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Fretfully

adverb
1.
In a fretful manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fretfully" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the offices of the Honorable Archer Converse noticed that the chief was not amiable that day. His usual dignified composure was wholly lacking. He gave off orders fretfully, he slapped papers about on his desk when he worked there; every now and then he glanced up at the portrait of his distinguished father and muttered under his breath. He had called for more documents ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... has turned Maureen's head," my grandmother went on fretfully. "I found her setting Luke's room in order. She would have it that he was coming home from school by the hooker from Galway. She has made his bed and put his room in order and she asked me at what hour she should light ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan

... Jimmy had existed a cordial amity, but now the aggrieved one remembered many things which tainted Jimmy with villainy and crassness. Stuart turned away, his hand heavy on the bit, so that Johnny Reb, unaccustomed to this style of taking pleasure sadly, tossed his head fretfully and widened his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... man fretfully. "Don't set down in the butter-scotch; it's just behind ye. It's all over town that you are goin' to marry Phrony ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... Victor swore fretfully and lashed out a random fist, which struck Lanyard's cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to kindle resentment. So the virtuous householder was rather more than unceremonious about yanking the princely housebreaker inside and lending him a foot to accelerate his return to the ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... Gerard, "and with all mine heart;" and was sinking down to his knees, with his hands joined, but the monk stopped him half fretfully...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... will," answered the equerry, fretfully; "I have nothing more to do with the affair—it ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... become of me?" asked Mr. Fletcher, as fretfully as a sick child; for he knew where her short holiday would be passed, and his temper got ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... to stand left between it and the wall. A little girl was lying on it, her hollow cheeks pink, her eyes bright. The sun poured in at the bare window and the room was hot and breathless. The swarming flies covered her face and arms. She brushed them away fretfully, and stretched out her hot hands for the flowers. "Oh, teacher," she cried, trying to strangle her cough, "I watched and I watched for you all day and I was scared you ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... such mingle-mangle talk," ordered Mr. Meredith, fretfully. "Is 't not enough to have French gibberish in the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... will bring in their money tomorrow; and it mortifies me to be behind the others." The daughter spoke fretfully. Mr. Walcott waved her aside with his hand, and she went off muttering ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... Babette felt her strength and mind both failing her now that she was out of danger. She staggered weakly into a big, dim church, by the door of which the parting happened to have taken place. Here she sank down in a heavy, death-like swoon in front of one of the side altars, with her baby wailing fretfully at her breast. When she came to herself again she was seated in the sacristy, and her hair and face were wet with the water they had flung over her. By her side stood a black-robed, kindly-faced cure and two or three women, who were trying to force some wine down ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... when you're that way, girls," he said in a hopeless tone. "See how you worry sister!" for Lucy was calling fretfully, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... bare feet swung close to her cheek as they dangled from her mother's knee, and she turned and kissed them, first one and then the other, with eager kisses. He stirred and kicked out at her fretfully. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... the poor critter some whiskey?" he queried, fretfully. "Ye used to be peart enuff before." As Flip turned to the corner to lift the demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with his foot, and indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not to ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... what business," said Mrs. Copley fretfully; "and you can't do anything here, in a strange place. You'd better get Mr. St. Leger to do it ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... speak, but checked herself, and glanced away. The ship was plunging heavily, and the livid waves were racing before the wind. The horizon was lit with a yellow brightness in the quarter to which she turned, and a pallid gleam defined her profile. Captain Jenness was walking fretfully to and fro; he glanced now at the yellow glare, and now cast his eye aloft at the shortened sail. While Staniford stood questioning whether she meant to say anything more, or whether, having discharged her conscience of an imagined offense, she had now reached one of her final, precipitous silences, ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... steadfast. In all our experience I came upon just two men in their senses who gave way at all. One was a boy of nineteen or twenty, in a field hospital near Rheims, whose kneecap had been smashed. He sat up on his bed, rocking his body and whimpering fretfully like an infant. He had been doing that for days, a nurse told us, but whether he whimpered because of his suffering or at the thought of going through life with a stiffened leg she did not know. The other was here ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... could feel near him in that fiendish blackness, "Is it you, sir? Is it you, sir?" till his temples seemed ready to burst. And he heard in answer a voice, as if crying far away, as if screaming to him fretfully from a very great distance, the one word "Yes!" Other seas swept again over the bridge. He received them