"Hostess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be true of myself. As the guests were arriving I was in a happy vein, and in the same happy frame of mind sat down to dinner. Twenty happy mortals, but not one divined the termination of that dinner party, least of all the proud and happy hostess. It was a great success, and at 8 o'clock was drawing to a close. The long windows were open, while the warm breeze from the nearby gulf was pouring through the room. The clock had just chimed the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... sitting in a bawdy-house, he writes God's judgments. He drops away at last in some obscure painted cloth, to which himself made the verses,[51] and his life, like a cann too full, spills upon the bench. He leaves twenty shillings on the score, which my hostess loses. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... residence of Lady Freake, a famous hostess of the day and founder of a brilliant salon, 'where even Royalty was sure of a welcome. The writer of a recent monograph declares that, 'many a modern hostess would do well to emulate Lady Freake, not only in her taste for ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Ferou, within two steps of the Luxembourg. His apartment consisted of two small chambers, very nicely fitted up, in a furnished house, the hostess of which, still young and still really handsome, cast tender glances uselessly at him. Some fragments of past splendor appeared here and there upon the walls of this modest lodging; a sword, for example, richly embossed, which belonged by its make to the times ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta this afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my hostess, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... table, and Archie noticed the circumstance, though it did not seem a proper time to make any remark about it. For Sophy was not able to eat, and did not rise from her couch; and Madame seemed to fall so properly into her character of hostess, that it would have been churlish to have made the slightest dissent. Yet it was a false kindness to both; for in the morning Madame took the same position, and Archie felt less able than on the previous night to make any opposition, though he had told himself continually on his homeward ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... had a beautiful wife: the prince heard her much praised; and insensibly began to think his sport most agreeable, when it conducted him, at the end of the day, to the steward's castle; where he had a natural opportunity of seeing and conversing with the lovely hostess. Overcome by his passion, almost before he was conscious of it, he began by reflecting on the baseness of the part he was preparing to act; and ended, by determining not to endure the misery of ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... have been delighted to take the advice of our hostess to see more of the land immortalized by Scott and Burns. "Ech, Sirs," she said, "but ye suld gae doon to the Heelands to see Scotland"; from which remark it may be reasonably inferred that she was a "Heeland" woman. We were painfully struck by the number of paupers ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... the prying eyes of the passers on the public road. The whole place was hallowed to its new inmate by the memories of the brave soldiers, wise statesmen, and brilliant ladies who had graced its heroic age, and of which the stately hostess was the last and worthy representative. The old house was as serene and still as the dearest lover of quiet could wish. The mistress lived quite apart from her lodger, and left him to follow the bent of his own fancies; and rare fancies they were, for ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Before Ida had had breathing time to get over the introduction to Aunt Betsy, she was hurried off to see her host and hostess. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... improved our acquaintance with Colonel Wright, who always treated us with cordiality and kindness, and allowed us frequently the privilege of spending pleasant afternoons at his house. Mrs. Wright was a charming hostess, and did everything in her power to lessen the feeling of humiliation with which we regarded our ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... did not seem to hear; at least he did not answer. He was helping his hostess to alight. A moment later a plainly agitated Aunt Hannah—her gray shawl topped with a huge black one—opened ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... common, but differ widely in particular. No locality is destitute of this venerable and classic falsehood. The ancients used it, the moderns still cling to it; the poor find it handy, the rich could not keep house without it; it abounds in every clime and thrives in every latitude. The polite hostess says to the departing guest: "We have been delighted by your visit; do us the favor to come again," when she sincerely hopes that most any catastrophe may overtake her rather than another visit from this same personage. ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... his to any great extent at first. The Captain was plainly overawed by the genteel elegance of his surrounding and the manner of his hostess. But Mr. Keith was very much at ease and full of fun and, after a time, a little of Shadrach's self-consciousness disappeared. When he learned that grandfather Wyeth had been a seafaring man he came out of his shell sufficiently to narrate, ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... young Wife of Lieutenant-General von Wreech, a Marlborough Campaigner, made a Knight of Malta the other day; [Militair-Lexikon, iv. 269.]—HIS charming young Wife, and Daughter of Madam Colonel Schoning our hostess here; lives at Tamsel, in high style, in these parts: mark the young Lady well,—"who did not appear indifferent to him." No!—"and in fact she was in all her beauty; a complexion ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... apart, almost with the detachment of a hostess receiving a casual acquaintance, as she recounted the incidents of the disastrous ride. Hilmer had been driving fairly carefully, but in swerving to avoid running down a cow that suddenly had made its appearance in the road ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Mrs. Collier, the hostess, was an elderly, heavy-featured woman, decidedly over-dressed. Barnes knew her kind. One encounters her everywhere: the otherwise intelligent woman who has no sense about her clothes. Mrs. Van Dyke, her daughter, was a woman of thirty, tall, dark and handsome in ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... afternoon—the placid interlude, on a day of rest, between the chores of the morning and those of evening. But the calm was for the ear alone. To the eye certain activities, silent but swift, were under way. On the shaded side piazza of the ranch house I could discern my hostess, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill; she sat erect, even in a rocking-chair, and knitted. On the kitchen steps, full in the westering sun, sat the Chinese chef of the Arrowhead, and knitted—a yellow, smoothly running automaton. On a shaded bench by ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... of playing hostess with extreme distaste, and as the meal progressed she experienced a growing uneasiness. Longorio's bearing had changed since his arrival. He was still extravagantly courteous, beautifully attentive; he maintained a flow of conversation that relieved her of any effort, and yet he displayed ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... half past nine or ten in the evening, the place was already pretty well crowded, and the white-gloved negro servant at the door was still receiving streams of guests.—The drawing-rooms were brilliant with gaslight, and as hot as ovens. The host and hostess stood just within the door of entrance; Laura was presented, and then she passed on into the maelstrom of be-jeweled and richly attired low-necked ladies and white-kid-gloved and steel pen-coated gentlemen and wherever she moved she ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... hand and said that he had to meet a man and clattered down the stairs. Hopalong thought that he, also, had to meet a man and, excusing himself, hastened after his friend and overtook him in the Street, where he forced a confession. Returning to his hostess he told her of the whole outrage, and she was angry at first, but seeing the humorous side of it, she became convulsed with laughter. Her father re-read his paragraph for the thirteenth time and then, slamming the magazine ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... sharp eyes and keen ears, and within the past forty-eight hours they had found plenty to see or hear, for a guest had come to Severndale. Yes, a most unusual type of guest, too. As a rule Severndale's guests brought unalloyed pleasure to its young hostess and her servants, or to her sailor father if he happened to be enjoying one of his rare leaves, for Captain Stewart had been on sea-duty for many successive years, preferring it to land duty since his wife's death when Peggy, his only child, was but six years of age. Severndale had held only ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... subject of conversation. The art of combining the duties of mother and hostess is sometimes a ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... delightful hostess, she loved situations, and her social tact was illimitable. In a few minutes Trent was seated in a comfortable and solid chair with a little round table by his side, drinking tea and eating buttered scones, and if not altogether at his ease very nearly so. Opposite ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said the stout lady, and Norah shook hands with Colonel West, who was short and stout and pompous, and said explosively, "Haw! Delighted! Cold night, what?"—which had the effect of making his hostess absolutely speechless. Somehow with the assistance of Allenby and Sarah, the newcomers were "drafted" to their rooms, and Norah and her father sought ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... daughter's favour he would be entirely out of place. Fred Hamilton was the only other one present outside the family. The young man sat in sulky silence most of the evening, a circumstance which seemed to put his pretty hostess into a high ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... of girls who love and feel themselves unloved. The demon forced her to show a moral unattractiveness that did not really express her character. And realizing that she must be seeming rather horrid in condemning her hostess and representing the trip as a failure, she ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... had happened: his hostess had forgotten that he was coming. Young as Faxon was, this sad lucidity of soul had been acquired as the result of long experience, and he knew that the visitors who can least afford to hire a carriage are almost always those whom their hosts forget to send for. ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... was hungry; but this sight was a damper upon his appetite. He was indignant at seeing such a timid young creature so roughly handled; but he dared not give utterance to his emotions, for fear of increasing the persecution to which she was subjected. Afterward, when his host and hostess were absent from the room, and Louisa was clearing the table, impelled by a feeling of pity, which he could not repress, he laid his hand gently upon her head, and said, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... country house he was sitting at dinner next to his hostess, a lady who, as will sometimes happen, liked to play the part of Lady Arbitress of the whole neighbourhood. She told him how much she disapproved of the Athanasian Creed, and described how she had risen and left the village church when the parson began to read it; and thinking ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... up at the inn. As soon as he had seen his horse attended to, Edward, with his saddle-bags on his arm, went into the room in the inn where all the travellers congregated. Having procured a bed and given his saddle-bags into the charge of the hostess, he sat down by the fire, which, although it was warm weather, was ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... hostess fastened upon him. "Captured! What do you mean? It was Gordon Elliot that brought you in and saved ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... that Mark did not claim him as a cousin, though to his surprise he saw that Mark stood particularly well with the young hostess. ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... herself upright, was well dressed and well informed. She had a good manner, and in mixed company never allowed a drop in the conversation. But as she talked well this was not so tiresome as it might have been. She was quoted amongst her circle, which was a wide one, as an excellent hostess, and the tribute was deserved, because, in addition to her conversational aptitude, she had the art of looking after her guests without apparent effort. She had been strict with her daughters, but they were now her companions, ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... ever go to Scotland, but some weeks later I was invited to lecture in Edinburgh. Another visitor in the house where I was a guest there, was the wife of the County Court Judge of Cumberland, and I showed her and our hostess the part of the Latin inscription I had retained, and suggested that perhaps it might exist somewhere in Edinburgh. However nothing answering to what I had seen was to be found, so we relegated the whole thing to the region of unaccountable fancies, and thought no more about it. The ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... with flowers, and with other trifles. The walls, the carpet, the hangings, and the upholstery of the arm-chairs were all of a rosy hue, so that Mrs. Jasher looked as young as Dame Holda in the Venusberg. A very pretty room and a very charming hostess, was the verdict of the young gentlemen from the Fort, who came here to flirt when they ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... my husband back from the brink of social disaster," said one wife. "We sat opposite to one another at a dinner party where the conversation neared a topic that would be, I knew, extremely painful and embarrassing to our hostess. My John led the talk—all unaware of the peril—and when the next sentence would, I felt, be fatal, I pressed his foot under the table. What do you think that blessed innocent did? Winced visibly and sharply—stopped ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Catherine II. had no sooner mounted the throne than she began to pay a commissioner at this literary court, and even Maria Theresa distinguished Madame Geoffrin in a remarkable manner, on her return from Poland. Besides, we are made acquainted by Marmontel, who ranked his hostess among the gods of this earth, with the anxiety and cautiousness of this lady of the world, who afterward broke altogether with the chiefs of the new literature, and most humbly did homage to the old faith, because she had never ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... a laugh, as usual, and the guests followed their hostess toward the dining-hall, where the fragrance of flowers and refreshingly cool air greeted them. They took their places at the table, Mozart opposite Eugenie and the Baron. His neighbor on one side was a little elderly lady, an unmarried aunt of Franziska's; on ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... asked Pollyanna, detecting the unmistakable air of ownership in her hostess's manner. "How perfectly lovely! Then you must be rich—awfully—I mean EXCEEDINGLY rich, more than the kind that just has carpets in every room and ice cream Sundays, like the Whites—one of my Ladies' Aiders, you know. ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... accustomed to impatience in men, and she was inflexible as a hostess. "Well, of course, we couldn't begin without them, could we?" she asked. "There they come now, Father. William, ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... of the dining-room door, and realises that his scent is not so good as he had thought it. He bids his hostess and the COMTESSE good-bye in a burlesque whisper and tiptoes off to safer places. JOHN having gone out with him, MAGGIE can no longer avoid the COMTESSE's reproachful eye. That much injured lady advances upon her ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... us'd the only antique philters, Deriv'd from old heroic tilters. But now triumphant, and victorious, 45 He held th' atchievement was too glorious For such a conqueror to meddle With petty constable or beadle, Or fly for refuge to the Hostess Of th' Inns of Court and Chancery, Justice, Who might, perhaps reduce his cause 50 To th' ordeal trial of the laws, Where none escape, but such as branded With red-hot irons have past bare-handed; And, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... two, with pretty dishes. Liquor had no place on the cover, but a shining tea-pot, brought in by a smiling negress, was placed at her right hand. Her talk for a time was of the tea, the food, his taste as to sugar and other things pertaining to her duties as hostess. All his lurid imaginings of her faded into the wind, and a thousand new and old conceptions of wife and home and peaceful middle age came thronging like sober-colored birds. If she were playing a game it was well done and successful. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... very calmly took a seat at the table and accepted the cup of tea the hostess was preparing for him. The conversation ceased. The Soyot finished the tea, smoked his long pipe and, standing ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... to sustain the conversation, but leaned back in her chair and stared at her hostess with a very critical and searching glance. Those two questioning dark eyes played eagerly over her from her brown curls down to the little shining shoe-tips which peeped from under the grey skirt. Especially they dwelt upon her face, reading it and rereading it. Never had Maude been so inspected, ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... washed and swept, but there was no furniture of any kind—only a pile of fresh-cut pine-branches, with which the place was perfumed, and two or three rough logs which had been used as seats the night before by the host and hostess of this—to ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... last year, and of the man of her choice, who at the present moment is lighting a cigar and cogitating in a somewhat ruffled frame of mind over the piece of news he has just been made acquainted with by his hostess. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... room, my hostess's grand-daughter, a nice little child, comes in, and is pleased to see my parti-coloured carpet-bag, my Scotch plaid, and the red leather lining of the portmanteau. I directly cut out for her, from a sheet of white paper, a Turkish mosque, with minarets ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... invitations," agreed Perry. "I get you, but that might cause our hostess embarrassment, eh? Why not just save her all that ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... chamber between them! This is the plot; all that happens afterwards is merely supplementary. To avoid the continued persecutions of the unseen Adolphe, the lady agrees, after some becoming hesitation, to pass to the hostess as the wife of the sentimental traveller. The landlady is satisfied, for what so natural as that they should have but one bed-room between them? so she carefully locks them in, and the audience have the pleasure of seeing them pass the night ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... the week-end prisoners dawdled down from their gorgeous cells, to a living-room as big and as full of seats as a hotel lobby. They threw themselves, on lounges and huge chairs and every form of encouragement to indolence. They threw themselves also on the mercy and the ingenuity of their hostess. But Mrs. Winnsboro expected her guests to bring their own plans and take care of themselves. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... one Lt. Blease, our American censor who read all our letters in England to see that we did not criticise our Allies. One day at Soyla grass stew was on the menu, says a corporal. One of the men offered his Russian hostess a taste of it. She spat it out on the hay before the cow. The cow was insulted and refused either stew or hay. Much was done to improve the ration by General Ironside who accepted with sympathy the suggestions of Major Nichols. Coffee finally took the place of tea. More bread and less ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... was yet dark the travelers, unwilling to lose time waiting for breakfast, crept out of the house, leaving their thanks for their kind hostess, and pressed rapidly on to Manikin Town, on the James River and Kanawha Canal, half a day's march from Richmond, where they arrived while it was yet early morning. The green sward between the canal and ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... whipped cream and the cigars. Then he asked to see the other members of the family, and Mlle. Malo told him there were only two—"two old women!" He made a face at that, and said all the same he should like to meet them; and she answered: "'One is your hostess, the Comtesse de Rechamp, who is ill in bed'—for my poor daughter-in-law was lying in bed paralyzed with rheumatism—'and the other her mother-in-law, a very old lady who ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... carving in the central hall, the dessert-service was of George II. silver-gilt, and the china beautiful old Spode. Everything else about the place told its own story of desperate financial conditions. Our hostess declared that it was impossible for a woman to manage a sugar estate, as she could not always be about amongst the canes and in the boiler-house, and her sons were not yet old enough to help her. No one who has not experienced it can picture the heat of a Jamaican ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... we had disposed of all the hot griddle cakes we could eat, and had sincerely thanked our host and hostess for their hospitality, we wended our way back to the island, silently packed up our goods and started home ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... interesting tale, and you tell tales well," he said, as he got up and put on his coat. "All good things must have an end, but I hope to see you again ere long." He shook hands with hostess and host, drained the pot of beer that had been fetched from a public-house, with a "Here's to poverty in a plug-hole, and a man with a wooden leg to trample ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... opened, an officer and several men entered through it, and a large party of us assembled in Mrs Growler's kitchen. The lieutenant and midshipman who commanded the press-gang took very coolly the abuse which our worthy host and hostess so liberally bestowed on them. We were allowed to go, two and two at a time, under escort, to collect our traps, and then marched down to a couple of boats waiting for us at the quay. In a short time we were put ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... be going thus suddenly and unceremoniously to be the guests of a lady whom neither of them had ever seen, but "'tis the way we have in the Army," was the laughing response when she ventured to speak of it, and any hesitancy or embarrassment she might have felt vanished at the instant when their hostess appeared on the piazza and both her hands were outstretched in welcome. "Did you ever see a lovelier expression in a woman's face?" was her first impulsive exclamation when she and Grace were shown to their rooms. Yet, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... daughter Rose, eleven years of age. One part of the entertainment provided was a series of tableaux upon a miniature stage at one end of the dining-room. All went well till the third tableau, in which the young hostess took part, She incautiously approached too near the footlights, when her white dress caught fire and instantly blazed up. All present were spellbound, and it seemed as if the little girl's fate was sealed. Luckily one of the young guests, Fred Fenton, retained his coolness ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... gaining ease from the ingenuousness of the little girl and from the knowledge that she was older than her hostess. ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the Signal Office, so we went and had some food—cold sausage and coffee. Our hostess was buxom and hilarious. There was also a young girl about the place, Helene. She was of a middle size, serious and dark, with a mass of black lustreless hair. She could not have been more than nineteen. Her baby was put to bed immediately we arrived. We loved them both, because they ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... and walking to her guests, welcomes them with regal splendor, receiving Miss Mueller with rather obvious dignity. Mrs. Nesbit in those days was a woman of whom the doctor said, "There is no foolishness about Bedelia." The jovial Mr. Brotherton attempts some pleasant hyperbole of speech, which the hostess ignores and the Doctor greets with a smile. Mrs. Nesbit leads the way to the piano, being a woman of purpose, and whisks the eldest Miss Morton upon a stool and has the hymn book opened in less time than it takes to tell how she did it. The Doctor and Laura stand watching the company, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... entertainments for the approaching social season that promise to eclipse all previous gayeties of Red Gap's smart set ... holding the reins of social leadership with a firm grasp ... distinguished for her social graces and tact as a hostess ... their palatial home on Ophir Avenue, the scene of so much of the smart social life that ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... The Shepherd's Song on the Lord's Day. Translated by W.W. Skeat The Castle by the Sea. Translated by Henry W. Longfellow Song of the Mountain Boy. Translated by C.T. Brooks Departure. Translated by Percy MacKaye Farewell. Translated by Alfred Baskerville The Hostess' Daughter. Translated by W.W. Skeat The Good Comrade. Translated by W.W. Skeat The White Hart. Translated by H.W. Dulcken The Lost Church. Translated by W.H. Furness Charlemagne's Voyage. Translated by Margarete Muensterberg Free Art. Translated by Margarete Muensterberg Taillefer. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Roman ruins, than the populous and wealthy streets of Nismes would be. The inn where we dined and slept preserved the same character most rigidly; indeed, Madame, whose ideas seemed perfectly in unison with those of mine hostess of La Luc, wished apparently that our feast at Forum Julii should be entirely intellectual, and that we should rise from dinner with unclouded heads, to enjoy a walk among its antiquities. We were really diverted by the formal ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... fortunate to-day," said she, "for we are going as it seems to enjoy the society of our good hostess, whom we thank besides for having kindly maintained with us the empty ceremony of announcing herself—a ceremony with which, having the keys of our ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I hope?" her hostess asked. "You have given me a happy time." Then turning eagerly to Jeannette, she added, "Did ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... on a sofa by our hostess, who removed her bonnet and shawl, and spoke in the sweetest and kindest manner to her. To my surprise, ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... to answer, encouraging her, when the door opened: it was dinner coming in, for it was now half-past one. The marquise paused and watched what was brought in, as though she were playing hostess in her own country house. She made the woman and the two men who watched her sit down to the table, and turning to the doctor, said, "Sir, you will not wish me to stand on ceremony with you; these good people always dine with me to keep me company, and if you approve, we will do the same ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the little hostess prepared the meal, a man looked out from the partly open door behind her, with big dark eyes, which were like her own, yet blurred by a mist ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... performance of "Tristan and Isolde." It is not out of place to remark that Brock loathed the Wagnerian opera; he was of "The Mikado" cult. He took the seats with a definite purpose in mind to cast the burden of responsibility upon his wife, who would be forced to extend herself in the capacity of hostess, giving him the much-needed opportunity to secure safe footing in the dark area of uncertainty. He believed himself capable of diverting the youthful Miss Rodney and his discreet sister-in-law, but he was consumed by an unholy dread of Rodney pere; something told him that this shrewd ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... touching kindness, and said to her, "The truth is, Mother Marguerite, I have still a schoolboy's appetite. Have you nothing to give me?" The good woman, almost beside herself with happiness, served his Majesty with eggs and milk; and when this simple repast was ended, his Majesty gave his aged hostess a purse full of gold, saying to her, "You know, Mother Marguerite, that I believe in paying my bills. Adieu, I shall not forget you." And while the Emperor remounted his horse, the good old woman, standing on the threshold of her door, promised him, with tears ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... many elaborate details of the new household. Such stories naturally caused much family embarrassment. Then she worked up an imaginary entertainment and gave invitations to her brothers and sister at the request of a pretended hostess. Just before the event she, simulating the hostess, telephoned that an accident had taken place and the party would not be given. An extremely delicate situation arose because she alleged a certain young man wanted to marry her. The truth of her ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... and to his hostess's pressing entreaties that he would try this dish or not pass that, he did not answer at all. He felt, indeed, as though the muscles of his throat would not let him swallow and if he opened his mouth wide enough ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... de Nailles gave a dry little cough which was meant to impose silence on the subject. She was not a prude, but she disapproved of anything that was bad form at her receptions. The Colonel's revelations had to be made in a lower tone, while his hostess endeavored to bring back the conversation to the charming reply made by M. Renan to the somewhat insipid address of a ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the dock entrance, at the well-known inn, "The Dog and Duck," and taking me to the landlady told her to supply me with whatever I wanted to eat and drink. I thanked him very much as he left me there, and the hostess asking me if I should like something at once, to which I replied, "I should think so indeed," speedily placed a capital dinner before me. I did not fail after this, whenever I felt hungry, to pay a visit to "The Dog and Duck," not being particular as ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... magnificent bronzes. Having dined one evening at her house, he remarked as they all entered the dining-room, "Now I suppose that, according to your American custom, we shall all put our feet up on the chimney-piece." "Certainly," replied his hostess, "and as your legs are so much longer than the others, you may put your feet on top of the looking-glass," which was about ten feet from the ground. Thackeray, I was told, was offended at this, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and looked with hurrying heart at her hostess. Before she could get a preliminary idea of the woman she was ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... triumphant," Harry Annesley had said to his hostess as he left Mrs. Armitage's house in the Paragon, at Cheltenham. He was absolutely triumphant, throwing his hat up into the air in the abandonment of his joy. For he was not a man to have conceived so well of his own parts as to have flattered ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... for the present. I am forgetting my duties as hostess. Mademoiselle de Valecourt, we are alike mourners—you for your noble father, I for my son, both of us for France and for our religion. Yet I welcome you to Laville. For you, brighter days may be in store. My nephew is a gallant gentleman, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... is staying with friends, no man should pay his addresses to her unknown to her hostess or against that lady's wishes. It is better to end a visit than to abuse hospitality. The hostess is responsible to her visitor's parents for the time being, and the lovers should consider her position. Whatever social or domestic restrictions may stand between a man and the woman he ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... we have a children's dance at our house. Emelie will be here also. There is not a good understanding between us two. She is cold to me, too witty, and too——, but I will do my best to be a good hostess; and when the day is ended, I will sit and look at my beautiful sleeping boy, and be ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... after another, and while some of them spoke to their hostess and the other women Leslie walked up to the little table where several letters were spread out. Millicent watched him as he did it, and there was no doubt that the very way he moved was suggestive of restrained eagerness. She saw him tear open a telegram and crumple it ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... will we to dinner.