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There was another silence. The clock ticked away energetically on the mantelpiece, as if glad to make itself heard at last. Outside, a plaintive snuffle made itself heard. John, the bull-dog, Mike's inseparable companion, who had followed him to the study, was getting tired of waiting on the mat. Mike got up and opened the door. John lumbered in. The movement broke the tension.

A pretty young woman, in a long white gown, whose cap looks like magnified butterflies' wings turned upside down, sits on a low seat before the blazing wood-fire burning on great andirons in a wide fireplace, which, instead of a mantelpiece, has three niches for ornamental vases.

Soames turned from the mirror, and unconsciously taking a china cup from the mantelpiece, clasped his hands around it as though praying. He saw her bosom rise and fall, her eyes darkening with anger, and taking no notice of the taunt, he asked quietly: "Are you carrying on a flirtation with Bosinney?" "No, I am not!" Her eyes met his, and he looked away.

She seized Pierrette's arm and struck the closed fist upon the window-sill, and then upon the marble of the mantelpiece, as we crack a nut to get the kernel. "Help! help!" cried Pierrette, "they are murdering me!" "Ha! you may well scream, when I catch you with a lover in the dead of night." And she beat the hand pitilessly. "Help! help!" cried Pierrette, the blood flowing.

A door to the right, also half open, led the investigator further. Here the floor shook ominously under foot, suggesting rotten beams and unsteady sills. The minister walked cautiously, noting in passing a portrait defaced with cobwebs over the marble mantelpiece and the great circular window opening upon an expanse of tangled grass and weeds, through which the sun streamed hot and yellow.

I haf disgovered zomzing!” and then he stopped in some surprise. “Ello, vat make you, my vriend?” His friend, in fact, seemed to be somewhat singularly employed. Through a dense cloud of tobacco-smoke you could just pick him out of the depths of an armchair, his feet resting on the mantelpiece, while his lap and all the floor round about were covered with immense books.

She had thick black hair, fine dark eyes, an oval face, a clear olive complexion, and an elastic figure. She was incompletely attired in a petticoat that did not hide her ankles, and stays of bright red silk with white laces and seams. Quite unconcerned at the presence of the man, she poured out a cup of tea; carried it to the mantelpiece; and began to arrange her hair before the glass.

Smart, if you keep on buying roses and violets and orchids for me." So the roses were mine also! I shot a swift glance at the mantelpiece, irresistibly moved by some mysterious force. There were two bowls of orchids there. I couldn't help thinking of the meddling, over-zealous geni that served the hero of Anstey's "Brass Bottle" tale. He was being outdone by my efficacious secretary.

Uncle Wellington was a mulatto, and his features were those of his white father, though tinged with the hue of his mother's race; and as he lifted the kerosene lamp at evening, and took a long look at his image in the little mirror over the mantelpiece, he said to himself that he was a very good-looking man, and could have adorned a much higher sphere in life than that in which the accident of birth had placed him.

Wigton and his sister the artistic display on the coffee-room walls, the rural combination of beauty and innocence on the mantelpiece, with their rotund neighbour, the guardian of the "spills," he gave instructions to the landlord's representative about their accommodation, and proceeded to the stable to satisfy himself that his horses were being well looked after; knowing that, unless he did so, the attention and provender they would receive would be scanty in the extreme.