defencelessly right over his bare head, with both ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... way-post: a girl in a blue calico gown, her face deep hidden in her red sunbonnet, sits upon a chestnut mount, with a laden market-basket before her; while by her side, astride a coal-black pony, which fretfully paws to be on his way, is a roughly dressed youth, his face shaded by a broad slouched hat of the cowboy order. They have evidently met there by appointment, and are so earnestly conversing—she with her hand resting lovingly, perhaps deprecatingly, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... of that," she responded, half fretfully, half gratefully, as Mr. Gryce followed her mother into the adjoining room. "I've had a bad enough time of it without being blamed for what I didn't know ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... me!" he said fretfully. "I chanced upon her at the Middle Fort one evening—down by the river. And what are our wenches coming to," he exclaimed impatiently, "that a kiss on a summer's night should mean to them more than a kiss on a night ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin', an' git their best clo'es all ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... The rain dripped again steadily, splashing the creeper that framed the casement. A few lights showing dimly in the windows on the opposite side of the quadrangle served only to intensify the gloom. The time dragged. Fretfully he drummed with his fingers on the leaded panes, his ears alert for any sound beyond the closed door. The echo of a distant organ stole into the room and the soft solemn notes harmonised with the melancholy pattering of the raindrops and the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... definite picture was that of himself, a small but vastly important figure, nursing a heavy heart in a dark corner of a fiacre. Beside him sat a man who swore fretfully into his moustache whenever the whimpering of the boy threatened to develop into honest bawls: a strange creature, with pockets full of candy and a way with little boys in public surly and domineering, in private timid and propitiatory. It was raining monotonously, with ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... taking half his coadjutor's earning with much grandeur, but spoke very fretfully of Leonard's sober appropriation of the other half; and though a good-natured, warm-hearted man, felt extremely indignant at the sudden interposition of poor Helen. However, Leonard was firm; and then Burley grew sullen, and so they parted. But the rent was still to be paid. How? Leonard ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... old man, lying on the bed fully clothed, even to his shoes. He twisted fretfully in his sleep; the body tried to rise, anticipating nature even when the mind could not. The man gagged several times and finally made it up to a sitting position before the vomit came. He was still asleep, but his reaction was automatic; he grabbed the bottom of his sweater ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick

... cry, was now whimpering fretfully. Pete went to the cradle and rocked it with one foot, crooning in a quavering treble, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... the sergeant, with his soldierly salute; and a little later, as Captain Buxton was fretfully complaining to his subaltern of the ill fortune that seemed to overshadow his best efforts, the latter, thinking to cheer him and to divert his attention from his trouble, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... vanilla patch—not a lemon tree nor a thousand-year-old baobab but could tell of battle and intrigue; not a creek where the dhows lie peacefully today but could whisper of cargoes run by night—black cargoes, groaning fretfully and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... was muttering fretfully to himself. It annoyed him that words in his own vision should have no meaning for him. How did words come to him in a dream that he had no knowledge of when wide awake? The Seapink—that was the name of this ship; but a pink was long and ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... Dick went back to school for the summer term, both the little Treves's fell ill, and Jack cried incessantly for "the colonel." Yet when kind old Colonel Duke came to see him one afternoon, and brought him some grapes, the child turned fretfully away and still cried, "'Colonel'; ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... at me with those awful glasses," she said fretfully. "I feel as if I were being stared at by ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... feet. One of his ears was tingling horribly as the blood that had almost left it resumed its efforts to penetrate the congealing flesh, while the mittened hands he beat upon his breast fell solidly on his wrappings without separate motion of the fingers. Once or twice the horse stamped fretfully, but a touch of hand and heel quieted him, for though the frozen flesh may shrink, unwavering obedience is demanded equally from man and beast enrolled in the service of the ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... explain why you let that" (several kinds of) "cayuse get away from you!" retorted Jack, fretfully. "If you'd been onto your job, things would have been smooth ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... fretfully. "Is the night never to be gone? The hangings at the window are so heavy. And where is ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... Brodie, of Hootawa." His wife, beside whom I sat at table d'hote, retained traces of former beauty. She was thin, and still tight-laced; was somewhat acid in manner; censorious concerning the other visitors; singularly devoted to her tedious husband, and fretfully attached to the beautiful daughter, for whose pleasure and education they were visiting Rome. I gathered that ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... think I care for this life," she said fretfully. "Death is always about you everywhere, and a girl can never go ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... that," the Marquis said, fretfully, "but in any event I hope that no more people will come to Bellegarde upon missions which, compel me to have them hanged. First there was this Achon, and now you, Mr. Bulmer, come to annoy me.