The wood-rings in the section I laid bare were so involved and contorted in some places that I was not able to determine its age exactly, but I counted over 4000 rings, which showed that this tree was in its prime, swaying in the Sierra winds, when Christ walked the earth.

Outboard popped a ruddy little face, set in the green circle of a topi, and contorted with laughter.

He stood arguing, received another snub, and went out bawling and threatening, with the contorted face and clumsy flourishes of some fabulous hero on a screen.

Like an outlandish doll, with face contorted and thick-lidded eyes shut tightly against the sunshine, the outcast whimpered, too near the point of death for even the rebellion of arms and legs.

At some points it is rock; at others rock gives place to contorted layers of brilliantly colored earth which is almost as restless as quicksand.

But it was not this that had roused him, he thought as he lay blinking drowsily,nor the black-bird piping so wonderfully in the apple-tree outside,a very inquisitive apple-tree that had writhed, and contorted itself most un-naturally in its efforts to peep in at the window;therefore Bellew fell to wondering, sleepily enough, what it could have been.

but, when a proper opportunity offers, this same person, like a skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence worthy of attention, short and contorted, so that he who converses with him will appear to be in no respect superior to a boy."

And there they laboured through the murky day, Whose air was livid mist, their only breath; Foul floating dust of swift revolving wheels And feathery spoil of fast contorted threads Making a sultry chaos in the sun.

That gave him more steadiness; but would not this contorted position destroy all chance of shooting accurately?

" She did not see the sudden spasm that contorted Agony's face at the word "honorable."

I wonder how much this house and furniture would fetch? Is it all mine, mother?" "M-m-most of it," stammered Mrs. Green, gazing in a fascinated fashion at the contorted visage of her husband.

Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, the squalling contorted little antics that are playing at being frightend, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a mask, are detestable.

" He did come down in fairly brief order; but if Bessie had watched him descend the stairs she would have been astounded at the remarkable caution he observed and at the twinges of pain that every now and then contorted his face.

She strove to get towards him, to clutch at his wrist, at his sleeve, but he stood with his hand on his sword, gazing at her with a face which was all wreathed and contorted with merriment.

No, not merely asleepthe twisted unnatural lie of the limbs, the contorted legs, the one arm drooping listlessly but stiffly over the side of the berth, told of a deeper, more eternal sleep.

Something contorted the actor's frame bitterly, and he gasped like a man throttled.

For the present it is enough to observe that his immediate scholars, Raffaello da Montelupo, and Gian Angelo Montorsoli, caught little from their master but the mannerism of contorted form and agitated action.

On the west side of the cove one may notice rocks with such peculiarly contorted strata as those shown in the foreground of the illustration opposite.

It was not a pretty sight, and the only thing that redeemed its ugliness was the way in which all those medical men were devoting themselves to the almost hopeless task of untwisting the contorted limbs of those victims of the war spirit, and restoring the shape of man botched by the artists of the death machines.

He turned and looked at Mr. Duckett, and Mr. Duckett, trying to smile at him, contorted his face so horribly that he shrank back appalled.

As she watched, it slowly removed the cowl and the napkin and exposed the fell face of Tabitha, so strangely contorted between fear and triumph that she hardly recognized it.

There are in the South Kensington Museum, plaster casts of some three or four carved doorways of Norwegian workmanship, of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, in which scrolls are entwined with contorted monsters, or, to quote Mr. Lovett's description, "dragons of hideous aspect and serpents of more than usually tortuous proclivities."

Meaningless pilasters, entablatures, and contorted cornices replaced the simpler outline and subordinate enrichment of the time of Henri II., and until the great revival of taste under the "grand monarque," there was in France a period of richly ornamented but ill-designed decorative furniture.

His father's face was contorted with pain or grief.

There Mrs. Labadie was kneeling over the cradle, her hood hanging over her face, crying bitterly over the poor little child, who had a blue look about his face, and seemed at the last gasp, his features contorted by a convulsion.