—Get you home And fetch the chain: by this I know 'tis made: Bring it, I pray you, to the Porcupine; For there's the house; that chain will I bestow,— Be it for nothing but to spite my wife,—- Upon mine hostess there: good sir, make haste: Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me, I'll knock elsewhere, to see if ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the hospitality of Mrs. Robert Murray, at whose house the British generals stopped for rest and refreshment after driving back our troops. Instead of continuing a vigorous pursuit or making any effort to intercept other parties, they spent a valuable interval at the board of their entertaining hostess, whose American sympathies added flavor and piquancy to the conversation. "Mrs. Murray," says Dr. Thacher in his military journal, "treated them with cake and wine, and they were induced to tarry two hours or more, Governor Tryon frequently joking ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... the mantelpiece, near which Mr. Gray had been standing until her entrance, and curtseying afresh to him, and pretty deeply this time, because of his cloth, and her being hostess, and he, a new guest. She asked him if he would not prefer speaking to her in her own private parlour, and looked as though she would have conducted him there. But he burst out with his errand, of which he was full even ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Hagen: / "Stand nigh unto the wall, Let not the brands all flaming / upon your helmets fall. Into the blood beneath you / tread them with your feet. In sooth in evil fashion / us doth our royal hostess greet." ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... was to recall her; our next thought, to leave her to herself. If her better nature still struggled, remonstrance of ours, we considered, might only serve to set wounded pride against it; and wounded passions, like wounded bravoes, fight most desperately. We saw no more of our young hostess till the hour of dinner, to which we sat down to a tete-a-tete. Emily's sweet face had regained all its usual expression of good humour, and by almost an excess of attention, and an effort at more than ordinary liveliness, she strove to make amends for the slight ebullition ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... wife, goddess of the kitchen, and final court of appeal. What a difference a good-natured, good-looking woman makes in a place! 'Tis a glimpse into the obvious, but there are occasions on which such commonplaces shine with a blessed radiance, and the moment when our attractive hostess flowered out upon us from her forbidding background was one of them. With her on our side, we forgot our fears, and, with an assured air, asked her husband to show us to our rooms. Lamp in hand, he led us up staircases and along corridors—for the hotel was quite a barracks—thawing out into ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... nightcaps were laid upon the dressing-table. Mr Kirby retired before his companions, and was soon sound asleep. Perceiving no caps ready for them, his friends inquired for what they considered the due appurtenances of the pillow: they were assured by the hostess that three nightcaps were laid upon the table, but they stoutly averred they had not seen them; the landlady no less stoutly maintaining her side of the question. What actually passed in her own mind did not transpire, but she appealed to the first gentleman as being the only one ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... Mrs. Thrale and I were much pleased with our hostess, Mrs. Laurence, who seemed something above her station in her inn. While we were at cards before supper, we were much surprised by the sounds of a pianoforte. I jumped up, and ran to listen whence it proceeded. I found it came from the next room, where the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Mrs. DUIT CHEEPELEY'S Fancy Dress Pic-nic at Burnham Beeches will be, that every guest will bring his own hamper. The hostess herself, as Ceres, the Goddess of Plenty, will provide the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... eager husband, she was presented to the sovereigns, and knelt to do them homage. Ferdinand himself gazed on her a moment astonished; then with animated courtesy hastily raised her, and playfully chid the movement as unmeet from a hostess to her guests. ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... ushered in Amherst, thinking the room empty, had not mentioned his name; and for a moment he and his hostess examined each other in silence, Bessy puzzled at the unannounced appearance of a good-looking young man who might have been some one she had met and forgotten, while Amherst felt his self-possession slipping away into the depths of a pair of eyes so ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... falling down them; thoughtful everyway Of others first—The kind of child at play That "gave up," for the rest, the ripest pear Or peach or apple in the garden there Beneath the trees where swooped the airy swing— She pushing it, too glad for anything! Or, in the character of hostess, she Would entertain her friends delightfully In her play-house,—with strips of carpet laid Along the garden-fence within the shade Of the old apple-trees—where from next yard Came the two dearest friends in her regard, The little Crawford girls, Ella and Lu— As shy and lovely ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... had admired everything in a way that made Mrs. Puff-Pudgy very proud and happy, their hostess took one of the lighted candles from a bracket and said she would now escort them to the house of the Honorable ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... Goddess Fricka is a disagreeable goddess of domesticity, and the story is told of a first reading of the opera series, which involved an anecdote of Fricka and his hostess: ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... kindly-faced little girl, disappeared, and speedily returned with the officer's wife (who had a dainty baby in her arms) and a glass of currant wine, which she pressed on Ellen. Mrs. Williams heard Ellen's story in silence, looking significantly at her hostess when it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... with a jerk, and turned to look full at his companion. It was late on the Monday evening, and the two men, after an hour's chat on the verandah to the tune of Mrs. Wade's knitting-needles, had bidden their hostess good-night and strolled back ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... but did not reply. Whereat Mrs. Penfold whose curiosity was insatiable, within lady-like bounds, tried to ask questions of her hostess. A wife? Surely ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... To Venice he turned his steps each autumn of these last two years; lingering by the way among the mountains or in the beautiful border region at