Unusual sternness and excitement were depicted on every countenance, and he could see steel corselets flashing here and there in the cloaked crowd.

The crowd was fully alive to the awful sternness of this historic moment.

he exclaimed, with mock sternness.

I sent them back to the stair with affected sternness, but I got a second hand-clasp from Dorothy as she passed me.

But no suffering could affect the inflexible sternness of the duke of Alva; and to such excess did he carry his persecution that Philip himself began to be discontented, and thought his representative was overstepping the bounds of delegated tyranny.

At the brow of the hill Pretty found himself alone, and turned and looked at the on-coming trio with defiant sternness.

"Bring up the warm water instantlyinstantly!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with desperate sternness.

She followed my eyes to the picture, and her face was still almost stern from her last speech, though it is true that the sternness was a dimpled sternness, for the chin of my hostess was rounded.

His Christianity might have taken a form of less domestic sternness, but I remembered my own father too well to find it inconsistent with genuine piety, though not even my mother ever inspired the awe Linnell and his religious severity excited in me.

the old woman repeated, eyeing him with a dreadful sternness.

Gabriel had acquired in the seminary that ecclesiastic sternness that turns the priest into a warrior more intent on the interest of the Church than on the concerns of his family.

She repeated all that had passed between them the preceding day, unconsciously and cautiously condemning Grahame's excessive sternness, by relating, almost verbatim, Lilla's simply expressed wish that her father would let her love him.

But the true patience, whatever the cause of its sufferings, brings with it a blessed sense of the faithful sternness, the fruitful lovingness of God, who will not let even the feeblest of sinners be satisfied with less than he can attain, in whose hands the punishment, like fire, runs swiftly and agonisingly to and fro, consuming the baser elements of passion and desire.

It will be allowed that, in this portrait, some of the darker features and harsher lineaments of Byron himself are very evident, but with a more fixed sternness than belonged to him; for it was only by fits that he could put on such severity.

"Walter," said the Colonel, with the quiet sternness more formidable than all his bluster, "have not I forbidden you to court this man's daughter?" Said Bartley to Mary: "Haven't I forbidden you to speak to this ruffian's son?" Then, being a cad who had lost his temper, he took the girl by the wrist and gave her a rough pull across him that sent her effectually away from Walter.

" Some of the chief constable's habitual sternness of manner seemed to have returned to him as he now rose to take leave.

" To-night the severely cut lines of his face had even more than usual of haggard sternness, and the handsome features of James beside him, in their fixed gravity, presented that singular likeness which often comes out between father and son in seasons of mental emotion.

But it was noticeable that as he spoke he did not look at Esther nor could her anxious glance read the impassive sternness of his face.

Her little playful arts were not always successful in softening his rage; and he would sometimes turn upon her blandishments with an impatient sternness that made her tremble.

There is a ring of judicial sternness in the words; they call up to our minds the solemnities of a court of justicethe indictment, the conviction, the condemnation.

"Bud, w'ere dad Madjor Shaughnessy?" demanded M. D'Hemecourt, with the little sternness he could command.

He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight faltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter on an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid of those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation of his virtuous life.

And, with melodramatic sternness, John extinguished her in his broad-brimmed hat, and offered the glass like a poisoned goblet.

" Mrs. Hamilton thought so too; and deeply she regretted that mistaken sternness which had so completely alienated the affections of his child.

He said nothing; there was but one long, gentle sigh, and in his face a mortal sternness, as he folded the letter again, replaced it, and locked the desk.