a jot of difference to me." He met Carl's laughing glance with dogged directness and for a second something flamed boyishly in his face from which Carl, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... much upset at that, and the discovery that on meeting a woman for the first time he still could be so boyishly and ingenuously moved greatly pleased him. It was a most delightful secret. So he acted on the principle that when a man immensely admires a woman and wishes to conceal that fact from every one else he can best do so by declaring his admiration in the frankest and most open manner. After ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... writes for a crowd, writes for a comparatively uncivilised and uncultivated mind, a mind richly human, vehement in approbation, emphatic in disapproval, easily credulous, eagerly enthusiastic, boyishly heroic, and somewhat carelessly unthinking. Now, it has been found in practice that the only thing that will keenly interest a crowd is a struggle of some sort or other. Speaking empirically, the late Ferdinand Brunetiere, in 1893, stated that the drama has dealt always with a struggle between human ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... boyishly slender, with pretty hair, the locks always straying over her cheeks. Her mouth was rather large and serious, the lower lip full at the corners, her eyes large, calm and vague, with fine well-marked eyebrows. She had a graceful ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... decanter on its stand, and he made a movement toward it. Then, with a half smile, he picked it up and walked to the window with it. He was still smiling, half boyishly, as he put out his light and got into bed. It had occurred to him that the milkman's flivver, driving in at the break of ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... when Lincoln entered at the back, whistling boyishly. "Hello, Jim! Ain't you up early? No fire, eh?" ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... and occupations for the remainder of this year will be best collected from a series of his own letters, which I am enabled, by the kindness of the lady to whom they were addressed, to give. Though these letters are boyishly[70] written, and a good deal of their pleasantry is of that conventional kind which depends more upon phrase than thought, they will yet, I think, be found curious and interesting, not only as enabling us to track him through this period of his life, but as throwing light upon various ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... cheeks were smooth, but they were tight and hard and brown from the weathering of sun and blizzard. His features had that decisive cleanliness of line which makes for strong beauty in a man. Evidently nature had molded them boyishly soft and refined at first, but in the hardening of life, of a life such as his, they had become rugged. Most of all, the face was unmistakably American. The large mouth had that dry, whimsical set, and that sensitiveness to twitching at the corners, which ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... said the young man boyishly. "Gee, Ruth! the war is over. You know what I want. And I feel as though I deserved some consideration after ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... at Mildred almost boyishly. "I want to say something to you, Miss Thornton, which I suppose a woman does not really mind hearing, no matter to what country she belongs or what her answer may be. In these weeks I have known you I have come to care for you very deeply. I am old enough perhaps to be your father. ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook

... in the morning, but the Judge and Ruth were on the pier to meet them; and they breakfasted together at the fashionable hotel, where an elegant suite had been reserved for the residence of the Tyrrel-Rawdons until they had perfected their plans for the future. Tyrrel was boyishly excited, but Ethel's interest could not leave her father and his new wife. These two had lived in the same home for fifteen years, and then they had married each other, and both of them looked fifteen years younger. The Judge was actually merry, and Ruth, in ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... Morgan's words seemed like soothing music—"it's but fair that you and I should handle the thing together—what there is of it, Mr. Madigan," he added hastily, as Madigan was about to speak; and he leaned forward, holding out his hand boyishly. "There may not be much, but I can get English capital to develop it, at a sacrifice of half its value now, and its possibilities. So that will leave only quarter shares for each of us. I may be offering you only a lot ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... the water-cap, and was boyishly pleased to feel the flap loosen. After all, things were easy enough if one used one's brains. He rather regretted using almost all of his cigarette papers, of course. He had, perhaps, never heard of the drop of nicotine on ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... and if the King asked for it, he would probably give it to him without a thought, unopened, for he was far too simple to imagine that any one could accuse him of a treasonable thought, and too boyishly frank to fancy that his brother could be jealous of him—above all, he was too modest to suppose that there were thousands who would have risked their lives to set him on the throne of Spain. He would ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... ease