their feet. It was thus that, in the early autumn of 1889, he came yet once again to Asolo. His old friend and hostess, Mrs Arthur Bronson, had discovered a pleasant, airy abode on the old town-wall, overhanging a ravine, and Asolo, seen from this "castle precipice-encurled," recovered all its old magic. It was here that he put together the disconnected ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... quickly in Pala-dar, city of the golden domes. Detis spent many hours in the laboratory with his two visitors and the fair Ora was usually at his side. She was an efficient helper to her father and a gracious hostess to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... Drayton Deane appealed to me for my opinion of it I made answer, getting up, that I detested Hugh Vereker and simply couldn't read him. I departed with the moral certainty that as the door closed behind me Deane would brand me for awfully superficial. His hostess wouldn't contradict THAT ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... conduct. At the close of the battle Duncan was wounded; and as the hospital was full at the time, he was billeted in the house of a poor French Canadian widow in the Quebec suburb. Here, though a foreigner and an enemy, he received much kind attention from his excellent hostess and her family, consisting of a young man about his own age, and a pretty black-eyed lass not more than sixteen. The widow Perron was so much occupied with other lodgers—for she kept a sort of boarding-house—that she had not much time to give to ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... To host and hostess thus with fortune blest, Lief had I come with better news to bear Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship; For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond Of guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were, As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith To one, and greetings from the other had, ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... at home, but at what a cost to his appetite when he had an invitation to dine at a boy friend's house! His hostess said, concernedly, when dessert was reached, "You refuse a second helping of pie? Are you suffering from indigestion, Johnny?" ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... it was noon, And I found myself alone, Since my hostess and Lascaro For the chase ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... with the charming grace of a competent hostess. She spoke seldom, yet when the conversation turned to the great world above in which her husband was born, she questioned intelligently and with eager interest. Evidently she had a considerable knowledge of the subject, but ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... discovered. Neither had he been able to see Sally anywhere about, and the conviction became stronger upon him that the two were somewhere together, and that Patricia, her pride forgotten, was keeping the young hostess with her while she told of the terrible predicament in which she now found herself to be enmeshed; for it would be a most stupendous predicament for Patricia to face—the realization that she was in love with Morton, in spite of the contract in writing she had forced ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... the room, leaning on lady Feng's arm. She and Mrs. Hseh took their places, with due regard to the distinction between hostess and visitors; and Hseh Pao-ch'ai and Shih Hsiang-yn seated themselves below. Madame Wang then came forward, and presented with her own hands tea to old lady Chia, while Li Kung-ts'ai handed a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... sensation about his ears, after having made this laudable announcement, and he began to cast about for a pretext for taking his leave. His hostess was, however, not disposed to let him ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... Lady RANDOLPH'S. A merry crowd there. Every one very gay and amusing; but we forgot that WINSTON was our hostess's son and castigated him badly. Lady JULIET said that with some people, no matter what they begin to talk about, even with Cabinet Ministers, it all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... notes, unusual powers of observation and insight into character are displayed. That Haydon also had a keen sense of humour is proved by his account of an evening at Mrs. Siddons' where the hostess read aloud Macbeth to her guests. 'She acts Macbeth herself much better than either Kemble or Kean,' he writes. 'It is extraordinary the awe that this wonderful woman inspires. After her first reading the men retired to tea. While we were all eating toast ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... house to stay, or else for lunch or tea or dinner, there were pious pilgrims from all parts of the world, as to a shrine—from Paris, from Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden; from America especially. Leah had to play the hostess almost every day of her life, and show off her lion and make him roar and wag his tail and stand on his hind legs—a lion that was not always in the mood to tumble and be shown off, unless the pilgrims were pretty and of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... I said, "if I stay a year." In the morning I set out. The song had come from the belt of trees that hang lovingly over a little stream on its merry way down the mountain, and thither I turned my steps. Now, my hostess had a drove of twenty cows, wild, head-tossing creatures,—"Holsteins" they were,—and having half a dozen pastures, they were changed about from day to day. Driving them every morning was almost as exciting as the stampede of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... that he is not in a condition to be imprudent with impunity. Sir Miles Oakstead was absolutely shocked to see the alteration in his appearance, as well as in his spirits; and although both our kind host and hostess are most solicitous on his account, it happens unfortunately that they are at this juncture quite alone, so that he is without companions of his own age. I must not, however, alarm you. The fact is, that circumstances have ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a visit only, or in the employment of the proprietor of a house in which he or she resides, should have their letters addressed first to themselves, and underneath their own name should be that of the owner of the house—their host or hostess, master or mistress. Under a guest's name you should write "care of So-and-so," and under a servant's name "At John Robinson's Esq.," or "At Mrs. John Robinson's." You write a pretty hand, and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... to be neither orthographic nor linguistic. The guests arrived punctually as bidden, and their hostess, clad in her most splendid attire, received