broken thread

The extensive dominions of Portugal in the east had fallen off one by one, as pearls from a broken thread.

Backward now with our reader we turn, and take up the broken thread of our story at the point where we left Adah Hastings.

Then Dance took up the broken thread of her narration, and Lady Chillington, grim and motionless, listened without a word.

"You jerked it, instead of pulling smoothly," Biff said and knotted the broken thread.

The result of this letter was that Imlay and Mary tried to retie the broken thread of their domestic relations.