He could think of nothing cleverer than the daring improbability of saying that he wanted to see Rosy, and wished to know if she were at home this evening; and he was going desperately to carry out this weak device, when a waiter came up to him with a message, saying that Mr. Farebrother was below, and begged to speak with him.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

And from that she passed at once to her questions about Lady Glyde, wanting to know if she was a handsome, amiable lady, comely and healthy and young——Ah, dear!
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

“You might have driven over, then, yourself,” she said in a high, querulous voice, “if you knew it so well, and have spared ME this horrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved anything—there!
— from The Three Partners by Bret Harte

Soon after dinner was over, she was told Mr. Trueworth had sent to know if she was at home, and begged leave to wait upon her.
— from The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless by Eliza Fowler Haywood

The people there are too poor to afford a bell, and so in place of that they use a beam of oak hung from a rope tied about the center, and this beam The Klepalo . is struck with a hammer, first on one side, and then the other.
— from The Scientific American Boy; Or, The Camp at Willow Clump Island by A. Russell (Alexander Russell) Bond

The back being knocked into shape with a hammer, and the sheets placed in the cutting-press, which is then slightly screwed up, melted glue is thinly and evenly applied.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I by Richard Vine Tuson

His power to break a man's will by a look or a word was almost gone, and none knew it so well as his own daughter.
— from The Heart of Cherry McBain: A Novel by Douglas Durkin

Who could know it so well as he did?
— from Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope

"This valentine may be for my good luck, after all," Miss Henrietta's thoughts were swift now, planning for the future; her feet kept pace with them, and before she knew it, she was at her own door.
— from The Rector of St. Mark's by Mary Jane Holmes