them with her most gracious manner. There was nothing to foretell the fate that awaited them. Her tall, awkward daughter stood nervously by her side. Mr. Upjohn, too, kept ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... seconds, and gave me a little alarm. I was relieved when out of it tumbled an aggressive rooster, which advanced a few steps, flapped, and crowed lustily. "He was brought in to get thawed out; I suppose you will next be wondering where we keep the pig," said my hostess as she advanced to stir the fire, after which she examined "two little cripples," birds in a ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... be a little cold to Jernington, thinking it might be possible to convey to him subtly the idea that perhaps his visit had lasted long enough, that his hostess had other plans in which ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... Miss Catherine maintains with much skill. I have only one fault to find with it: she talks always to the same caller, who is pretty and has a pretty dress. That is wrong. A good hostess is equally polite to all her guests. She treats them all with consideration, and if she shows any preference it is for those who are most modest and least fortunate. One must flatter the unfortunate: it is the only flattery ...
— Our Children - Scenes from the Country and the Town • Anatole France
... was more accustomed to society than the others, and became, naturally, a sort of leader. He knew just what to do, and just how to do it,—how to get into the salon when he arrived, and how to greet his hostess. But the rest knew how to follow suit, and did it, and, though some of them were a little shy at first, not one was confused, and in a few minutes they were all quite at their ease. By the time the brief formality of being received was over, and ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... speak of Earl Haig and the Kaiser. He had a strong sense of humour, and, after a very hearty meal, announced that he didn't know how it was, but he'd "sort of lost his appetite," pretending to regard the fact as an injury, premeditated by the hospitality of our host and hostess. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... a party and go," said the hostess, only too thankful to find something to amuse the house-party for a few hours. "Where did you say ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... pass in free of duty. We then steamed round New York through much shipping and under a most marvellous new suspension bridge, which is to join New York and Brooklyn, to the dockyard; where we had another most hearty reception from our hostess. They had all been in a fidget at our being so many days late, and directly the ship was telegraphed off Sandy Hook the last night, in spite of the pouring rain, the Commodore had gone down in the tug to the Quarantine Harbour to try ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... disliked the more. Indeed, had it not been that I had promised Miss Kitwater to take up the case, and that I did not want to disappoint her, I believe I should have abandoned it there and then, out of sheer disgust. A little later our hostess proposed that we should adjourn to the house, as it was neatly lunch-time. We did so, and I was shown to a pretty bedroom to wash my hands. It was a charming apartment, redolent of the country, smelling of lavender, ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... Del Monte. Mrs. Harland was there, and made a delightful hostess. It rather amused Angela to watch Theo Dene with Sonia Dobieski, and to see how delightful Falconer's sister was to both. But somehow she contrived that Miss Dene should not be of the motoring party for the Seventeen-Mile Drive. A young officer from the Presidio was produced, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Zenobia went on to say, while her smile beamed warmth upon us all; "so I take the part of hostess for to-day, and welcome you as if to my own fireside. You shall be my guests, too, at supper. Tomorrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sisters, and begin our new ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... believe, and all that sort of thing. Don't you remember the fellows at Niagara were talking of her? As near as I could make out, she had been sent by her father to look after the ladies at the time of the attack on Cuyler's party, and was acting the part of hostess when I met them, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Captain Salt returned, and found his son on the settle where he had left him. Tristram was not sitting, however, but stretched at length and breathing heavily. At the farther end of the table sat the host and hostess of the inn, engaged in ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... saintly Mary, with her hands full of prayer-books!" exclaimed Polly Ocklebourne, as her hostess came into the room. "So glad you're home, dear. This little handful of sinners wants to be put through its paces before coming into the rarefied atmosphere of bishops and things. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... no good, poor lady,' said the hostess of the inn. 'And they do say she's a perfect picture to ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... this sense of antagonism between them, for Joan had not missed the swift glance, the cold hardening of her hostess' face, it was a relief to have Fanny between them. Fanny was talking very hard and fast, it was quite unnecessary for anyone else to ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... and guest dined on the balcony, the farming folk and such of the household as could be spared were enjoying a starlit supper elsewhere. Later, my hostess took me downstairs and introduced her English visitor to a merry but strictly decorous party having a special bit of sward to themselves, bailiff, vintagers, stockmen, dairywoman, washerwoman and odd hands making up a round dozen of men, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... glance away. She looked at her hostess instead, with an expression of candour so admirable that one might easily have mistaken it to be insincere. It was part of her that she could swim in any current, and it was pleasant enough, for the moment, to swim in Alicia's. Both the Moselle ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... just a girl," muttered Renouard. The other agreed. Very likely not. Had been playing the London hostess to tip-top people ever since she put her hair ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... tardy one arrived, beautiful in her serene, straightforward gaze from under fine brows and a wealth of dark hair that caught threads of light even under the gas-jets, and made hurriedly breathless excuses to her hostess. Danvers was introduced to her immediately, and the ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman |
