And I believe, in my indignation against myself, I should have put it aside till I had schooled myself into a better frame of mind, and was become more deserving of the honour and privilege of its perusal: but there was my mother looking on, and wishful to know what news it contained; so I read it and delivered it to her, and then went into the schoolroom to attend to the pupils: but amidst the cares of copies and sums--in the intervals of correcting errors here, and reproving derelictions of duty there, I was inwardly taking myself to task with far
sterner severity.
He repeated his last words in louder and
sterner tones:
Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and looking at her, collected his face into a
sterner expression.
'He's as young,' said I; 'but he has black hair and eyes, and looks
sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether.
Nicholson sat in the same place and posture as on that last Sunday morning; only he was older, and greyer, and
sterner; and as he now glanced up and caught the eye of his son, a strange commotion and a dark flush sprung into his face.
Following my strict orders, I refused his request, mildly at first, in a
sterner tone as he insisted with growing impudence.
For two days the wind was contrary, and the vessel was detained in their neighborhood; at length a favorable breeze sprang up, and in a little while the rich groves, green hills, and snowy peaks of those happy islands one after another sank from sight, or melted into the blue distance, and the Tonquin ploughed her course towards the
sterner regions of the Pacific.
"He would be a harder,
sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a silly girl's whim.
I had less confidence, but he was the mysterious man whom you ran for in the dead of night (you flung sand at his window to waken him, and if it was only toothache he extracted the tooth through the open window, but when it was something
sterner he was with you in the dark square at once, like a man who slept in his topcoat), so I did as he bade me, and not only did she laugh then but again when I put the laugh down, so that though it was really one laugh with a tear in the middle I counted it as two.
Jane Clayton was of
sterner stuff than that which bends in spineless terror before danger.
"Wait!" he ordered, and his voice was
sterner than any there had ever heard him use.
And even in Socrates himself the
sterner judgment of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love.