—Listen, monsieur," he went ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... never have no fun. I ain't got no gen'leman friends, nor nothing. What's the use of havin' good clothes, and lookin' pretty and all, ef you don't get to go somewhere so that folks kin see you? I'm tired of bein' looked down on," she complained fretfully. "I ain't got a friend on this place 'cep'n Miss ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... nightly followed to the club. In Pall Mall there were no dignified greetings to be exchanged now with well-groomed acquaintances. The only people to be seen were some late stragglers from the park, with a perambulator and some hot and dusty children lagging fretfully behind; some rustic sightseers draining the last dregs of the daylight in an effort to make out from their guide-books which of these reverend piles was which; a policeman and a builder's cart. Of course the club was a strange one, both of my own being closed ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... every face, pretty or plain, stolid or wistful, sullen or sweet, she read the same look of crushed and helpless waiting. She spread out her materials and gave her directions and the girls set soberly to work. Seventeen heads bent in silence over the table; scissors creaked; upstairs a baby cried fretfully. There leapt into Jane's mind a memory picture of Nannie Slade Hunter before the joyfully hailed arrival of the Teddybear,—the tiny, white, enameled chiffonier with its little bunches of painted flowers spilling ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... woman who had evidently been sitting in a thin strip of shade by the fence; but now the sun was beating down on her bare head. She sat with her arms hanging along her sides, the palms of her hands turned upwards. A baby hardly a year old twisted fretfully on her lap, fumbling at her breast with a little red hand. But she looked steadily over the baby's round head, a curiously intent expression in her dark eyes, as though she were looking at something so far away that she must concentrate all herself on it so as not ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... of Weald, as it shone in the sunshine. It had ice-caps at its poles, and there were seas, and the mottled look of land which had that carefully maintained balance of woodland and cultivated areas which was so effective in climate control. The Med Ship floated free, and Calhoun fretfully monitored all the beacon frequencies known ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... diminished, but there were still maids and the faithful Emma; there were still the little closed carriage and the semi-annual trip to Coronado. Nor did Peter appear to have suffered financially in any way; although Mrs. Baxter had somewhat fretfully confided to the girls that his uncle had suggested that it was time that Peter stood upon his own feet; and that Peter accordingly had entered into business relations with a certain very wealthy firm of grain brokers. Susan could not imagine Peter as actively involved ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... fretfully threw away the basket, and, washing his nets from the slime, cast them a third time, but brought up nothing except stones, shells, and mud. No language can express his disappointment; he was almost distracted. However, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... snap." He arose. "Put th' stringers on him agin, Ridmond, an' take um upstairs an' lock um up! Yu'll be escort wid um tu Calgary whin th' East-bound comes in—an' see here, look! . . . I want ye tu be back here agin as soon as iver ye can make ut back. Tchkk!" he clucked fretfully, "I wish this autopsy an' inquest was thru', so's we cud git down tu bizness. Phew! this dive's stuffy—let's beat ut ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... come over the children," Mrs. Boyd said, fretfully. She sat rocking persistently in the dreary little parlor. Her chair inched steadily along the dull carpet, and once or twice she brought up just as she was about to make a gradual exit from the room. "They ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... so cross, I can't speak a word for you," said Lucy, fretfully, walking out of the room, while Walter, in his usual imperious way, began to shout for Diggory and ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... chamber, the kitchen being the room at the rear. In the middle room he lit a coal-oil lamp which stood upon a small centre table. Alongside the table he opened out the paper and glanced at a caption running half-way across the top of the front page; then, fretfully he crumpled up the printed sheet in his hand and let it fall upon the floor. He had no desire to read the account of his one failure. Why should the editor dwell at such length and with so prodigal ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... looked to see Flossy gather her up to comfort her. It is so easy to dry a child's tears with a little love. But she rang for the nurse and fretfully exclaimed, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... don't like it at all," said the orphan, fretfully; "and then the dogs bark at me in a ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... sleep with mother to-night, darling. Mr. . . . The Man,' she said this with an appealing look of apology to Harold, 'The Man will stay by you till you are asleep . . . ' But she interrupted, not fretfully or argumentatively, but with a settled air ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... know," I said fretfully, "is where this leaves us? Where are we? For God's sake, ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... looked up at the assistant, fumbling fretfully with a pile of papers. "Farrar, what's the matter with you lately?" he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... his nose fretfully up and down, up and down; grabbing at the bit; pirouetting from one side the course to the other; nearly pulling Westley over his neck one minute, as with lowered head he sought to break away, and the next dashing forward for a few yards with it ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... strangely like what I remembered of my Uncle Stephen that the portrait absolutely startled me. When I asked my father about this—it was then just before his death—he either knew, or pretended to know, nothing of it; and when I afterward mentioned the prediction he fretfully changed the subject. It was just the same with our chaplain when I spoke to him. He said the portrait had been done centuries before my uncle was born, and called the prophecy doggerel and nonsense. I used to argue with him on the latter point, asking ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... gracious sake?" she demanded fretfully, worried beyond caring how she chose her words for Holman Sommers. "His eyes look queer, don't ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... brooding for a while; when I opened my eyes he broke out fretfully: "How was I to dream that McCraw could be so near!