in his presence at this second meeting. She received him placidly. There were no more of those disconcerting and high-flown forensics in her greeting. There was the winning candor of old friendship in her smile and he flushed boyishly in his frank delight. She presented him to Mrs. Stanton and that lady's modish coolness did not dampen his spirits, which had become plainly exuberant. In fact, he paid very ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... Thus broadly and boyishly did he plunge into that most tender subject, making his brother start and wince, as if ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... some billiards at the club." He looked up at her, the same slight pucker between his brows, boyishly slender in his evening dress. "You're not going to bed at once, are ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... you mustn't do, Hal. Banging around the shop like that, cracking people on the knuckles may give you a temporary feeling of power and importance" (Hal flushed boyishly), "but it don't pay. Now, if I get you out of this scrape, I want you to go ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... incident with a little swaggering air of bravado, boyishly delighted at the success of his small ruse. Vexed as she was Magda could hardly refrain from smiling; the whole thing was so eminently ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... club!" he exulted, laughing delightedly, boyishly. "And came within a tenth of a split red hair! If it hadn't been so absolutely out of character you'd've got away with it. What a load of stuff! I was right—of all the women on this project, you're the only one I've ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... borrow from the management enough to pay our way to Chiltern and the tolls for a cable to New York. I've a friend or two over home who wouldn't let me want for a few miserable pounds.... So you see," he explained boyishly, "we're at the end of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... ashamed of himself. What reason had he to expect her to invite him personally, except that she had almost invariably done so heretofore? And back of this was the subtle jealousy of caste. The Westons were "her kind of folks." He was not really one of them. Boyishly he fancied that he would do as a companion when there was no one else available. He was very much in love with Dorothy and ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... now solid, ringing, and jubilant). Ah, it's come at last—-my moment of courage. (He seizes her hands: she looks at him in terror.) Our moment of courage! (He draws her to him; kisses her with impetuous strength; and laughs boyishly.) Now you've done it, Gloria. It's all over: we're in love with one another. (She can only gasp at him.) But what a dragon you were! And how ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw

... he was on dry land again and on his way to the house where, at the very least, a stormy scene might be expected, the man's spirits seemed to rise, almost boyishly. The blood was running again through his veins. The cool night air was drying his soaked clothes. The prospect of possible adventure ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... to Mrs. Bradley and could not see Mrs. Dawson, who was on the other side of her. Among the trees on his right, he had a good view of Harriet Floyd's party. They all seemed exasperatingly merry. Bates was making himself boyishly conspicuous, running after water, preparing lemonade, and passing it round to the others, with his silk hat poised on the back part of his head. Mrs. Bradley and her friends remained seated for some time after they had finished eating, and Westerfelt saw the young men in Harriet's ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... being, in fact, accounted for by the two different sorts of ambition that actuated him,—the natural one, of infusing into his personages those high and kindly qualities he felt conscious of within himself, and the artificial one, of investing them with those crimes which he so boyishly wished imputed to him ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... boyishly. "Yes. Whirring wheels, a current of traffic, a broad highway of steel—that's the sort of monument I want ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... and negative—puzzling often to its owner as well as to the onlooker—that is called, for the sake of calling it something, the artistic temperament. He was impulsive, yet impassive often to a disconcerting extent: extremely sensitive and reserved as a rule, yet on occasion almost boyishly frank and communicative. He lacked entirely ordinary shrewdness, or everyday commonsense. He was a man of a deeply romantic temperament, and this inclined him towards aviation and the conquest of the air; while in actual piloting he had ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... friend in the bank, to help him, he had boyishly built that roll for just this heart-warming little ceremony. He might have written checks to square the account of each, but he wanted to make their eyes stand out, just as he was doing. He had looked forward to this half hour more eagerly than any of them guessed; he had, with his eyes ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... laugh showed the contagion of her optimism. Young Mr. Thompson picked up his money and paid his bill, "I'm going home and coax Molly into putting on that new dress," he declared boyishly. "It's the first dress I ever bought for her, and I'm crazy to see ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... He whistled boyishly while he measured and fitted in the hinges, and when it came to holding the door while the hinges were screwed in place, he called to Charlotte. She came, with lips as usual closed very tight, but with ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... unemployed for the moment, had leisure to look around and enjoy the view from the roof-ridge. "If it isn't 'Bias comin' up the path! . . . Hi! 'Bias!" he hailed boyishly, in ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... It was so dear of you to think of it." He laid his hand on hers, and then lowered his voice as the groom who had been walking behind the carriage came forward to the pony's head. "Hang the man!" he said boyishly, "let him wait here while we go on a little further. I want to talk to you. Oh, I can see you now. We had been walking up the field. It was planted with turnips, and a rabbit ran out just here. Then—oh, ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... but the indifference keyed not at all with all that had gone before and still less with her very correct comprehension of Jack himself. She was quite positive as to the sincerity of those protestations which he had made so haltingly—so boyishly—and in such absolutely truthful accents. Why he had turned over a new—and bad—leaf so suddenly she did not at all know, but her woman's wit—backed up by the many good instincts which good women always get from Heaven knows just where—made her feel firmer than ever as to her hospitable ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... always behaved like a savage and spent Thanksgiving evening in solitary confinement. I'd wail like a disappointed coyote and make night generally hideous for the company. I've improved a lot since those days," she grinned boyishly at her friends. "I can see now that it was a pretty good thing the Pilgrim Fathers set aside a day for counting their blessings. If they thought they were lucky, I wonder ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... "I wish," he said boyishly, "that you didn't have any money at all, so I could help you and feel that you depended ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... Latisan, boyishly crude in his methods, felt that Miss Jones would have an interpretation of her own for "matters" and would do some earnest thinking before she turned him over to the companionship of a rich young widow, even in the humble role of a ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... and they even coquet with their misery for their own entertainment. There was a great deal of truth in what I thought, but there was also a great deal that was absurd and conceited, and there was something boyishly defiant in my question: "What ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... could have spoken. 'Tis strange that she should so speak; because, Peggy, I have always wanted to be a gentleman. Oh, I am by birth, I know. I don't mean that. I mean just and honorable, chivalrous and gallant, performing heroic deeds, and—and all the rest of it," he finished boyishly. ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... kind were told at the meal that was something partaking of the nature of both breakfast and early dinner, but where Berenger ate little and spoke less. Philip watched him anxiously; the boy thought the journey a perilous experiment every way, but, boyishly, was resolved neither to own his fears of it nor to leave his brother. External perils he was quite ready to face, and he fancied that his English birth would give him some power of protecting Berenger, but he was more ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... orator, and a man, in all the relations of life, was without exaggeration, but was tinged with his personal friendship and love. He described him on the 2nd of July, the morning of his wounding, as a contented and happy man, not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly, happy. "Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death." He pictured the long lingering illness that followed that fatal wound, the patience of the sufferer, the unfaltering front with which he faced ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... a seat, and silently waited by him until he had recovered his self-control. He gratefully took the kind hand that had sustained him: he said, simply, almost boyishly, "Thank you, Julian. I ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... sensible change came over the feelings and deportment of the younger part of the company, and the conversation became easier and more natural. It was certainly much in our favour to have it known, we had not officiously and boyishly joined in a gratuitous attempt to rob and insult this particular and unoffending family, but that Mr. Worden and I supposed we were simply aiding in getting back those things which properly belonged to our hosts, and getting them back, too, in a manner of which the party ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... rose to greet her, as she came stalking into the room. His manner was boyishly eager, his eyes brimming with mischief, as he took her hand and then offered her a small round package ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... o'clock that night she guided her car into the garage whistling boyishly, and ran up the rustic stairs, stopping with painful suddenness on the landing as she observed there was ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... also now that there was nothing more to do till she chose her ice should melt; and so he straightway let a frosty mood build itself up on his part into the very counterpart of hers. The resolution which he had just made, boyishly to abstract himself in secret, and leave her to fate and necessity and duty, faded. She deserved to lose. A haughty, ungovernable hussy! He would keep it in spite of her! How, under the sun, had his Cousin Disbrowe got along with her? Nevertheless, the salary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... boyishly and said, "I'm not a public speaker, and, for that matter, I haven't had time to put together a talk for you. I think what I'll do is read a little clipping I've got here—sort of a text—and then, well, throw the meeting open to ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... she recovered her composure and dried her eyes, and strove with success to make him forget her importunity. Disarmed and soothed, he sunk down to a lower seat beside her and rested his head boyishly upon her lap. He pushed back her short sleeve, nestled his face in the bend of her arm, and kissed it hungrily. The action, their relative positions, introduced a new element into their relationship, to which her deep maternal ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... have chosen to be thus romantically cast up on the shores of Kon Klayu with them, but woman is potentially a mother and even her heart was touched by his plight. For Harlan, trying—and failing—to appear nonchalant and at ease in his embarrassing situation was boyishly appealing. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... the woodpecker tapped in an oak tree's sounding board. It must have been a low-hanging ambition to be thrilled with the prospect of teaching school, or was it buoyant health that made me happy? I eased down my trunk, and boyishly threw stones away off into an echoing hollow. A rabbit ran out into the road and stopped, and with a stone I knocked it over. Tenderly I picked it up, felt its fluttering heart, and groaned inwardly when the little heart was stilled. I called myself a murderer, an Anglo-Saxon ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... down on his knees boyishly, and begins gathering them up. Letters, envelopes, wax, seals, pens and pencils. He flings all in a heap in the broken case. Lady Catheron cooing to baby, looks smilingly on. Suddenly he comes to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... had ridden in late. After Gaston left she had gone to him, flushed and bright-eyed with sleep, and he had pulled her down on to his knee, and made her share the native coffee she detested, laughing boyishly at her face of disgust. And, holding her in his arms with her head on his shoulder, he had told her all the incidents of the day's visit to one of the other camps, and from his men and his horses drifted almost insensibly ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... out boyishly. "The adventure of Bucciolo, which I read to the Signorina, from the tales of Ser Giovanni suggested that expedient," he said. "It were a good motive for a roaring farce, but I must consider the dignity of the name ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... he said, "just in time to say good-by. And I wanted to see you, too." He smiled down at her boyishly and Virginia's eyes turned gentle as he took both her hands in his. "I've got some news to tell you," he burst out eagerly; "not news that will buy you anything but something to remember ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... one answered him, but sat and stared incredulously, he laughed a little, frankly and boyishly. "The kris of Boonda Broke is for the hearts of every one of us," said he. "He may throw it soon— to-night—to-morrow. No man can leave here—all are needed; but a boy can ride; he is light in the saddle, and he may pass where a man would be caught in a rain of bullets. I have ridden the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... peered; he began to hear all sorts of fine snow-muffled sounds; and suddenly, away out on the river, something was going on—boats whistling and signaling, chatting in their scientific persiflage, out in the dark and cold of the night. "Lonesome, too!" Cameron laughed, and, boyishly, he tossed a snow-ball into the space, as if he'd have something to say out there, too! "I'm soft!" he groaned, clutching his arm. And suddenly he smiled to think how one of these days he and Bill would come out here and play together. He looked about, and a sudden pride ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... he drove the well-worn trail, a burnished sun mounted higher and higher ahead of him, and with it his own spirits rose until he found himself whistling and boyishly building castles in the air. But his castles, as he told himself, had solid foundations; indeed, they were not even speculations, but already might be accepted as assured accomplishments. Some things he certainly must ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... is a different bird since the PHEASANT-HEN'S exit, light-hearted, boyishly cheerful.] No, but the blue morning-glory opening in his cage amid the wistaria, communicates by subterranean filaments with this white convolvulus trembling above the pool. [Going to the convolvulus.] So that by talking into its chalice—[He ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand



Words linked to "Boyishly" :   boyish, boylike



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