"Biddy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... combine to produce that unity of impression which the work leaves on the mind. Individually they will rank among the most original of the author's creations. Magwitch and Joe Gargery, Jaggers and Wemmick, Pip and Herbert, Wopsle, Pumblechook, and "the Aged," Miss Havisham, Estella, and Biddy, are personages which the most assiduous readers of Dickens must pronounce positive additions to the characters his rich and various ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the window of her mistress's bedroom, and surveyed the world with eyes of stern disapproval. There was nothing of the smart lady's maid about Biddy. She abominated smart lady's maids. A flyaway French cap and an apron barely reaching to the knees were to her the very essence of flighty impropriety. There was just such a creature in attendance upon Lady Grace de Vigne who occupied the best suite of rooms in the hotel, and Biddy very strongly ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... thrue for you, cook," said Biddy, with the corner of her apron up to her eyes. "But tell me, Richard, won't poor Mr. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... was that ran away with her,' says Judy. 'I was coming home that same time from Biddy M'Guggin's marriage, and a great crowd of people too upon the road, coming from the fair of Crookaghnawaturgh, and I sees a jaunting-car standing in the middle of the road, and with the two wheels off and all tattered. "What's this?" says I. "Didn't ye hear ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... Chapter xx. as now; but the sentence which opens it ("For eleven years" in the original, altered to "eight years") followed the paragraph about his business partnership with Herbert, and led to Biddy's question whether he is sure he does not fret for Estella ("I am sure and certain, Biddy" as originally written, altered to "O no—I think not, Biddy"): from which point here was the close. "It was two years more, before I saw herself. I had heard of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for a ride, Master Tom?" was the next startling proposition that came from the old man. "We've a nice little roan cob that goes well in saddle. Old Biddy is getting a bit up in years, though 'er goes well still, but I'll have the little roan saddled and brought ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... away from anything, but face danger and conquer it, like a brave chick,' said the old biddy, as she went clucking through the grass, with her gray turban wagging in the wind. Speckle had hopped away from a toad with a startled chirp, which caused aunt to utter that remark. The words had hardly left her beak, when a shadow ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... And mamma sighed; for baby was poorly, piles of sewing lay waiting for her, Biddy was turning things topsy-turvy in the kitchen for want of a word from the mistress, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... which was the kitchen mechanic, she says the perfessor's wife's been over to her mother's while this smallpox has been going on, and they is a nurse in the house looking after Miss Margery, the little kid that's sick. And Biddy, she says if she was Mrs. Booth she'd stay there, too. They's been some talk, anyhow, about Mrs. Booth and a musician feller around that there town. But Biddy, she likes Mrs. Booth, and even if it was true, which it ain't Biddy says, who could of blamed ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... exposed! There was also Mr. Tiddy, whom his wife had married for love, and who was now well to do,—a fine-looking man, with large whiskers, and a Roman nose, a little awry. Moreover, there was a Miss Biddy or Bridget Hobbs, a young lady of four or five and twenty, who was considering whether she might ask Lord Vargrave to write something in her album, and who cast a bashful look of admiration at the slim secretary, as he now sauntered ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an old Biddy sitting opposite, 'if it's the vulgar Irish you want to avoid, and the English you want to be meeting, it's to hell you must go, and you'd better ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... direction, while a wavy effect due to the action of wind is plainly visible over the surface of the ground. The steep, descending sides are very soft and sodden, supporting a scanty growth of vegetation, including the small burr known as the "biddy-bid." ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... on the premises. Stand up, you rascal. What have you done with the pewter? Ah, crushed out of all shape and use. That's what Molly Luff sed of her new bonnet when she sat down on it—Lawk, a biddy! ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... three Third form girls, Norma Bradley, Biddy Adams, and Daisy Donovan, who, with those former firebrands Winnie Osborne and Joyce Colman, had formed a kind of Cabal, whose object seemed to be to find out how far rules might ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... a kind of national complaint and lamentation that the neat-handed Phillis is disappearing altogether. This is the significance of the servant-girl question. This is the root of the alarming conviction that Phillis is changing into Biddy, whose fit epithet is not neat-handed. This is the meaning of the cry for bread—light, sweet, well-baked bread; not the clammy dough which is served to a despairing land. This is the reason of the wondering question, What ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... have worked their way perseveringly to the surface, wink invitingly, and, above all, the cake is hot, gloriously hot, besides having with it a delicate zest of contraband acquired by being smuggled on to the premises under Biddy M'Carthy's shawl. ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... So Biddy, in 'The Tender Husband,' would have said, Charlotte. But poor as the word is with you and her, give me comfort rather than joy, if they must be separated. But I see not but that a woman of my Charlotte's happy ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... excursion, but he could not refuse to comply. He was absent on that melancholy duty, therefore, at the moment of the scene related in our last chapter, and did not return until after that which we are now about to lay before the reader. Mrs. Budd, Biddy, and all of those who perished after the yawl got clear of the reef, were drowned in deep water, and no more was ever seen of any of them; or, if wreckers did pass them, they did not stop to bury the dead. It was different, however, with those who were first sacrificed to Spike's ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... scratching around in the yard to find food for themselves and their chickens. Now one old Biddy, who had a large family to provide for, and who was almost tired out with hunting for worms, looked at Willie's doughnut with a longing eye. She walked close up to the doorstep, arched her neck, and clucked, asking as plainly as ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Me and little Biddy Mahoney's going to leave some duds at the pawnbroker's for her mother, who's most dead ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... Educational Institution, kept in the same room—a little general shop. She had no idea what stock she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transaction. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself quiet unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... is different things, Ben. Ef I'd thought you had been havin' goins on with Biddy, I'd ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... anything. Naples had shown her that Louis had not come into her life merely as a shipboard acquaintance to be forgotten and dropped when they reached Sydney, as she would forget and drop Mrs. Hetherington, the schoolmaster and Biddy. His talk of the coincidence of his coming by the Oriana at all had made a deep dint on her Keltic imagination; his appeal to her for help had squared beautifully with her youthful dreams of Deliverance; the fact that he was the first young man who had ever talked to her probably had ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... as it may seem, when it is so easy to read, it is hard work to write,—bona fide, undeniable hard work. Suppose my head cracks and rings and reels with a great ache that stupefies me? In comes Biddy with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... by the way, was a droll operation, done with both feet together, a jump forward and a jerk back of the whole body, so rapidly one could hardly follow the motion, but throwing up a shower of dirt every time. He had neither the grace nor the dignity of our domestic biddy. ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... preparations were very funny. Mother borrowed a rattle, and kept it under her pillow. Aunt took a big bell to bed with her; the children had little Tip, the terrier, to sleep in their room; while Jack and I mounted guard, he with the pistol, and I with a hatchet, for I did n't like fire-arms. Biddy, who slept in the attic, practised getting out on the shed roof, so that she might run away at the first alarm. Every night we arranged pit-falls for the robbers, and all filed up to bed, bearing plate, money, weapons, and things ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... round, I was reminded of a show I once saw at the Museum,—the Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high-shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... school-room in the morning, she discovered a network of strings, which one Lemuel Biddy had artfully laid between the desks, intending thereby to waylay and prostrate his human victim, and stooping down, she boxed the miscreant, not cruelly but effectively, on the ears. I was surprised to see that the boy seemed to regard this infliction ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... on at all. I have as much on me mind as Biddy McGinniss had on her back when she carried ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... honour will remember Biddy McQuilkin, for she served at Knockowen when the little mistress there ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... all over the desks, floors, and barroom. The rooms, up stairs, was chock full of baby's. Xtra cots was lade out in the halls, and every cot, had half a dozen baby's on to it, and every baby had a card pinned on its does, wot red:—Tom Wilson, Susie Wilson, Paddy Wilson, Biddy Wilson, and every Wilson you could think of. Eight pages of the reges-ter was filled with there names, and every page was hedded with the Editturs own name, ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... sitting on their nests full of eggs, and she was counting the days until the three weeks of incubation should expire, and the little chicks break their shells. One of the hens proved a fickle biddy, and left her nest, much to the child's anger and disgust. But the others were faithful, and one morning Winnie came bounding in, saying she had heard the first "peep." I told her to be patient and leave the brood until the following day, since I had read that ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... a slate-colored and maternal-appearing biddy, seemed to realize that something unusual was afoot. She refused to be driven into the coop, perversely diving about the yard and circling the out-buildings until even Young Pete's ambition flagged. Out of breath he marched to the house. Annersley's rifle stood in the corner. Young Pete eyed it ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Mrs Lane,' says she, 'that your daughter'll find the place too dull and far away I'd rather you'd say so at once, and I'll look out for another girl. It's not at all like London,' says she, 'and I make no doubt Biddy will feel strange ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... mother jewel, what matter about it? 'Twill be all gone to houles and flitters and thraneens, and so it will, plase goodness, afore there's any talk of anybody else wearin' it except your own ould self." And she expressed much the same conviction one day to her next-door neighbor, old Biddy Ryan, to whom she had run in for the loan of a sup of sour milk, which Mrs. Joyce fancied. To Biddy's sincere regret she could offer Theresa barely a skimpy noggin of milk, and only a meagre shred of encouragement; and by way of eking out ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... it's too thru; but I'll tell your hanur how it happened. I wus workin fur the last three days fur my lan'lady, which av coorse goes agin the rint; and whin I cum home yisterday evenin, throth, barrin I tuck the bit from the woman and childre, sorra a taste I could get—so sis I, Biddy jewel, I'm mighty sick intirely, an I cant ate any thing. Well, she coxed me—but I didn't. So afther sittin a while, I bethought me that there wus to be a piper at the Crass-roads, an I was thin gettin morthul ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... oh, Mary, or Biddy, or Eily Joyce; really I cannot be sure; every one in that part of the world is either Eily or Biddy, and Joyce is the surname of half the population. She was a vain girl, I assure you; no beauty in her first season thought more of herself than ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... biddy, biddy!" called the young woman, rattling the measure. More of the fowl gave up their labors, and looked and listened. Some even began to follow her. She dipped a hand into the measure, withdrew it filled with corn, and scattered a few ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... things. But when it comes to illustrations, I can't make even a gum-tree look as if it was growing .... And Gibbs hates having amateur snapshots to work up .... Hopeless to try for a local artist.... I wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea..... Why to goodness didn't Biddy join me! .... If she'd only had the decency to let me know in time WHY she couldn't.... Money, I suppose—or a Man! .... Well, I'll write and tell her never to expect a literary ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... for ye—cooked ez only SHE kin cook 'em! Take Prossy Riggs—alongside of me here—for instance! HE'S made the biggest strike yet, and is puttin' up a high-toned house on the hill. Well! he'll hev it finished off and furnished slap-up style, you bet! with a Chinese cook, and a Biddy, and a Mexican vaquero to look after his horse—but he won't have no mother to housekeep! That is," he corrected himself perfunctorily, turning to his companion, "you've never spoke o' your mother, so I reckon you're about ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... beds were made, the supper-table was laid, the lamps were lighted, and all was ready. Mrs Berrington and her daughters had sat down, and taken up their work. Two of them had attempted to read, but found that impossible just then. Biddy was watching over the pots and pans in the kitchen. The boys were at the front door, now and then running along the road to listen, when the cracking of whips, the tramp of horses, and the ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... As for that drunken, sullen, treacherous savage, Dick Lynch himself, he dragged him from his blankets, knocked him about the floor, and then flung him back on to his bed. Then, turning to the dazed man's horrified wife, he said, "See that he don't turn on me agin, Biddy, or by the crowns o' the Holy Saints I'll be the everlastin' death ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... up the street our little Puppet, with her dogs all behind her, carrying her basket," cook is much more likely to see the broken bits "botherin' roun' on the schalves o' the cubbid," than she would be if Biddy should say, "Shure, an' thir cams to us ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Biddy Maloney pottering about in that plot of ground again,' thinks I. 'She's got it on the brain since her law-suit.' I knew it was Biddy, of course, not only because of her coming out of Biddy's house, but because it was Biddy's figure, walk, crutch-stick, and patched old cloak. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Biddy, come with me. What, man! 't is not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan. Hang ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... bailiff, castellan^, seneschal, chamberlain, major-domo^, groom of the chambers. secretary; under secretary, assistant secretary; clerk; subsidiary; agent &c 758; subaltern; underling, understrapper; man. maid, maidservant; handmaid; confidente [Fr.], lady's maid, abigail, soubrette; amah^, biddy, nurse, bonne [Fr.], ayah^; nursemaid, nursery maid, house maid, parlor maid, waiting maid, chamber maid, kitchen maid, scullery maid; femme de chambre [Fr.], femme fille [Fr.]; camarista^; chef de cuisine, cordon bleu [Fr.], cook, scullion, Cinderella; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... do to me thin, av' he'd strick a woman, and she his own flesh and blood! He'll not murdher her—but, faix, he's afther doing something now! Knock, Biddy, knock, I say, and screech out that you're ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... me with loud and bitter curses. I jumped into the river, in my hurry having missed the ford, and I heard 'em still shouting, and, as I thought, pursuing me; but the Virgin and St Chadde were my helpers, for when Biddy opened the door in the morning, I lay there in a great swoon, with my head bruised, and a hole in my ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Other women, too, caught Biddy's spirit and scrubbed their floors and their children's faces on the day when Miss McDonald was expected to call, and when she came her silk dress and pretty shawl were watched narrowly lest by some chance a speck of dirt should fasten on them, and her becoming ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... Colman's Polly Honeycombe (1777) were both demoralised by the follies of sentimental fiction, as Biddy Tipkin, in Steele's Tender Husband (1705), had been by romances. It was Miss Austen's purpose in creating Catherine Morland to present a maiden bemused by ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... taught her, for she said to me one day, 'I jis thries to foind out what the crathers wants, and I gives it to 'em,' She knows the character of every hen, duck, and goose she has, and you don't catch her wasting a sitting of eggs under a fickle biddy. And then she watches over her broods as Mrs. Leonard does over hers. Don't talk about luck. There has been more of intelligent care than luck in bringing up this boy Alf. I believe in book-farming as much as any one, but ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... that she returned to Drury Lane. There she remained for eighteen years, being the original of more than thirty important characters, notably Lady Teazle (1777). Her Beatrice, Portia, Desdemona and Ophelia were no less liked than her Miss Hoyden, Biddy Tipkin, Lucy Lockit and Miss Prue. It was in the last character in Love for Love that Reynolds painted his best portrait of her. In 1782 she left Drury Lane for Covent Garden. After an absence from the stage from 1790 until 1797, she reappeared, quitting it finally in 1799. Her ambition, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "Nonsense, Biddy!" said I; "you frightened her, perhaps; the cow is perfectly gentle;" and with the pail on my arm, I sallied forth. The moment madam saw me entering the cow yard, she greeted me with a very expressive ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rubbing his hands] Supposing I do marry her, eh? Hang it, why shouldn't I play her this shabby trick? What do you say, little puss? [He kisses her cheek] Dearest chick-a-biddy! ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... ask a quelle sauce elle serait mangee), protested against this little affair of traffic; Lady Dorking had a brood of little chickens to succeed Clara. There was little Hennie, who was sixteen, and Biddy, who was fourteen, and Adelaide, and who knows how many more? How could she refuse a young man, not very agreeable it is true, nor particularly amiable, nor of good birth, at least on his father's side, but otherwise eligible, and heir to so many thousands a year? The Newcomes, on their side, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pig stood amazed And the bristles, upraised A moment past, fell down so sleek. "Neighbor Biddy," says he, "If you'll just allow me, I will show you a ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... But when the war-dogs bare their teeth Go seek me in the modest sheath. I am for Cutting. Not for me The task of setting nations free. Let soulless blades take human life, My softer metal shuns the strife. The annual review is mine, When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine, And Biddy, tip-toe on the pave, Adores the cobble-trotting brave. I am for Cutting. 'Tis not mine To hew amain the hostile line; Not mine all pitiless to spread The plain with tumuli of dead. My grander duty lies ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... you and I (forgive the abruptness of this beginning), that we would each live our own life. Your idea of living was to range over the world in search of sport, mine to amuse myself well, to shine, to be admired. You, I imagine from your letters (what a faithful correspondent you have been, Biddy, all your wandering life), are still finding zest in it: mine has palled. You will jump naturally to the brotherly conclusion that I have palled—that I cease to amuse, that I find myself taking a second or even a third place, I who was always first; that, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... and a shawl, and used to give her my odd pennies as I passed. I never told at home, they made such fun of my efforts to be charitable. I thought I really was getting on pretty well after a time, as my old Biddy seemed quite cheered up, and I was planning to give her some coal, when she disappeared all of a sudden. I feared she was ill, and asked Mrs. Maloney, the fat ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... where other children who wore duds slept at night on other bunches of straw. She was a rag-picker and an ash girl, and sometimes was very hungry, and sometimes was beaten by other poor hungry wretches, who, because they were miserable, wanted to hurt somebody—not knowing any better—and so beat Biddy O'Dolan because there was no one to interfere. In spite of all these things, Biddy was sometimes merry, which I ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Bridget, only I thought I would like to know. I am always trying to get information on every kind of subject. Is the pawnshop the sign of the three balls, Biddy?" ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... dear, that I accompanied my mother to Colonel Ambrose's on the occasion I mentioned to you in my former. Many ladies and gentlemen were there whom you know; particularly Miss Kitty D'Oily, Miss Lloyd, Miss Biddy D'Ollyffe, Miss Biddulph, and their respective admirers, with the Colonel's two nieces; fine women both; besides many whom you know not; for they were strangers to me but by name. A splendid company, and all ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... capon, citizen of Mans, Was summon'd from a throng To answer to the village squire, Before tribunal call'd the fire. The matter to disguise The kitchen sheriff wise Cried, 'Biddy—Biddy—Biddy!—' But not a moment did he— This Norman and a half[32]— The smooth official trust. 'Your bait,' said he, 'is dust, And I'm too old for chaff.' Meantime, a falcon, on his perch, Observed the flight and search. In man, by instinct or experience, The ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... them, and also should and would, with well-nigh unerring correctness, do so unconsciously; it is simply habit with them, and they, though their culture may be limited, will receive a sort of verbal shock from Biddy's inquiry, "Will I put the kettle on, ma'am?" when your Irish or Scotch countess would not be in ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... laugh reassured her, and he said: "I fancy I shall pass among strangers, since you don't know me. Nothing could be better than the milk and crackers. No wine. My head must be clearer to-day than it ever was before. So the Irish Biddy has gone with her plunder? Good riddance to her. She would have been a spy in the camp. I'll bring home food that won't require cooking, and you'll have to learn to make coffee, for Merwyn and others will, no doubt, often come half dead from ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... had been anxious to go home to Lancaster, Ohio, where we had left our daughter Minnie, with her grandparents, and we arranged that S. M. Bowman, Esq., and wife, should move into our new house and board us, viz., Lizzie, Willie with the nurse Biddy, and myself, for a fair consideration. It so happened that two of my personal friends, Messrs. Winters and Cunningham of Marysville, and a young fellow named Eagan, now a captain in the Commissary Department, were going East in ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... has not seen a hapurth of a cabbage since we stopped the last time, to get a bit to sustain hunger, sure; I think mem, they must have rolled off, when the kitchen mirror and gridiron dhraped down," said Biddy, desirous to atone in some way for the disappearance of sundry heads of cabbage, which she had found means of disposing of, even in its unprepared state, while buried among washtubs, ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... her in a business-like way whether she had anything to do, whether she were a Catholic or a Protestant, whether she could read, and so forth; and then, after a few kind words and some sweeties to the child, he despatched the mother with some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman's Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he tackled me with great solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, for I do not think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
