Accordingly, when she heard footsteps approaching along the hall, she stood with heaving breast and glittering eye, ready and determined to effect an entrance the instant a crack of the door should be opened.
— from Mrs. Tree's Will by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

French, German, English, Russian, and Danish flags were observed floating from the shipping in the harbor, which presented a scene of considerable activity for so small a port.
— from Due North; or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia by Maturin Murray Ballou

But they are to a great extent ruinous and dilapidated, having been abandoned by their ancient occupants, for fear of being overwhelmed in them by earthquakes.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851 by Various

"Now, don't get excited, Rose, and don't raise your voice.
— from Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters: A Novel by May Agnes Fleming

Difficult questions of this colour must be left to parsons (who beat all lawyers, out and out, in the matter of pure cleverness; because the latter never can anyhow, but the former, somehow, with the greatest ease, reconcile all difficulties).
— from The Maid of Sker by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

We next find this human chameleon at Venice, wearing a beard down to his waist, sleeping on the ground, eating rice and drinking water, and recounting his adventures to all who cared to hear them.
— from Love Romances of the Aristocracy by Thornton Hall

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Rob, "a demon!"
— from The Master Key An Electrical Fairy Tale Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

Ahead lay the open, warm brown in the sun, and across it ran a dwindling grayish line, the road that ran east and west across the desert,—a good enough road as desert roads go, but Pete, despite his satisfaction in being out in the open again, grew somewhat tired of its monotonously even wagon-rutted width, and longed for a trail—a faint, meandering trail that would swing from the road, dip into a sand arroyo, edge slanting up the farther bank, wriggle round a cluster of small hills, shoot out across a mesa, and climb slowly toward those hills to the west, finally to contort itself into serpentine switchbacks as it sought the crest—and once on the crest (which was in reality but the visible edge of another great mesa), there would be grass for a horse and cedar-wood for a fire, and water with which to make coffee.
— from The Ridin' Kid from Powder River by Henry Herbert Knibbs

And she told me it was dis yer way: Dat Stiles—he dat was Jones's overseer—had heard dat Alfred was dreadful spirity; and when boys is so, sometimes dey aggravates 'em to get 'em riled, and den dey whips 'em to break 'em in.
— from Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe

A knot of blue ribbon was the only seal on the knight's letter, and the blushing maiden opened and read; and, as she read, the rich colour of her cheeks grew ever richer and deeper, and Johnnie pulled his cap-feather to pieces and watched her.
— from Sea-Dogs All! A Tale of Forest and Sea by Tom Bevan