—that he dared raid us within a mile of the house! Oh, I could die of shame, Ormond! die of shame!... But I won't die that way; oh no," he added, with a frightful smile that left his face distorted ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... a slope. It was really just like a gigantic iron wall, straight up and down and quite even in contour, without a fissure or break as far as could be seen; and the surf made such a thundering din as it dashed fretfully against the lower part of the cliff, that it was almost impossible for the shipwrecked voyagers to hear ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... doctor, gravely considering, could answer, the sick woman startled them all by saying, almost fretfully, in a surprisingly clear and ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... arguing. It makes me tired. Cut along and get the book, can't you? Why waste all this time fussing?" burst out the invalid fretfully. "How am I ever going to get well, or think I am well, if you keep reminding me every minute that I am a helpless wreck? It is enough to discourage anybody. Why can't you treat me like other people? If you chose to sit in a ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... you-all boys down thar whar the gals is at, playin'?" inquired Jim Cal fretfully. "Looks like to me ef I was a young feller an' not wedded I wouldn't hang around whar the old ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan

... him. The holy man is harboured by our good Cistercian brothers of Pontigny, where he makes hay and reaps and see visions. He is hounded thence. These things ignite wars, and thereout come conferences. Thomas will not compromise, and even Louis fretfully docks his alimony and sends him dish in hand to beg; but he, great soul, is instant in excommunication, whereafter come renewed brawls, fresh (depraved) articles. Even the king's son is crowned by Roger of York, "an execration, not a consecration." At last (woeful ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... jerked a thumb toward the open door beyond which the big rangy black pawed fretfully at the street. "Mebbe we might make a trade. I got one good as him 'er better. It's that sor'l standin' t'other side ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... afraid; but when she heard a footstep at a distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was startled, and whispered, 'Maggy, I see some one. Come away!' Maggy would then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a little, and come ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... she said fretfully, "that I must be very stupid, but I simply can not follow you. Why, you talk about things that don't exist! My husband, who was a very practical and advanced man, would have shown you at once that what ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... when I am called up out of my warm bed to stand an hour's watch, I find the vessel pitching uneasily, and hear the breeze blowing fretfully through the naked rigging. Going on deck, I perceive that both wind and sea have 'got up' since we retired to rest. The sky looks lowering, and the clouds are evidently surcharged with rain. In fine the weather, as my predecessor on watch informs me, bears ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... within, certain fretful little cluckings. Reddy sat down for a minute with his tongue hanging out and the water actually dripping from it. He could shut his eyes and see those roosts with the hens crowded together so that every once in a while one would be wakened and fretfully protest against ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess

... worry," she accused him, half fretfully. "But," she added, "you don't preach, either. You don't say things are so when you can't know.... Do you think anything about that, Peter—about going on? I don't ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... superficial lovers of romance to submit themselves to the magic of his genius. The readers of Dickens voted him, with three times three, to the presidency of their republic of letters; the readers of Hawthorne were caught by a coup d'etat, and fretfully submitted to a despot ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... possible, a determined artifice. Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past months; and, while she was inspecting the impaired supports of an arbor in the garden, he came to her with an unopened telegram. "I abhor these things," he declared fretfully; "they are so sudden. Why don't people write decent letters any more! It's like the telephone.... Good manners have ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... best horse I can get just now," said George, fretfully; for he could not see anything very comical in the fact of being thus hampered in ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... Collingwood, Cornwallis, Calder—were on the alert. Yet while England's very existence as a Nation hung in the balance, in the gay world of London those who represented the ton danced and flirted, attended routs and assemblies, complaining fretfully of the unwonted dullness of the town, or in their drawing-rooms discussed the topics of the hour—the acting of the wonder-child Roscius; the lamentable scandal relating to Lord Melville; or, ever and again—with a ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... tried to say, but I was not awake enough to speak. He was bending over the bed. His face was near to mine. I felt rather than saw it. "How could I see in the dark?" sleepily, even fretfully, I asked myself. And yet, was the tent dark?...It had been, I remembered that. I remembered that Anthony had got to bed first, and I had extinguished the two candles on the washhand-stand. Afterward, I had had to grope my way to the bed. Now, however, there was a light...a ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... than its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under its golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkened by a scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed fretfully upon the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby—their host, a benign and placid man of peace, detesting turbulence—turned crimson now in wordless rage. The others gaped and stared—some at young Westmacott, some at the man he had so grossly affronted—whilst in the shadows of the hall ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... with a shrug, she turned to the advertisements of flats to let in London which she found in various newspapers; and made notes of the addresses of house agents. This occupation she continued until Gaga called almost fretfully from the next room, when she turned off the electric light and joined him. An hour later, while Gaga still lay staring into the darkness, Sally was fast asleep. She had no dreams. For the present she was occupied with facts alone; and she did not ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... like that," said Victoire fretfully. "Isn't it bad enough to wait and wait, without your croaking like a ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson

... on the sill and, breathed noisily, gratefully. Above, heaven had decked her broad bosom with her flickering stars, and from the million lamps of the great city rose and floated a tarnished yellow haze. So many sounds go forth to make the voices of the night: somewhere a child was crying fretfully, across the way the faint tinkle of a piano, the far-off rattle of the elevated, a muffled laugh from a window, above, the rat-tat of a cab-horse, the breeze in the ivy clinging to the walls of the church next door, the quarrelsome chirp of the sleepy sparrows; and then, ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... invalid chair drawn close to the window, heard the merry preparations for the journey, and fretfully declared "that people seem to be happy, with never a thought for a poor dog like me," while old Mr. Loughead, who, despite Doctor Bryce's verdict, had never seemed quite well enough in his own estimation ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... a ponderer on omens, Ralph Emsden often thought fretfully afterward on the double meaning of these words, and sought to displace them in their possible evil influence on his future by some assurance more cheerful and confident. With this view he often earnestly beset her, but could secure nothing more pleasing than a reference to the will of her ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... the little whining voice under the veil fretfully cut him short. "I can't see very well. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... the fence with both hands and staring blankly into the darkness. At last he turned away, and went stumbling and blundering towards the rose garden. A spray of creeper tore his face and distressed him. He thrust it aside fretfully, and it scratched his hand. He made his way to the seat in the arbour, and sat down and whispered a little to himself, and then became very still with his arm upon the back of the seat and his head upon ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... they git the chanst," Applehead retorted fretfully. "'N' if you don't wanta loose that there red mop uh yourn ye better keep yer eyes open, now I'm tellin' yuh!" He refilled his rifle magazine and took up his station beside Lite Avery where he could watch the Frying-pan through the bushes ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... to say that I can do one thing well ... that I have one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I have in thought applied to myself the words of Mme. de Stael, not fretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God for most affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and in profound conviction—those words—'jamais je n'ai pas ete aimee comme j'aime.' The capacity of loving is ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... looks as if the girls were going to have their fun, too!" He laughed, but there was a nervous catch in his voice. He hadn't counted on any policeman taking part in the comedy. "Where the devil is Scott Circle, anyhow?"—fretfully. He tugged at the reins. "Best draw up at the next corner. I'll be hanged if I ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... care of him—you must see that I can't," said Mrs. Preston, fretfully. "I can't expose my life ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... blue-veined old hands together, but his voice was quiet. "But why?" he demanded, almost fretfully. "If the people are fond of the boy, and I think they are, to—to carry him off, or injure him, would hurt the cause. Even the Terrorists, in the name of a republic, can ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... busy, crowded platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder fretfully. ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke

... mood for wit-thrusts," replied Hart as he fretfully paced the room. "You played that scene like ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... as though, when he closed the cabin door behind him, he somehow shut out his newborn satisfaction. "A shack with one window is sure unpleasant when the sun is shining outside," he said fretfully to himself. "This joint looks a heap like a cellar. I wonder what the girl thought of it; I reckon it looked pretty sousy, to her—and them with everything shining. Oh, hell!" He took off his chaps and his spurs, rolled another cigarette and smoked it ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... three when he awoke; he went up to his room, had a bath, shaved, and put on a tweed suit. Coming down to the study again, he opened the shutters and looked out. It would be light soon, and he could go away. He was fretfully impatient of staying. He drank some whiskey and soda-water, and smoked a cigar as he walked up and down. Yes, there were signs of dawn now; the darkness lifted over the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... evidently not thought it worth his while to commit himself to permanency by taking a seat. He was standing not far from the door with a businesslike-looking envelop in one hand and a pince- nez in the other, with which Tembarom saw he was rather fretfully tapping the envelop as he looked about him. He was plainly taking in the characteristics of the room, and was not leniently disposed toward them. His tailor was clearly an excellent one, with entirely ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... mother needed her help again. The crooked blaze ran up unexpectedly and blacked the cracked chimney on one side with a soot so thick that one half of the room was soon in semi-darkness. Mrs. Farnshaw took it fretfully ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... thing?" he asked fretfully, turning to Luck, who was scowling abstractedly into his ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... whom Sunny Boy afterward described to his mother as "awful big and tall" came out on the steps and frowned down at the children. "Why on earth do all the children in the neighborhood pick out my house to play around?" she continued fretfully. ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White

... creature!' she said fretfully; 'you prance about the world like Don Quixote, and expect me to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "What?" said Ethelwynne fretfully, "don't mumble so and run your words together. I can't hear the gong very well either. And the Latin test is coming the first hour after breakfast. I haven't had a chance to review an ode. I feel so wretched! Oh, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... refinements—he was always sure to find the first respected, and the last partaken by her. He could trust in her implicitly, he could feel assured that she was not only willing, but able, to share and relieve his domestic troubles and anxieties. If he had been less fretfully anxious about his eldest son; if he had wisely distrusted from the first his own powers of persuading and reforming, and had allowed Clara to exercise her influence over Ralph more constantly and more completely than he ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... woman to the other, and said, fretfully, "A man canna tak' twa contrary orders at the same minute o' time. What will I ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... bark," Juliet put in fretfully. "They bark all the time at something. They bark when they're hungry and when they've eaten too much, and they bark at the sun and moon and stars, and when they're not barking, some or all of 'em are fighting. They ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... hills and over-grown lanes of her old home haunted the Captain's wife by night and day, and home-sickness (that weariest of all sicknesses) began to take the light out of her eyes before their time. It preyed upon the Captain too. Now and then he would say, fretfully, "I should like a resting-place in our own country, however small, before everybody is dead! But the children's prospects have to be considered." The continued estrangement from the old man was an abiding sorrow also, and they had hopes that, if only they could get home, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... the bank, now, and—I'd give a good deal to know where it comes from." The junior Nelson had heard similar echoes, but he held his tongue. "I never did like your way of doing business," the speaker resumed, fretfully. "We've overreached. You wanted it all ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... to get for dinner, or what somebody else his been able to get. I, like other foreign visitors coming to Russia after feeding up in other countries, am all agog to make people talk. But the sort of questions which interest me, with my full-fed stomach, are brushed aside almost fretfully by men who have been more or less hungry for two or three ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... talking so far in a somewhat desultory fashion, interspersing her words with brief caresses to the pug who was curled up in her lap. Now she put down the little dog with a brusqueness which hurt his dignity; he pawed fretfully at Mary's dress, and, attracting no attention, trotted of to his basket on the rug, where he settled himself with a short growl of discontent. And Lady Garnett, with a sudden change of tone and a new tenderness in her voice, just stooped a little and touched ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... fretfully. "You want to run your head into a noose; that's what it comes to. Why, I may have to flee the country. There's the red-breasts poking their noses into every cottage on the Ashford road." He strode on again. A wisp of mist came stealing ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... the front of the cabin. The horse neighed shrilly. The call was repeated in the forest. The Indians continued silent. I heard it first; that is to recognize it. For I had heard it the day before. The voice of a man shouting fretfully, much as an angry child complains. Cousin understood it when a ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... fretfully on the pillow. Margaret, who knew her ways well, sat silent for some minutes, and then began ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... peace of my life, Elsie," Lucy said fretfully; "one can't help sympathizing with one's children, and my girls don't seem ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... useful in this garden," said the little Viscount, fretfully. "There are plenty of gardeners to destroy the insects, and if needful, we can have more. But the toad shall not remain. My mother would faint if she saw so hideous a beast among ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... know, mother!" answered Becky fretfully. "Betty had on a gingham dress, and she said I couldn't get over the fences in my best one, and I didn't think ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... stopping of the train the little child in the Young Electrician's lap woke fretfully. Then, as the bumpy cars switched laboriously into a siding, and the engine went puffing off alone on some noncommittal errand of its own, the Young Electrician rose and stretched himself and peered out of the window into the ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... be in the wind with you women I know nothing of," he said fretfully, "but you do have some unlikely ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... prepared to shove the tender free. But it was Poul Halvard. He got down, Woolfolk thought, clumsily, and mechanically assumed his place at the oars. Woolfolk sat aft, with an arm about Millie Stope. The sailor said fretfully: ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... tight at the clasp of her waist, and letting her chin fall on her throat, shook her body fretfully, much as a pettish little girl might do. Wilfrid grimaced. "Tick-tick" was not a pathetic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... what shall I do?" cried George, fretfully, one rainy afternoon. "Mamma, do tell me ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow

... don't know anything about your love," she cried fretfully, "but I know what I love—the stir, and the frowns of great ladies, and the courting of great lords. Ah, but why do I talk? Do we reason ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... know how to manage them," replied Mrs. Woodward fretfully. "Percy, leave those papers alone! I didn't tell you to turn them over. You're mixing them all up, tiresome boy! Don't touch them again! It's no use trying to discuss business with you children! I shall ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... he said fretfully, "that as a senior Colonial Survey officer, I have authority to give any orders needed for my work. I give one now. I want to see the landing grid—if it is still standing. I take it that it ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... blow; he could hardly stand up against it. Usually he sang or whistled as he dressed himself, and this was so much a habit of his nature that it passed without notice in his household. Once, indeed, his father had fretfully alluded to it, saying, "Singing out of time is always singing out of tune," and Mrs. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... not to be forgotten. It turned into a tornado. Failing of its effort to tear off the roof of the dugout, it stormed tempestuously, fretfully; it raved, it grumbled, ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... called to her fretfully, and she went in to him again and told him what Sorry had said about the cracked doubletree, and persuaded him to let her bring his supper at once, and to have the fruit later when Frank arrived. Brit did not say ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... whispered fretfully. "Your look is fairly shouting the news abroad. No need to keep your tongue sealed, when you carry such a tell-tale face. So they have ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... maintain what might be invidiously termed a satyr-like watch from behind a forward flinging willow, whose business in life was to look at its image in a brown depth, branches, trunk, and roots. The sole indication of discomfort displayed by the pair was that the lady's hand worked somewhat fretfully to keep her dress from ballooning and puffing out of all proportion round about her person, while the vicar, who stood without his hat, employed a spongy handkerchief from time to time in tempering the ardours of a vertical sun. If you will consent to imagine a bald blackbird, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... more. Others, the newly arrived and ravenous, swooped above the trees, so that dark circles were drawn over the fallen sunlight. Now a buzzard opened and closed its wings, and now one looked from the horse to Aladdin, and back, fretfully, to the horse. There seemed to be hundreds of them, dark and dirty, with raw heads and eyelids. Aladdin sat solemn and motionless upon his horse, but he could feel the cold sweat of horror running ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... his spectacles up on his forehead fretfully and regarded the girl impatiently from a pair of near-sighted ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... have been about 11:30 o'clock when Jim got out of bed and began to mope around the flat, tramp nervously up and down the private hall and scuffle through the closets, the cupboard and among the pots and pans, which fretfully clashed in a heap upon the floor when he sought to unhook his favorite, the upper story of the double boiler. I wondered what ailed him now. From the way the alleged murderer was rattling the crockery ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... on the box was tugging fretfully at something wedged in the hip-pocket of his breeches; proof enough that he was not the original tenant of the uniform, since it fitted too snugly to permit ready extraction of a pistol in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... with liquors, had dissipated his force in many small riotings. His nerve was gone. He had not the punch any more. Yet Mac was always expecting him to help out with his rough stuff, he reflected fretfully. This was the third time in a month that he had been flung headlong into trouble. Take this message now. There was no sense in it. Selfridge plucked up his courage to ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... yet that he had something left that he can live well upon, and I doubt it not. But he would buy some place that he could have and yet keepe his trade where he is settled in St. Jones's. He gone, I to the office again, and then to Sir G. Carteret, and there found Mr. Wayth, but, Lord! how fretfully Sir G. Carteret do discourse with Mr. Wayth about his accounts, like a man that understands them not one word. I held my tongue and let him go on like a passionate foole. In the afternoon I paid for the two lighters ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... windows, each smooth-running drawer, each undreamed-of convenience in the closet with its electric light for dark days, impressed her afresh with a sense of wondering pleasure. The lady of her name who had so recently dwelt among these luxuries had accepted them fretfully, as no more than her due; the long glass which now reflected Julia's radiant dark eyes lately gave back a countenance impressed with lines ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... fretfully. 'I was down at the water-side, looking for parrots brought home by sailors, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... The captain smoked fretfully for a time. "Dese tings 'ave to happen," he said at last. "What is it? Plagues of ants and suchlike as God wills. Dere was a plague in Trinidad—the little ants that carry leaves. Orl der orange-trees, all der mangoes! What does it matter? Sometimes ant armies come into your houses—fighting ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... inconceivable that, knowing my cruel capacity for suffering, you should be indifferent to my present situation," he asserted, half violently, half fretfully. "The whole range of history would fail to offer a case of parallel callousness. You, whose personality has penetrated the recesses of my being! You, who are acquainted with the infinite intricacy of my mental and emotional organisation! A touch will endanger ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... it was something to worry about, if he had it," her mother retorted fretfully, but reassured nevertheless by the casual manner of Billy Louise. "I believe I could eat a little mite of toast and drink some ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... evidently not sufficiently interested to pursue the subject. "Whoever he is," she said fretfully, "I hope he is not going to allow Amy ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... Her husband rose fretfully from his chair, and took her from me. When his eyes met mine, the look of sullen self-restraint in his countenance was crossed, in an instant, by an expression of triumphant malignity. He whispered to me: "If you don't change your tone ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... Meadows, fretfully; 'but you have not appeared as a bride. The straw bonnet—you see people cannot tell whether you are not ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long, and waking through many ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... Mrs. Winstanley fretfully; "for really after our reception at the railway-station, I expected to find everything at ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... is the right place?" asked Mr. Damon, somewhat fretfully, of Abe, as they ate supper that night in the airship, sheltered as it was in the ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton

... was obvious that to remain on the field was to die from starvation, especially bearing in mind my precarious health. Yet to get out of the field was no easy matter. I pondered fretfully over this issue, and at last resolved to attempt a desperate solution. I marched boldly to the gate, waved an old, long-since expired "pass" and shouted to the sentry that I had to go to the doctor's office immediately. Taken unawares ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... as bad as the banker," she cried fretfully, "and the banker was just as silly as the Bishop. The Bishop said that, although he might have considered the question of giving me absolution from a vow which I had been practically compelled to take, he ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... can't help it,' said Bruce rather fretfully. 'I should be at the front if it weren't for my neurotic heart. The doctor wouldn't hear of passing me—at least one wouldn't. Any fellow who would have done so would be—not a careful man. However, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... as if you were happy enough," Isabel commented fretfully. "I don't believe you care at all about Corrie's going away. Of course you don't care about me. What are you putting on that ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... fretfully, "I've just been given the dressing-down of my life! You're expecting to get out of the airlock in the morning and take a walk. But I've been talking to Earth. I've been given the devil for landing on a strange planet ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... roads." Now, here was a man who had travelled much in Norway, spoke the language perfectly, and might be supposed to know something; but his face betrayed the croaker, and I knew, moreover, that of all fretfully luxurious men, merchants—and especially North-German merchants—are the worst, so I let him talk and kept my own ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... fretfully refused. He would have no nurse but Lizzie, share no roof but Amos'. "You're the only folks I got," he told ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... said the young man fretfully. "He was an Enchanted Dog, and he promised I should have him when I could say what I am ready to say now. He should have ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing

... mention it, yes!" retorted Calhoun fretfully. "But I shall not go into the old argument of those who say that black is white, that South is North. It is only for my own race that I plan a wider America. But then—" Calhoun raised a long, thin hand. "Why," he went on slowly, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... difficult!" said the Sultan, pulling his beard fretfully. "I will consider your several descriptions, and send for you again ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... Ezekiel fretfully, seeing that his father had no more monkey stories to offer, "but she keeps saying it just the same. I wish she'd go off and play," he ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... him another cablegram," Mr. Hankins declared fretfully. "The Altair is due to sail from Callao and the baby is still unborn; it will be two months old, at least, before the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... known that this was going to happen, I would never have troubled to cultivate their acquaintance," said Lady Grace fretfully. "I knew of course that that artful little minx was running after the man, but that he could ever be foolish enough to let himself be caught in such an obvious trap was a possibility that I ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell



Words linked to "Fretfully" :   fretful



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