"Well, I could have sworn I heard the gravel crunch as if some one was walking on it," returned the other.

And then, after a pause, she was startled to hear the crunching of gravel almost under her window.

She stood before her work eying it intently for several minutes; then, with an expression of great contempt for the whole thing, she suddenly tilted her cherished Venus on to the floor, gave the classical face a finishing crunch, and put on her hat in a decisive manner, saying briefly to the dismayed damsels, "Good-by, girls; I shan't come any more, for I'm going to work at home hereafter.

More snow had fallen, and now it was freezing, so that every step they took produced a peculiar, almost metallic crunching.

And while he talked with Robinson in the library Bobby caught at times the crunching of Paredes's feet in the court.

He could have sworn that he heard real steps this timea soft cautious crunching in the snow very near his head.

He could see the velvet star-gemmed night and the camp-fires, smell the smoke and the savoury odours of the cooking, hear the sudden shrieks and yells that followed the roar of the springing lion, feel the crushing crunch of its great teeth in his arm as it seized him from beside the nearest fire and stood over him....

Thus in this instance he stood as it were in silent agony till she had finished her hideous crunching of the chicken bones and had devoured every scrap.