She asked herself if by some other chance combination it would have not been possible to meet another man; and she tried to imagine what would have been these unrealised events, this different life, this unknown husband.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

[ 478 ] Again time is called, and the birds resume their contest, the cock with the injured eye repaying its adversary so handsomely for the punishment which it had received in the previous round, that, before the cocoa-nut shell is half full of water, its opponent has surrendered, and has immediately been snatched up by the keeper in charge of it.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

"That," said Aunt Hannah, "is because she can't let other people's troubles alone."
— from Mary Louise Solves a Mystery by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

He stared at her in blank surprise.
— from Robin Linnet by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise.
— from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini

She abetted his idleness by supplying him with too much money.
— from Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks; or, Two Recruits in the United States Army by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock

"What are you going to do?" asked Beaumont savagely, all his innate brutality showing itself now that the mask was dropped.
— from The Man with a Secret: A Novel by Fergus Hume

All the household was there; Miss de Lisle beaming at Wally and very stately and handsome in blue silk; the servants, led by Allenby, with Con and Katty and Bride giggling with astonishment at a tree the like of which did not grow in Donegal.
— from Captain Jim by Mary Grant Bruce

It was a little round yellow head in his wife’s hood, with a pair of small black eyes which stared at him in blank surprise.
— from The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne