"Flounce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her loveliest aspects. The island of sand no longer seemed a dreary waste. Brighter rolled the blue waves of ocean beneath the golden beam; and sweeter murmured the billows on their sandy beach. My heart rejoiced with the playful fishes, as they leaped high wantoning in the air, or, with sudden flounce, returned again, wild darting through their lucid element. Our work went on in joy. The palmetto trees were brought to us by the blacks, in large rafts, of which we constructed, for our fort, an immense pen, two hundred ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the waters, so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. Her physiognomy is not distinguished; nez camus, as a Frenchman would say; no illustrious steeple, no imposing tower; the water-edge of the town looking bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman's dress that trails on the sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the wharves, elephantine in bulk and color, her sides narrowing as they rise, like ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Newark cider, may be a good phrase, though the former word cannot well be predicated of the latter. So in the following examples: "Let these conversation tones be the foundation of public pronunciation."—Blair's Rhet., p. 334. "A muslin flounce, made very full, would give a very agreeable flirtation air."—POPE: Priestley's Gram., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... it was whispered that "the Tebbs had only one best dress between them"—a certain rich black silk. As Miss Jane was at least six inches taller than dumpy Miss Mitty, difficulties of length were cunningly surmounted by an adjustable flounce. Needless to add that on festive occasions, such as high teas, little dinners, and card parties, the sisters never appeared together, the one "out of turn" invariably excusing herself with toothache or a heavy cold. Although they argued and bickered in private, and had ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... helpless and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now. Aunt Pen was very kind to get me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so little room ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... greatly amused by Slim's encounter with the cleanly Mrs. Allen. Slim stood with open mouth, watching Mrs. Allen flounce out of the room after Polly, who was trying in vain to suppress her laughter. Turning to the girl, he said: "Ain't seen ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... A flounce of the singer's dress touched the footlights, and the flame began to creep upwards like ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... his money in the Brick Moon, and, as I need hardly add, insured his life in the late Continental Insurance Company. But the Inghams find just as much in life as the Haliburtons, and Anna Haliburton consults Polly Ingham about the shade of a flounce just as readily and as eagerly as Polly consults her about the children's dentistry. They are all very ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... at the village milliner's. I cut it down and sewed it up again into another shape. Then I hunted through the old 'Semi-Annuals'; you don't know what those are, do you? I found a piece of velvet that had been a flounce. I steamed it and covered the shape. Then I had to have some trimming. It came from an old evening cloak of my Cousin Jeannette's—a bit of gilt, a silk rose, some ribbon from—I can't tell you what it came from, but it had to be ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... her under the chin, and, retreating a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces, while the girl bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage. She turns away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her with a toothless chuckle. The ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... this he could not get his dear desire. Philippa's sense of justice was inflamed, as well as her moral sense. What! you eat a cake, and then, instead of sitting down to your plain bread and butter—away you flounce, and get ready to eat another cake! That's dead against the proverb, that's monstrous, that's offensive. "Mamma, mamma," Philippa had protested, "you can never have her back to flourish her sin in all ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... even after I tried them with her for the sake of keeping her out of that vile John Britton's arms. I have a fancy that I made a spectacle of myself, hopping about like a magpie, but Daisy said "I did beautifully," though she cried because I put my foot on her lace flounce and tore it, and I noticed she ever after had some good reason why I should not dance again. "It was too hard work for me; I was too big," she said, "and would tire easily. Cousin Tom was big, ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... is being worn. You notice it on the streets. Of course other colors are quite stylish as well—in fact, I saw a lovely thing the other day in olive green albatross, with a triple-lapped flounce skirt trimmed with insert squares of silk, and a draped fichu of lace opening over a shirred vest and double puff sleeves with a lace band holding two gathered frills—but you see lots of purple too. Oh, yes, you do; just take a walk ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... himself. An air of joyful gravity lit up the municipal officer's face. He was enjoying the honor which the Princess had done him. His pretty young daughter, dressed, in her confirmation dress, which had been lengthened with a muslin flounce, a rose in her hair, and her hands encased in straw-colored one-button kid gloves, hardly dared raise her eyes to the Prince, and with burning cheeks, answered in monosyllables the few remarks Serge felt forced ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... since she had become the subject of a miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked to see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dress trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a very pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligent eyes which lent ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... poltoos [the halibut] for twenty years, and I can't say I've found it yet. But look here—you seem to have a fondness for talking to your betters—suppose you go to Walrus Islet and talk to Sea Vitch. He may know something. Don't flounce off like that. It's a six-mile swim, and if I were you I should haul out and take a nap ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... presumed to mention marriage; but was always answered with a slap, a hoot, and a flounce. At last he began to press her closer, and thought himself more favourably received; but going one morning, with a resolution to trifle no longer, he found her gone to church with a young journeyman from the neighbouring shop, of whom she had become enamoured ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... made with a court train, trimmed with a deep flounce, waved in the lower edge, and this flounce is trimmed with four narrow flounces, edged with narrow point lace. The sides are en revers, with sashes tied in butterfly bow in the centre of the back, below the puffing of the ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... the wife of a General, extremely rich, and who has the handsomest house in Mexico. Dress of purple velvet, embroidered all over with flowers of white silk, short sleeves, and embroidered corsage; white satin shoes and has bas a jour; a deep flounce of Mechlin appearing below the velvet dress, which was short. A mantilla of black blonde, fastened by three diamond aigrettes. Diamond earrings of extraordinary size. A diamond necklace of immense value, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... "hop," and not a President's "levee." There are fine ladies who have lived forty years in Washington without attending that pandemonium, the levee, where the crowd seizes one with a hundred hands till flounce and furbelow are crushed in its grasp, and where, while the court reigns in the Blue Room, the mob are disporting themselves in the magnificence of the East Room, the parlor of the people, where they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... is to tend the fair; Not a less pleasing, though less glorious, care; To save the powder from too rude a gale, Nor let the imprisoned essences exhale. . . . Nay oft in dreams invention we bestow To change a flounce or add ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... commander, therefore, as it approached nearer and nearer, ordered one of the ship's guns to be fired, to try if the percussion of the air would disperse it. This was no sooner done than we heard a prodigious flounce in the water, at but a small distance from the ship, on the weather-quarter; and after a violent noise, or cry in the air, the cloud, that upon our firing dissipated, seemed to return again, but by degrees ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... this establishment, which has even a telegraph office on the premises, where a clerk is for ever flashing dollars and cents along the trembling wires. There were lace collars 40 guineas each, and flounces of Valenciennes lace, half a yard deep, at 120 guineas a flounce. The damasks and brocades for curtains and chairs were at almost fabulous prices. Few gentlemen, the clerk observed, give less than 3l. per yard for these articles. The most costly are purchased by the hotels. I saw some brocade embroidered in ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... "she buried her face in her hands, and wept as if her heart would break." All at once I saw something bobbing around, and if there wasn't Lucille about four feet from the shore, fastened to a rock by the flounce of her pink satin dress! Fanny shrieked aloud, but Dora and I seized a pole, and after working a long, long time, we managed to fish her out of the water. Here is a picture that I have drawn to show you how we looked ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... imprison'd essences exhale; To draw fresh colours from the vernal flowers; To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers, A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs; Nay, oft, in dreams, invention we bestow, To change a flounce, or ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... and hospitable American family, long resident in Havana, takes us up at last. They call upon us, and we lift up our heads a little; they take us out in their carriage, and we step in with a little familiar flounce, intended to show that we are used to such things; finally, they invite us to a friendly cup of tea,—all the hotel knows it,—we have tarried at home in the shade long enough. Now, people have begun to find us out,—we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... great deal of money," he said one morning in his condemnatory manner. Rosalie looked up from the lace flounce which had just been delivered and gave the little nervous laugh, which was becoming entirely ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with a bouncing flounce and looking straight at the Major. "Marry Pennington! Why, she shan't, John. That's all there is of it. We object and that settles it. Why, what the deuce can she ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... angle, as Mrs. Jewkes had promised me. She baited the hook, and I held it, and soon hooked a lovely carp. Play it, play it, said she: I did, and brought it to the bank. A sad thought just then came into my head; and I took it, and threw it in again; and O the pleasure it seemed to have, to flounce in, when at liberty!—Why this? says she. O Mrs. Jewkes! said I, I was thinking this poor carp was the unhappy Pamela. I was likening you and myself to my naughty master. As we hooked and deceived the poor carp, so was I betrayed by false baits; and when you said, Play ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... silk, with sleeves tight to the elbow, and thence, from a ribbon-bow, broadening to a wide, triangular climax that revealed quantities of lace at the wrists. The pointed ends of the sleeves were picked out with squares of velvet. A short and highly ornamental fringed and looped flounce waved grandly out behind from the waist to the level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the ornamentation of the flounce; and both the stomacher and flounce gave contrasting value to the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasise the quality of the silk. Round the neck was ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... word, never one word; for I knew she was so proud and particular, that, if she mistrusted any thing of that kind to have been done, she would flounce in a minute. No, I never hinted it to her, or anybody else, and it was guesswork, after all," replied the abashed wife, in a deprecating tone,—she having been tempted, by the unusual mood which her stern husband had manifested for discussing his private affairs ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... and her mother coming down the street, all in a flutter of hurry. Adeline is slender and nervous; her elbows jerked out, her chin jerked up, and her skirts switched her thin ankles; Mrs. Ketchum is very stout, and she walked with a kind of quivering flounce. Her face was blazing, and I knew her bonnet was on hindside before—I was sure that the sprig of purple flowers belonged on ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Mrs. Maxwell took 'Liza Em'ly to rip, 'n' Mrs. Fisher took John Bunyan for weeds. 'N' then Mrs. Macy just pounced on the last girl for her trundle-bed, 'n' Mrs. Jilkins was pretty mad at there bein' no more girls after the last one 'n' she give a sort o' flounce 'n' said 'Josephus,' 'n' Miss White give a sort o' groan 'n' said 'Fox' in a voice like death. 'N' then come the time!—Mrs. Davison was No. 12, 'n' every one knew it, 'n' every one 'd been lookin' at her from time to time 'n' she hadn't been lookin' at no one, only jus' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... and thoughtful countenance, always beautiful—if such a term can be allowed in speaking of a brown, rosy, plump, and well-conditioned girl, of good stature, whose form had not been squeezed into shape, nor her linsey woolsey flourished into flounce and farthingale. Her hair hung in bright clusters on her brow; fresh from Nature's toilet, their wild untutored elegance was singular and bewitching. Indeed, Katherine, or "Kattern," as she was more generally ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... height conceals Those swelling charms where many a Cupid dwells, Ere they can heave again,—no more appear; But leave each vulgar eye to revel there. As I look'd down, the dropping Silk denies Her pretty feet to my intruding eyes: Again I look'd,—th' according flounce updrew, And gave the well-turn'd ankle to my view. Now stiff,—now slouching in her gait she walk'd; Now lisp'd, now mouth'd each sentence as she talk'd. A form so changeful I had never seen;— The red, the blue, the yellow, and the green, In quick succession, ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... was brought into the Lounge by Mr. Mardon's Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, and remarked that he supposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day's work. She gave a moue and a flounce in reply, and ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... flounce that made her petticoats whisk like a mare's tail, and off to the kitchen, where she related the dialogue with an appropriate reflection, the company containing several of either sex. "Dilly-Dally and Shilly-Shally, they ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... will take my chance; I would not write. Katie dear, I have torn all the flounce off my black and white dinner dress; you are so much more clever with your needle than I am, would you sew it on for ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... wore very wide and rather short skirts, the petticoat worn exposed up to where a full over-skirt or flounce gave emphasis to their hips. The elder ones wore long-sleeved jackets and high-crowned hats, while the young ones wore what looked like low-necked jerseys tied together in front and their braided hair ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... answer. She was mentally, for the hundredth time, putting on the black gown with the pink roses stitched all about the flounce, and piling up her ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... will be a great thing. Imagine going home every night without wondering if your room is locked and the landlady sitting on your trunks at the top landing. You can just flounce into your nest any old time and know that everything is right there, unless one crafty girl has bribed the chambermaid for the key. You can never tell about those people. Why, I know one girl who kept stealing ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... cleanliness and its Spanish point. Colbert had three women as coadjutors when he started lace-making in France. It was because Josephine loved point d'Alencon that Napoleon revived it. Eugenie spent $5,000 for a single dress flounce, and had $1,000,000 ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.
... flounce, the red moccasins, as if their wearer made a pivot of his head in the air, described a circular flourish aloft, and in a twinkle, there they were at the bear's flanks, each with a toe at one of our hero's naked heels. In another twinkle Sprigg felt himself ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... did go, ladies. I went an hour earlier than you asked me, to beg that the dress might be cut perfectly plain, without upper skirt or flounce. The girl seated me in the hall, and while I sat there, I was forced to hear myself and my son ridiculed and turned to scorn in a way I ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... unusual vigor; when, still within each other's arms, down came the giant warriors, with an appalling squelch, to the ground—the red above, the black below. But in a twinkling there was a Titanic flounce, when behold, the black was above, the red below. Planting his knee with crushing weight on the breast of his prostrate foe, the Fighting Nigger felt for his knife with which to deal the final blow, but found that in the struggle it had slipped from its sheath; and when he would have seized ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... and then flounced, oh, men do flounce at times, in spirit, if not in deed; and there would be no lack of the deed if only they wore skirts that could rustle indignantly in sympathy with the wearer—to his room. Plainly, Hank did not swallow the excuse any more readily than did ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... numerous inhabitants of the waters come forth from their oozy beds and play and flounce in the beams of the moon. Round the luminary of the night the stars lead up the mystic dance, and compose the music of the spheres. The deities of the woods and the deities of the rivers come out from their secret haunts, and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... not with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty, she filled a great ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... her over, from the top of her dishevelled head, down the lovely line of the shoulder, following the curve of the hip, the draped form of the long limb, right down to her fine ankle below a torn, soiled flounce; and as far as the point of the shabby, high- heeled, blue slipper, dangling from her well-shaped foot, which she moved slightly, with quick, nervous jerks, as if impatient of my presence. And in the scent of the massed flowers I ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... flounce, and shawl, if there is no possibility of their being sold. Also all other fine articles return me, save the dresses which, with prices lowered, may be ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... of her house with an angry flounce. What in the world was all this noise about! zzz! zzz! then a thump and a bump and the strangest little noises, more like a falsetto squeak than anything else. This had been going on for the last minute, which is a whole hour for a cricket, and going on while she was trying to teach Chee and Chirk ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... of restraint gone, she lay downright at his feet, abandoned to virulent grief, and in her naked agony a shapeless mass of frill and flounce, a horrible and not dramatic spectacle of abandonment; decencies gone down before desire, the heart ruptured and broken through its walls. In such a moment of soul dishabille and her own dishabille of bosom bulging above the tight lacing of her corset-line as she lay prone, her mouth ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and glower down at its emptiness—and repeat the motions in a different order. He must be theatrical even ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... praises of the situation. he has demolished all his paternal intrenchments of walls and square gardens, opened lawns, swelled out a bow-window, erected a portico, planted groves, stifled ponds, and flounce himself with flowering shrubs and Kent fences. You may imagine that I have a little hand in all this. Since I came hither, I have projected a colonnade to join his mansion to the offices, have been the death of a tree that intercepted the view of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... realized I was still clutching my basket, though all the mushrooms had fallen out, and my foot was through a torn flounce, and my hat hanging on my neck. My mouth was dry. For a moment I couldn't get a word off my tongue; and then, "He fell, he fell!" I said, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... my heart! No grief so great As thinking on a happy state In misery. Ah, dear is power To female hearts! Oh, blissful hour When Blanche and Flavia, joined with me, Tri-feminine Directory, Dispensed in latitudes below The laws of flounce and furbelow; And held on bird and beast debate, What lives should die to serve our state! We changed our statutes with the moon, And oft in January or June, At deep midnight, we would prescribe Some furry kind, or feathered tribe. At morn, we sent the mandate forth; Then rose the hunters ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... word. They were too well-bred to cast a glance at her clothes, which, however she might embellish them in fancy, Laura knew were not what they ought to be: her ulster was some years old, and so short that it did not cover the flounce of her dress, and this dress, and her hat with it, were Mother's taste, and consequently, Laura felt sure, nobody else's. But her new companions saw that she wore these clothes with an elegance that made up for their shortcomings; and she heard them ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... between Mr. John Woodstock and his sister was becoming animated, and their aunt, who never could understand the difference between a discussion and a quarrel, was listening anxiously, expecting every moment to see Marjory flounce out of the room at one door, and John at the other, in their respective furies. It began in this way: John had just read a notice of an extraordinary concert to come off the next week, and had pushed the paper over to Marjory, with the remark, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... had invited four or five people to dinner, they had to go and leave us to entertain ourselves. Lady Mary was dressed very prettily in a flounced white silk dress with a pattern of roses woven round the bottom of each flounce, and looked very elegant. Mr. Labouchere wore breeches, with knee and ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... form, advancing to put a blot on all this, had been diminishing in the shade; and now suddenly disappeared beside a weir. There was the noise of a flounce in the water. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... was the pot hung on the pot-hook, than she would slip away with a big saucer and fetch sirup from the shop. And she would flounce down before the porridge dish and gobble to her heart's content. If any of her fellow-servants claimed an equal share, she would simply answer, ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... scattered over it. And nobody but Miss Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it. Had Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince's bride, she would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the situation. She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... may,—that no man is caught by the mere display of fine clothes. A pretty face, or good figure, may captivate; but fine clothes, never. Though it is said that fine feathers make fine birds, yet no mail will be caught by a trimming or a flounce. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... pinafore for her doll out of a lace flounce of real old Venetian lace. Dilly said she found it on the floor. 'On the floor, indeed,' I said to her. 'You mustn't use real lace!' She said, 'Why not? It's a real doll!' Lately Dilly's got a way of answering back that ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... the faintest interest in Pig, but he knew that Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap. Pinecoffin was delighted at being consulted about Pig. The Indian Pig is not exactly an important factor in agricultural life; but Nafferton explained to Pinecoffin that there was room for improvement, and corresponded ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a moment's bridling, she whirled back with an angry flounce of her draperies. "The gallery, then, dog! I shall reach my lord's ear from that, which will be an unlucky ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... very good-natured, as Gruffy well knew, signed the order immediately; and, when she had it in her pocket, you may fancy what airs she gave herself. She was ready to flounce out of the room before the Queen herself, as now she was the wife of the RIGHTFUL King of Paflagonia! She would not speak to Glumboso, whom she thought a brute, for depriving her DEAR HUSBAND of the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with a pleading, "Now all together, boys." She had tripping steps and dainty kicks that went well with the melody. When she went off half a dozen men rose in their places, and aimed nuggets at her. She captured them, then, with a final saucy flounce of her skirt, made ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... could sweep the pavement, or lie in rich folds at the bottom of a carriage, unadorned by an imposing flounce that almost covered the robe; a little later, the one sober flounce was driven into obscurity by twenty coquettish small ones; and these were displaced by primly puffed bands; which gave way to fanciful "keys" ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... is nothing more lovely than the love of two beautiful women, who are not envious of each other's charms. How delightfully they impart to each other the pattern of a cap, or flounce, or frill! how charmingly they entrust some slight, slender secret about tinting a flower or netting a purse! Now one leans over the other, and guides her inexperienced hand, as it moves in the mysteries of some novel work, and then the other looks ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Rosier got up and wandered about with his careful tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms. When Madame Merle came in she found him standing before the fireplace with his nose very close to the great lace flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it delicately, as ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... but the strain was severe. Stanor was standing, racket in hand, gazing up at the window. The sunshine lit up his handsome face, his expectant smile. Pixie gave another flounce and turned impatiently to meet the next lament; but Esmeralda was silent, her hands were clasped on her knee, and tears—real tears—shone in her eyes. It was a rare thing for Joan to cry; the easy tears which ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... even a place like Saint-Juliot exist? Or a Vallency Valley With stream and leafed alley, Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist? ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch! I am very vexed, but I never dreamt but ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... the dread whisper of defeat. She stood before Flora Le Pettit like a wilted rose whose petals hang limply, about to fall, fronting a bloom that spreads its glowing leaves in the full flush of noon. The one girl was triumphant in her beauty and her unassailable position, every flounce out-curved in freshness; the other drooped at brow and hem, her slender neck downbent, her sash-ends pendant as broken tendrils after rain ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... those exquisite shops, where a confusion of brocades and satins lay about in dazzling masses of richest colour, with here and there a bunch of lilies, a cluster of roses, a tortoise-shell fan, an ostrich feather, or a flounce of peerless Point d'Alencon flung carelessly athwart the sheen of a ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... with a sudden flounce. "You put too serious an estimate upon love," he said. "You expect it to be the grand, over-mastering passion we read about. That was all well enough for the age of poetry, but this is the age of prose. You can go to that man and ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... his troubles was rapidly drawing nearer to the mill, and soon, to her inexpressible delight, she saw Bob coming to meet her. She had heard the flounce, and, feeling more secure from her pursuer, had dropped her pace to a quick walk. No sooner did she reach Bob than, overcome by the excitement of the moment, she flung herself into his arms. Bob instantly ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... reading an agreeable novel. Once more the four friends retired to the library where Mary read aloud and the others engaged in various characteristic pursuits. Elinor was embroidering a royal coat-of-arms in colored silks on a cushion cover; Nancy was darning a rent in a lace flounce and Billie was darning her father's socks. This task she undertook each week with extraordinary cheerfulness, although Onoye had offered to do it for her, and O'Haru had almost taken the darning needle and ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... so quick a flounce that she nearly landed herself in the little gutter which I had made with my stick to carry off the drainage ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... unemptied glass he went out and walked up and down the street. Here was a rude flounce into the pellucid sentimentality of his sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutely untrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in her implication that she had not wished to disturb him, and had really supposed him dead. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the good name of a good woman went through the mud like a white flounce torn and dragged and unnoticed. For of course Charity never dreamed that any one was giving such importance to the coincidence of her ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... saw the valley he had remarked the evening before, with the streamlet winding like a silver ribbon in a green flounce. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... flounces, over a slip of white glace—the flounces each edged with a row of blonde of about a nail in width, and attached to the skirt on one side by white roses, forming a sort of wreath at the upper part, one end of which is attached to the waist, and descends to the first or uppermost flounce, the roses being of graduated sizes, enlarging from the waist downward. A bouquet of white roses is attached to the second flounce. The corsage has a shawl berthe opening in a point in front of the bosom. The berthe is formed of three falls of tulle, each edged with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... head and swept her sister from her bonnet to her lowest flounce. "You have no right to hint at such a thing as ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... print, sometimes of bright colors. Under this one always sleeps. Over the bed, from low head-board to foot-board, is stretched by day the uppermost covering. Ours was of maroon cotton flannel, bordered in front by a flounce intended to be ornamental. The custom is to furnish clean cases and pillow-slips once a month, and it is difficult to secure more frequent ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... prune and flounce my perruque a little for her; there's ne'er a young fellow in the town but will do as much for a mere ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... made everyone laugh. In the middle of the quadrille they suddenly crooked their knees and danced in a squatting position; Aksinya in green flew by like a flash, stirring up a wind with her train. Someone trod on her flounce ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... not say any more. She rose with a flounce. The anger was tight on her brow. There was no more laughing and card-playing that evening, though she kept up her motherly, suave, good-humoured way with the men. But they knew her, they were ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet, where it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses, for they were done in needle work ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... nimble as her fingers. She used them both lightly. Would tear the flounce off her too lacy petticoat to bind up a messenger boy's cut finger, and no scarf-pin that came within three feet of her was immune from her quick touch. The only hour that ever struck for her was sex o'clock. The unmentionable lay mentioned in her discourse so frequently that ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... stood a magnificent finely spun barley-sugar windmill, two feet and a half high, with a spacious sugar foundation, with a cart and horses and two or three millers at the door, and a she-miller working a ball-dress flounce at a lower window. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Dick, jumping to his feet when he saw her. No more than that; but Pilar was woman enough to understand the value of the compliment; and she smiled, patting the flounce of her mantilla into still more graceful ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wife of a General, extremely rich, and who has the handsomest house in Mexico. Dress of purple velvet, embroidered all over with flowers of white silk, short sleeves, and embroidered corsage; white satin shoes and has bas jour; a deep flounce of Mechlin appearing below the velvet dress, which was short. A mantilla of black blonde, fastened by three diamond aigrettes. Diamond earrings of extraordinary size. A diamond necklace of immense value, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... with regard to everything except the bill. No uneasy twinge disturbs her, as the glistening silk glides through the shopman's hands, and ebbs and flows in billows of brightness on the counter. No demon of calculation comes between her and the genius of taste, when the milliner suggests an extra flounce of Marines, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... four, wakened me out of a sweet dream of something else, by tumbling over the tea-table, which he broke all to pieces; after his man and he had rolled about the room, like sick passengers in a storm, he comes flounce into bed, dead as a salmon into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face as greasy as his flannel night-cap. O matrimony! He tosses up the clothes ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... crimp a ruffle, or to finish off a dress of her own. This "finishing off" was carried on for weeks. When her baby was asleep, or was good, or had its little ruffles all fluted, and its little sister's little ruffles were all fluted, then would she seize the opportunity to stitch, to plait, to flounce, to pucker, and to braid. Wherever a hand's breadth of the original material was left visible, some bow, or band, or queer device, was fashioned and sewed on. This zealous individual, by improving every moment, by sitting up nights, by working ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... matter yet, he has my hook within him. Now let him frisk and flounce, and run and roll, And think to break his hold; he toils in vain. This love, the bait he gorged so greedily, Will make him sick, and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Cerinthy, giving a great flounce, "to be sure I don't! Catch me loving any man! I told him last night I didn't; but it didn't do a bit of good. I used to think that man was bashful, but I declare I have altered my mind; he will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... No boots will keep in shape if you shake your hips and kick with your heels like a servant out Sunday walking. When little girls flounce on the high road, it only looks ridiculous; but when you grow up, you'll never have a clean petticoat, or be known for a well-bred woman behind your back, unless you learn to walk as if your legs and your feelings were under your own control. That is why the sergeant is coming to-morrow ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... family, who was an attendant upon the Queen. The other half Mrs. Goodwin has seen at High Fernby, in Yorkshire, a place belonging to the family of the Rooks, in high preservation. In its original state, it was lined with a rose-coloured lutestring, with a flounce of the same about a quarter deep. The old lady being very notable, found some use for the silk, and used to cover the china which stood in the best parlour with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... silent until such time as they might find a voice. Nevertheless, though his urgency had been in the stead of the constable's stronger measures, they eyed him askance as he stood and sought to listen, with his hand on the door. The old woman turned around, her arms falling to her sides with a sort of flounce of triumph, her eyes twinkling beneath the shining spectacles set upon her brow among the limp ruffles of her thrust-back sunbonnet, a laugh of satisfaction widening her wrinkled face. "Thar now!" she chuckled, "Nar'sa jes' set it down she wouldn't testify, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... than Chinese in cut. On their heads they wore the Tam o' Shanter-like cap of black stuff, common among these people, bound on with their long braids, and their coats were of the usual felt. Their skirts, homespun, were made with what we used to call a Spanish flounce. According to Baber, the Lolo petticoat is of great significance. No one may go among the independent Lolos safely save in the guardianship of a member of the tribe, and a woman is as good a guardian ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... matter? I told her not to bother her head about it, that when we got to New York, or even to Cincinnati or Louisville, I would buy her a whole shopful of dresses. She made no answer to that; but when I had the misfortune to tear her third flounce, she said, that if I went on in that way she would not have a whole gown left when she got to Louisville. 'With a whole one or none at all, Miss,' said I, 'you'll always be a charming creature.' That now was as pretty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... feeling generally exasperated, and who did not see in Mr. Rupert Landale, despite his good looks and his good manner, a very promising substitute for her Bath admirers (nor in the prospect of Pulwick a profitable exchange for Bath), came forward with her bolder grace to flounce him a saucy "reverence," measuring him the while with a certain air of mockery which his thin-skinned susceptibility was ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... go!" and the woman dragged her dress so violently away from the clinging hands that a flounce came undone. Then she grew still more furious, for now the dress would have to be sewn. She scolded Rosa in a loud voice, and the child gazed at her with a strange look in her dilated eyes. Could angels scold as well? Alas, she ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... up from the flounce she was setting to rights. Something in Constance's tone commanded her attention. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... six-pence," said Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood every two or three minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you run and tell me, because it is a sign ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the pretty "Lace Songs" which may be heard at the Burano Lace School even now, although 200 or 300 years old. Many specimens of this exquisite lace are to be found in the South Kensington Museum, where the flounce given by Mrs. Bolckow at once explains the whole scheme ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... irresponsible in its nonage and incapable of comprehending or assuming the responsibilities of its acts. A child that breaks a pane of glass or sets fire to a house may indeed escape. Are we to plead the baby act, and claim that we can flounce around the world, breaking international china and burning property, and yet repudiate the bill because we have not come of age? Who dare say that a self-respecting Power could have sailed away from ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... sol'emn scrape chime launch dur'ing hire'ling strange whilst morgue gib'bet tres'pass greet smart pledge bod'kin shil'ling perch badge gourd gos'ling mat'tock champ dodge schist lob'by ram'part drench brawl flounce tan'sy tran'quil squeeze dwarf screech lock'et cun'ning grist yawl spasm van'dal her'ring shrink grant starve ex'tra drug'gist copse spunk ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... E. Selous shows ("Sexual Selection in Birds," Zooelogist, Feb. and May, 1907), completely mistress of the situation. "She seems the plain and unconcerned little mistress of a numerous and handsome seraglio, each member of which, however he flounce and bounce, can only wait to be chosen." Any fighting among the males is only incidental and is not a factor in selection. Moreover, as R. Mueller points out (loc. cit., p. 290), fighting would not usually attain the end desired, for if the males expend their time and strength in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... deceive the searching eyes of two strangers. The first article of dress which she put on was an old gown of her own (made of the material called "alpaca"), of a dark-brown color, with a neat pattern of little star-shaped spots in white. A double flounce running round the bottom of this dress was the only milliner's ornament which it presented—an ornament not at all out of character with the costume appropriated to an elderly lady. The disguise of her head and face was the next object of her attention. She fitted and arranged the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... on four benches; either a whole row must move or she must climb over the bench. Skilfully she managed to squeeze in between two benches, and then between the table and the line of those seated at it she rolled on like a billiard ball. In her course she brushed past our young man, and, catching a flounce on some one's knee, slipped a little, and in her distraction supported herself on the shoulder of Thaddeus. Politely begging his pardon, she took her seat between him and his uncle, but she ate nothing; she only fanned ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... door. Mr. Blake was standing at the open window of the breakfast-room, sniffing the fresh air of the morning. The Blake mother was busily engaged with the economy of the tea-table; a very simple style of morning costume, and a nightcap with a flounce like a petticoat, marking her unaffected toilet. Above stairs, more than one head en papillate took a furtive peep between the curtains; and the butler of the family, in corduroys and a fur cap, was weeding turnips in the lawn before ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... you rude boy! you've gone and torn my flounce!' or, 'You've spoilt my bow!' or, 'Dear me, you troublesome creature! you've ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... centre stitch of the first scallop, on the needle, and work 1 s c to unite them, 3 c s, s c the next loop and centre stitch of the next scallop, o 4 c s, s c the next loop and centre of first scallop in next flounce together, 3 c s, s c next loop and next scallop, o * 4 c s, s c next loop and next scallop, 2 c s; take the next loop on the needle without the scallop, and s c once round it, 2 c s, s c the next loop and next scallop together; repeat from * to end of row, except on the ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... Zoie. "Just as we were introduced, that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt. I turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night that it was my devotion to Willie that first made ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo |
