Crossword-Solution: STROKING 8 letters, 3 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 13

Scarce had the debris settled than the ape-man was among the beasts, quieting their fears, talking to them in low, pacific tones, stroking their shaggy bodies, and assuring them, as only he could, that the immediate danger was over.

Again, another reminded her of children at play, and still another of nothing on earth but a demure lady stroking a cat.

She could only recall herself, as in a picture, kneeling before her broken and rifled trunk, and then--weeks later, so it seemed to her--she woke to find herself in her own bed with an iced bandage about her forehead and the little old dressmaker at her side, stroking her hot, dry palm.

They knew him at once, and drew rein, and Blaise lighted down from his horse and cast his arms about Ralph, and said: "O happy day! when two of the Upmeads kindred meet thus in an alien land! But what maketh thee here, Ralph? I thought of thee as merry and safe in Upmeads?" Ralph said smiling, for his heart leapt up at the sight of his kindred: "Nay, must I not seek adventures like the rest? So I stole myself away from father and mother." "Ill done, little lord!" said Blaise, stroking Ralph's cheek.

Affection, sir, you see, must have its guarantees!” He paused a moment, stroking his beard, with his head inclined and one eye half-closed, looking at Rowland.