"Parlour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after my arrival at Kilrush, my life was one of the most dreary monotony. The rain, which had begun to fall as I left Limerick, continued to descend in torrents, and I found myself a close prisoner in the sanded parlour of "mine inn." At no time would such "durance vile" have been agreeable; but now, when I contrasted it with all I had left behind at head quarters, it was absolutely maddening. The pleasant lounge in the morning, the social ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... and the stable is in the garret. There is a broad stone staircase on the outside of the house, by which you enter into the several apartments. The kitchen is at the bottom of the hill, a bedchamber above that, the parlour (where we dined) is the third storey, and on the top of the ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... hers the moment she entered Jebb's parlour. His greeting was a joyous one and Belle felt the colour mount in her cheeks as Hartigan drew her aside to talk. There was something very stimulating about him, she found—a thrill in his voice, his eyes, and his presence that she had ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... ten at night. He got a sack out of the buggy, shouldered it, and staggered with it through the cottage yard, and knocked at the door. A woman's voice said "Come in," and he entered, and set his sack behind the stove in the parlour, saying politely to the old lady who sat reading the "Missionary ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lunch was over the next day the front door bell tingled, and presently the parlour-maid knocked, and came in with a card on a ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... forecast: This chap here, in the dingy parlour of his Montana ranch, playing these indescribable melodies to the stars, his cowmen outside wondering what was the matter with their "inards." Somehow this ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... a good deal about twenty years ago when at Ashestiel; but, coming down one morning to the parlour, I found, as the room was small and confined, that the smell was unpleasant, and laid aside the use of the Nicotian weed for many years; but was again led to use it by the example of my son, a hussar officer, and my son-in-law, an Oxford student. I could lay it aside to-morrow; I laugh ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... your husband when he has been drinking. Wait until next morning. Then give him a cup of coffee for his headache. Afterwards lead him into the parlour, put your arms about him, and give him a lecture. It will have more weight with him than any ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... higher family than his own. It had been foolish modesty in him hitherto to conceal the fact that a branch of the Freelys held a manor in Yorkshire, and to shut up the portrait of his great uncle the admiral, instead of hanging it up where a family portrait should be hung—over the mantelpiece in the parlour. Admiral Freely, K.C.B., once placed in this conspicuous position, was seen to have had one arm only, and one eye—in these points resembling the heroic Nelson—while a certain pallid insignificance of feature confirmed the relationship ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... again in the poorly-furnished parlour where they had parted. But they did not sit as near to each other as of old. For she had lived alone so long that she had grown old-maidish, and she was feeling vexed with him for having dirtied the carpet with his muddy boots. And he had worked so long earning money that he had grown hard ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the hall is the parlour, which was originally floored, like the sitting-room, with stone flags, since taken up and replaced by boards. This is carpeted, and contains a comfortable old-fashioned sofa, horse-hair chairs, and upon the side tables may, perhaps, be found a few specimens of valuable old china, made to do ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Miss Lavinia hesitated regretfully, it seemed so inhospitable,—she had thought to take us to several parlour concerts. Mrs. Vanderdonk, she that was a De Leyster, was going to throw open her picture gallery for charity, which would give us an opportunity to see her new house. In fact the undertow of the Whirlpool was still pulling at her ankles, even though she had ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... greater bygone poets, the long walk to Hammersmith, the small house in a square there—all was classically in order. The poet was at home. The visitor as shown in.... 'I had,' he was destined to tell Mr. Gosse, 'waited in the little parlour at least two hours, when the door was opened and a most picturesque gentleman, with hair flowing nearly or quite to his shoulders, a beautiful velvet coat and a Vandyck collar of lace about a foot deep, appeared, rubbing ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... The little parlour looked snug and inviting. The fireplace was decorated with fir cones and tiny boughs covered with silvery lichen. A great pot of mignonette perfumed the room with its sweetness. Charlie's face seemed to greet me ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... these comestibles, we made the adjournment to a luxuriously upholstered parlour, circled with plush-seated chairs and adorned with countless mirrors, and there we began to beg the question at issue, to-whit, "To what extent has Ibsen (if any) contributed towards the cause of Female Emancipation?" which was opened by a weedy, tall male gentleman, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... growled the woman, and too hungry to be particular about the tone of invitation, I strode into the parlour of that strange refreshment place. The woman was the first I had seen of the outer race, and better than might have been expected in appearance. Big, strong, and ruddy, she was a mental shock after the slender slips of girlhood on the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... bought my tinned meat (a form of preserve quite odious to me) and strolled back disconsolately to the Parade. Occasionally, flitting past the lantern window, I would steal a side glance into the cool luminosity of my own inaccessible parlour; and there always, reclining at her ease upon my sofa, was the ineradicable presentment ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... my lord withdrew into his study, in a humour that I am unable to describe, and left me, Amy, Thomas, and my daughter Susanna, as I must now call her, in the parlour together. We sat staring at each other some time, till at last Amy said, "I suppose, my lady, you have no farther business with your new daughter; she has told her story, and may now dispose of herself to the best advantage ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... Bolingbroke's rural occupations, during his country life in England, after the reversal of his attainder. He insisted on being a farmer; and to prove himself so, hired a painter to fill the walls of his parlour with rude pictures of the implements of husbandry. The poet describes him between two haycocks, watching the clouds with all the apparent anxiety of a husbandman; but to us it seems, that his mind was at ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Cresswell Oliver and Mr. Petherton knew that there was no time to be lost, and as soon as Audrey had been restored to and carried off by her mother to Mrs. Greyle's room, they summoned Vickers and Copplestone to a private parlour and demanded their latest news. Sir Cresswell listened eagerly, and in silence, until Copplestone described the return of the Pike; at that ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... too, from Mr. Dix. I found him in my parlour one morning, cringing and smiling, and, as usual, half an hour away from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... convenient chain and rope to prevent too sudden a descent. It has been suggested that through this gap the Romans passed from their moored fleets to the fortified settlements above. It was at one time possible to descend by another opening higher up the cliff to a ledge called "Puck Church Parlour." This is now inaccessible except to seabirds. The well-known view of the "Seven Sisters" is taken hereabouts and the disused "Belle Tout" lighthouse stands up well on the western slopes of Beachy Head, looking no distance ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... in a parlour? Cramm'd just as they on earth revere cramm'd— Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, But, as you by their faces see, All silent and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... me is spacious and airy enough, and has a huge barred window that overlooks the main thoroughfare. In these respects, at least, my quarters resemble an ordinary Cuban parlour in a private house. But the only articles of furniture are a couple of hard benches and a straw mattress; and although a Cuban parlour has a barred window, a brick floor, and white-washed walls, it has also a few cane-bottomed ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... pomp—such was the first and still the recurring impression of these tiny lands. As we stood across the lagoon for the town of Butaritari, a stretch of the low shore was seen to be crowded with the brown roofs of houses; those of the palace and king's summer parlour (which are of corrugated iron) glittered near one end conspicuously bright; the royal colours flew hard by on a tall flagstaff; in front, on an artificial islet, the gaol played the part of a martello. Even upon this first and distant view, the place ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only substantial, but almost handsome. A broad coach way, cut through the middle of the house, leads into a spacious, well-kept, clean yard, and on each side of the coach way there are bay windows looking into the street,—the one belonging to the commercial parlour, and the other to the so-called coffee-room. But the coffee-room has in truth fallen away from its former purposes, and is now used for a farmer's ordinary on market days, and other similar purposes. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... The parlour where the supper was laid was oak panelled, but painted white. Like a little island in the vast polished slippery floor lay a square much-worn carpet, just big enough to accommodate a moderate-sized table and the surrounding high-backed chairs. There was a tent-stitch rug before the Dutch-tiled fireplace, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conducted in a neat little cottage near the chapel belonging to one of the members, who week by week opened his doors for the accommodation of Abe and his flock. Their meeting was held in a comfortable room which served the family as kitchen and parlour; here every Monday night the quaint old shepherd came to meet his sheep. The big family table was pushed back against the window, the elbow-chair was placed at the end for the leader, all the chairs and seats in the house were brought into this room and ranged ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... and the less cheerful radiance of two smoky lamps which burnt but dimly in the shop itself, as though its plethora sat heavy on their lungs; and glancing, then, at one of the two faces by the parlour-fire; Trotty had small difficulty in recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker: always inclined to corpulency, even in the days when he had known her as established in the general line, and having a small balance against him in ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... bewildering gap of his slumber between him and previous events, he did not place the responsibility for his being in White-Folks' House upon the white folks who had put him there. His state of mind was that of the stable-puppy who knows he MUST not be found in the parlour. Not thrice in his life had Verman been within the doors of White-Folks' House, and, above all things, he felt that it was in some undefined way vital to him to get out of White-Folks' House unobserved and unknown. It was in his very blood ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... little passage was the staircase, panelled all the way up, with the instruments of the Passion and other emblems carved on a row of the panels; and at the foot of the staircase on the right lay a little parlour, very pretty, with hangings presenting the knights of the Holy Grail riding upon their Quest. Upon the left of the staircase, lay a paved hall, with a little pantry under the stairs, to the left, and the kitchens ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... could not account. "These sorts of things went on for about five years, when in October, 1875, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I was sitting" (says Mrs. Rokeby) "with three of my children in the dining-room, reading to them. I rang the bell for the parlour-maid, when the door opened, and on looking up I saw the figure of a woman come in and walk up to the side of the table, stand there a second or two, and then turn to go out again, but before reaching the door she seemed to dissolve away. She was a grey, short-looking ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... surprise it yielded. They crept into the passage. The last man closed the door noiselessly, locked it, and removed the key. A panel of light shone upon the wall a few paces ahead. The door of the lighted room was open. As Ricardo stepped silently past it, he looked in. It was a parlour meanly furnished. Hanaud touched him on the arm and pointed ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... good deal to make him like that," said one of them. "The other was sober enough. Who were they?" The landlord shook his head. "Never saw either of them before yesterday," he said. "They paid, at any rate: I wish all my customers did as much." And he went back to the little parlour which he had quitted for a few moments in order to observe the departure of the gentleman who had got so drunk upon a flask of ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Carraway detected a constraint in Cynthia's manner which Lila did not appear to share. The girl, dressed daintily in a faded muslin, with an organdy kerchief crossed over her swelling bosom, flashed upon Carraway's delighted vision like one of the maidens hanging, gilt-framed, in the old lady's parlour. That she was the particular pride of the family—the one luxury they allowed themselves besides their costly mother—the lawyer realised upon the instant. Her small white hands were unsoiled by any work, and her beautiful, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... entirely with Eliza's efforts to prevent Mary from discussing the affairs of the convent that he could hardly keep down the smile that rose to his lips. He could see Eliza's annoyance on coming into the parlour and finding Mary detailing all the gossip and confiding her own special woes, for the most part imaginary, to a visitor. Nor would Mary refrain from touching on the Reverend Mother's shortcomings. He was so ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... on her grand air, stepped into the parlour, and saw standing there and awaiting her, a young man with a thin and somewhat hard face, a firm mouth, and extraordinarily keen, grey eyes. Upon her appearing the young man stood looking upon her without a word. As a matter of fact, he ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... fun of it. That's what made him so excited. He was in the parlour all the time I was playing. But we might as well have ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... other side of the picture," etc., etc. After these very poetical themes are exhausted, they all go into the house, where they are introduced to the Vicar's wife and daughter; and while they sit chatting in the parlour over a family dinner, his son and one of his companions come in with a fine dish of trouts piled on a blue slate; and, after being caressed by the company, are sent to dinner in the nursery.—This ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... come to a definite condition at last, he found he had reached his aunt's house. The lamp was lit in the parlour and the blind was down, for it was already quite dark. He had taken twenty-five minutes to walk from Mr Ffolliot's gates to ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... Englishman retaining his native coolness, watched for his advantages, and pressed the Abbe with increasing success in proportion as he was more disturbed by passion. The conversation grew warmer, and was broken off by M. de Foncemagne's rising from table and passing into the parlour, where no one was ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... spoken that evening. Ethne went into her farm-house and sat down in the parlour. She felt cold that summer evening and had the fire lighted. She sat gazing into the bright coals with that stillness of attitude which was a sure sign with her of tense emotion. The moment so eagerly looked for had come, and it was over. She was alone now in her remote little village, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare. For Maggie Brown was said to be the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... killed, at Birmingham, I think it was, by being thus frightened. The parents had gone out into what is called an evening party. The servants, naturally enough, had their party at home; and the mistress, who, by some unexpected accident, had been brought home at an early hour, finding the parlour full of company, ran up stairs to see about her child, about two or three years old. She found it with its eyes open, but fixed; touching it, she found it inanimate. The doctor was sent for in vain: it was quite dead. The maid affected to know nothing of ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... helped Eliza up the river's bank, showed her a pretty white house at some distance, where a kind gentleman and his wife lived. The dark night had fallen, the tea-cups were on the table, and the fires were bright in kitchen and parlour, when the poor mother, all wet and weary, her feet cut by the sharp ice (for she had lost her shoes in the river), walked in, with Harry still in her arms. Before she could ask for shelter, she dropped down fainting on the floor. The good people of the ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... family—things in respect of which he had at one time believed them quite superior. Whole-heartedly concealing his impressions and his dejection, however, he made himself as pleasant as possible. Madame had thrown open her parlour, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... But others make entrance to the corridors of the mind by blind and secret ways, and there awaken the echoes of primaeval fear. The cry of the parrot—'Pieces of eight'—the tapping of the stick of the blind pirate Pew as he draws near the inn-parlour, and the similar effects of inexplicable terror wrought by the introduction of the blind catechist in Kidnapped, and of the disguise of a blind leper in The Black Arrow, are beyond the reach of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... over her face. They were open now to what that fellow Woodseer (who could speak to the point when he was not aiming at it) called the parlour, or social sitting-room; where we may have converse with the tame woman's mind, seeing the door to the clawing recesses ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... have hammered away with the narrow knocker—there was no bell—for half an hour before making any one hear, and then probably it would have been by the accident of the servant going by the passage, and not by dint of noise. The household lived in the back part of the house. There was a parlour well furnished, sweet with flowers placed there fresh daily, and with the odour of those in the garden, whose scent came in at the ever open window; but no one sat in it from week's end to week's end. The whole life of the inmates passed in two back ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... was such a mean supper to get punished for," added Catherine, grinning; "only cold baked beans and apples. The trouble is that Miss Marlowe is death on suppers since Christine Dawson caught pneumonia last year when they climbed out on to the sun-parlour roof, and of course now that ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... live? and whether The fourteen Murphys all pigged together? The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners, And what they boiled for their Sunday dinners? What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf, Crockery, china, wooden, or delf? And if the parlour of Mrs. O'Grady Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady? Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle? Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle? What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown? And the weekly score they ran up ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... impelled me was a hidden, obscure necessity, a completely masked and unaccountable phenomenon. Or perhaps some idle and frivolous magician (there must be magicians in London) had cast a spell over me through his parlour window as I explored the maze of streets east and west in solitary leisurely walks without chart and compass. Till I began to write that novel I had written nothing but letters, and not very many of these. I never made a note of a fact, of an impression, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... none can rival, I invariably succeeded in that in which the greatest men in the country fail! Am I to be branded because I have made half a million by a good book? What if I have kept a gambling-house? From the back parlour of an oyster-shop my hazard table has been removed to this palace. Had the play been foul, this metamorphosis would never have occurred. It is true I am an usurer. My dear sir, if all the usurers in this great metropolis could only pass in procession before you at this moment, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... do," exclaimed his amiable consort. "But you do agitate me so much. Come into the parlour, Winifred, and dry your eyes directly, or I'll send you to bed. Mr. Wood, I desire you'll put on your best things, and join us as soon as possible. Thames, you needn't tidy yourself, as you've hurt your arm. Mr. Kneebone will excuse you. Dear ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... her fame; Should tell how a girl from a cattle-ranche That night defeated an avalanche. Where is the wonder the engineer Of the train she saved, in half a year Had wooed her and won her? And here they are For their homeward trip in a parlour car! Which goes to show that Old Nature's plans Were wrecked with the Bridge ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which, after He had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the great moment. Madame Valiere lost the clue to her movements, felt her suddenly as a stranger. But finally Madame Depine drew herself together and led the way into the coiffeurs. The proprietor, who had reentered his parlour, reemerged gloomily. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... closed the gate behind me, that I shut myself into Peace. The house was always somewhat dark, and there were no domestic sounds. The two old ladies, sisters, both born in the last century, sat in the cool, dim parlour, netting or sewing. Rebecca was small, with a nut-cracker nose and chin; Mary, tall and dignified, needed no velvet under the net cap. I can feel now the touch of the cool dove-coloured silk against my cheek, as I sat on the floor, watching ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... first exclamation is, 'Sure I have sinn'd'—'Now heaven be praised if all be well!' Being still perplexed with the remembrance of her 'too lively' dream—she then dresses herself, and modestly prays to be forgiven for 'her sins unknown.' The two companions now go to the Baron's parlour, and Geraldine tells her story to him. This, however, the poet judiciously leaves out, and only signifies that the Baron recognized in her the daughter of his old friend Sir Roland, with whom he had had a deadly quarrel. Now, however, he despatches his tame poet, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... grown up in colleges as a place where the Fellows might meet together, partly about business, partly for the sake of society. In early times, as the Fellows shared their chambers with their pupils, there could have been no privacy. The room seems to have been called the Parlour for some time; the name Combination Room is now universal at Cambridge, and may have arisen from the fact that the cost of running the room was met by the Fellows combining together for the purpose. At ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... we shall, but anyway you had better have them in readiness, we may possibly want them for the return journey to-morrow: tend them well;" and leaving a few final instructions, Sir Thomas Stanley, for he it was, passed out of the stables and entered the parlour of ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... into the parlour; for he had been himself in search after the captain. His countenance sufficiently showed the consternation he was under, which, indeed, had a good deal deprived him of speech; but as grief operates ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... artificial state of society; therefore, suppose we give a few flying extracts from his tour, premising that the good people of the little villages through which he passed, are not aware of what good things he has said of them; for his little book would suit every parlour window from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... which was in a great measure occupied by a suite of three rooms, opening into each other, and assigned as the dwelling of the captive Princess. The outermost was a small hall or ante-room, within which opened a large parlour, and from that again the Queen's bedroom. Another small apartment, which opened into the same parlour, contained the beds ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... as a challenge, all sorts of feats were attempted to prove the superior virtues of each girl's birthstone charm, so that the performance ended in a gale of romping and laughter. Then at the last, to the tune of "They kept the pig in the parlour and that was Irish too," Mary was gravely presented on behalf of the sorority with the gift it had chosen ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of his recovery. His sufferings were great, yet he invariably bore them with unshaken fortitude. There was one thing remarkable connected with his illness; notwithstanding its severity, it never confined him to his bed. He was wont to sit in his little parlour, in his easy chair, dressed in a faded regimental coat, his dog at his feet, who would occasionally lift his head from the hearth-rug on which he lay, and look his master wistfully in the face. And thus my father spent the greater part ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... eaves. She could never get over the feeling that it was only a picture. They would walk or drive to them, and the farmer's wife would come out and beg her Ladyship to come in for a glass of cowslip wine; and she and Mary would go in to a rather dark parlour—to be sure, the windows were smothered in jessamine and roses and honeysuckle—and sit down in chairs covered in flowery chintz, and sip the fragrant wine and eat the home-made cake, while the topics of interest ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... Skrebensky stood in the parlour at the Marsh. Through the window he saw Tom Brangwen, who was best man, coming up the garden path most elegant in cut-away coat and white slip and spats, with Ursula laughing on his arm. Tom Brangwen was handsome, with his womanish colouring ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... had bought a respectable frame house in the heart of the village,—for a village will have a heart instead of having a boulevard,—and with her daughter Emerel she had set up a modest establishment with Ingrain carpets and parlour pieces, and a bit of grass in front. Thus Emerel Kitton—we, in our simple, penultimate way, called it Kitten—became a kind of heiress. She had been christened Emma Ella, but her mother, of her love of order, had tidied the name to Emerel, and Friendship had adopted ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... lost him soon; but according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to dissipate his wages. "Guess I'll have to paint this town red," was his hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little parlour behind Black Tom's public house, with a select corps of old particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a long yarn, a short pipe, and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... low parlour, whose windows looked into the Garden, through the door which stood half open I observed Agnes seated at a Table. She was occupied in drawing, and several unfinished sketches were scattered round her. I entered, still undetermined whether I should acquaint ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... a back parlour, where there were several wooden rocking-chairs, and a strong smell of stale tobacco. Here he busied himself in producing cold meat, a squash pie, and a bottle of whisky, and was as voluble as civil about every subject except the one I wished to talk of. But the memory of his ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... I raised my eyes, and, casting a glance into the street, beheld three men in earnest conversation together, and not thirty yards away. One of them was my recent companion in the tavern parlour; the other two, by their handsome, sallow features and soft hats, should evidently belong to the same race. A crowd of village children stood around them, gesticulating and talking gibberish in imitation. The trio looked singularly foreign to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... superiority of expression that had first attracted 'Zekiel as he played about on the floor of Dame Fossie's parlour. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... in a little time all was packed on board his scow, and we were steaming across the Ste. Marie River. Fortune, however, seemed to be against us,—we were about one-third of the way across when one of the cows who was tethered to a parlour stove jumped overboard, taking the stove along with her. Happily the rope broke, the stove sank, and the cow swam. A boat was put off, the cow taken in tow, and rowed back to the American side. However, in due time she was once more safely got on board and ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way. She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him. He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it. It did seem very long ago ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... you will keep gaping and shrinking, and saying, 'It is impossible.' Some folk, when looking out of a three or four storey window, feel as if they were going to fall. This is their own fault, not the fault of the window, for that is just like a parlour window, where they have no sensation of the sort. A man sits peaceably enough on the top of a tall, three-legged stool, and could hitch himself round and round, and then get up and stand upon it erect for half a day, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... spirits raise, Cards or the dance, wine, visiting, or plays. Soon as the season comes, and crowds arrive, To their superior rooms the wealthy drive; Others look round for lodging snug and small, Such is their taste—they've hatred to a hall: Hence one his fav'rite habitation gets, The brick-floor'd parlour which the butcher lets; Where, through his single light, he may regard The various business of a common yard, Bounded by backs of buildings form'd of clay, By stable, sties, and coops, et caetera. The needy-vain, themselves awhile to shun, For dissipation ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... soundings of the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits; painful scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was frequently impeached, and the tradespeople came and hectored with him in the back parlour upon a question of three farthings. The superficial might have deemed him a miser; in his own eyes he was simply a man who had been defrauded; the world owed him seven thousand eight hundred pounds, and he intended ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... tarried on and on amid tumultuous scenes for another twenty-four hours, awaiting the taking of proper steps by Mr. Bryan, that more precious time was lost. Hour after hour, within the refuge of our hotel parlour, itself a most depressing chamber, I sat, my hands clasped, my charges clustered about me, our trunks packed, our lesser belongings bestowed for travel, awaiting word from him. None came. I am loath to make the accusation direct, but I must tell you that I never had from Mr. Bryan ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... verse. I had firmly resolved not to presume upon the oath extorted from her at Roche-Mauprat; yet, when I remembered her last promise, freely given at the chapel window, and the inferences which I could have drawn from her conversation with the abbe which I had overheard in the parlour at Sainte-Severe; when I remembered her earnestness in preventing me from going away and in directing my education; the motherly attentions she had lavished on me during my illness—did not all these ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... road, his shoulders were shaking suspiciously. Miss Mattie was watching him through the lace curtains that glorified the parlour windows. "Seems as if he had St. Vitus's dance," she mused. "Wonder why he doesn't mix up some ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... he got him home, handed him over to the care of his frightened sister and his daughter, and ran for the doctor.... Meantime it was nearly morning; Kolosov was almost dropping with fatigue. With the permission of Matrona Semyonovna, he lay down on the sofa in the parlour, and slept till eight o'clock. On waking up he would at once have gone home; but they kept him and gave him some tea. In the night he had twice succeeded in catching a glimpse of the pale face of Varvara Ivanovna; he had not particularly noticed her, but in the morning she made a decidedly ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... placed at the second table to dinner, and very handsomely entertained; after which he was called into a great parlour, among a large company of gentlemen and ladies. Well, honest Mr. Rat-catcher, said Mr. Portman, can you lay any schemes to kill the rats, without hurting my dogs? Yes, boldly replied Mr. Carew, I shall lay it where even cats can't climb to reach it. And what countryman ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... rapidly initiated into many matters besides parlour manners and conversation. Mr. Duncan placed the first and greatest emphasis upon learning to write, and to write well. They had many philosophic discussions, in which the elder man sought to lead the younger ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... red-tiled, casemented—everything that the aesthetic soul desires—the farmer and his wife looking out for us, and a pleasant homely meal ready in the parlour, with its ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... soulless universe. I hate such skies. Daylight is friendly to man toiling under a sun which warms his heart; and cloudy soft nights are more kindly to our littleness. I nearly ran back again to my lighted parlour; Fyne fussing in a knicker-bocker suit before the hosts of heaven, on a shadowy earth, about a transient, phantom-like girl, seemed too ridiculous to associate with. On the other hand there was something ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... of a pleasant evening was to sit in the bar-parlour of the Sun Inn and drink interminable hot rums. He had fixed up a room for himself at the inn and offered Boundary a share, but the colonel preferred to sleep alone. He secured lodgings in the town, and making an excuse to the captain returned to his room early. He had purchased all the newspapers ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... lady and gentleman had called, I shut my book which I had just opened, and kept down as well as I could the rising grumble of the inhospitable Englishman, who is apt to be forgetful to entertain strangers, at least in the parlour of his heart. And I cannot count it perfect hospitality to be friendly and plentiful towards those whom you have invited to your house—what thank has a man in that?—while you are cold and forbidding to those who have not that claim on your attention. That is not ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... English ground, than we hurried to one of the two or three small inns of West Cowes, or the principal quarter of the place, and got rooms at the Fountain. Mr. and Mrs. —— had preceded us, and were already in possession of a parlour adjoining our own. On casting an eye out at the street, I found them, one at each window of their own room, already engaged in a lively discussion of the comparative merits of Cowes and Philadelphia! This propensity to exaggerate the value of whatever is our own, and to depreciate that which ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the family arrived, Mary and Alice and their brother Mark, a young man of thirty, who looked hard-working and reticent, and had large moustachios. They stopped almost on the threshold as they perceived there were strangers in the parlour, then they recognised their long-lost sister; but, embarrassed by the presence of the strange gentleman, as well as by the startling fact of her presence, they stood hesitant and rather shame-faced. Cleo smiled at them encouragingly, whereupon her sisters ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... spot, sir," answered Gaffney promptly. "Lancaster Gate itself, sir. Close by there, convenient pub, sir—stands back a bit from the road. Bar-parlour, sir—quiet corners. What ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... of the gout because he did no appear before twelve o'clock. It wasna a'thegether for sake of the money, Dougal thought, but because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and brought him into the great oak parlour; and there sat the laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape that was a special pet of his. A cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played; ill to please it was, and ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... beer he got was seldom to his taste; he called it "swipes," but went on drinking glass after glass. What a figure he must have made in the bar parlour of the Bald-faced Stag at Roehampton, with his tales of Jerry Abershaw, Ambrose Gwinett, Thurtell and Wainewright! Mr. Watts- Dunton says he had the gift of drinking deeply, but he adds "of the waters of life," a refinement which Borrow himself ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... 'ud been yer thoo' dis las' war, dar wouldn't er been no slue-footed Yankees a-foolin' roun' her parlour. She'd uv up en show'd ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... preparing for a grand entertainment, when folding-doors are withdrawn, chambers converted into drawing-rooms, and every inch of available space thrown into one continuous whole. For previous to an action, every bulk-head in a man-of-war is knocked down; great guns are run out of the Commodore's parlour windows; nothing separates the ward-room officers' quarters from those of the men, but an en-sign used for a curtain. The sailors' mess-chests are tumbled down into the hold; and the hospital cots—of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... walls about the place are of brick,—with stone facings at every corner, and door, and window, such as you see at Hampton Court. At the back are the gables, and arched doorways, and stone mullions, which show (so Lady Ludlow used to tell us) that it was once a priory. There was a prior's parlour, I know—only we called it Mrs. Medlicott's room; and there was a tithe-barn as big as a church, and rows of fish-ponds, all got ready for the monks' fasting-days in old time. But all this I did not see till afterwards. I hardly noticed, this first night, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in England are not daunted but depressed by the military successes of the enemy. Our soldiers in the field are not depressed. But we who are kept at home suffer from the miasma of the back-parlour. We read the headlines of newspapers—a form of literature that is exciting enough, but does not merit the praise given to Sophocles, who saw life steadily and saw it whole. We keep our ears to ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... confirmed the impression. Her sister, keeping as much as she could under her lee, was about twelve years old, much more childish as well as softer, smaller, with lighter colouring and blue eyes. Going round the end of the house, they entered by the back door, and turning into a little parlour, they threw off their hats and gloves. The younger one began to lay the table for dinner, while the elder, throwing herself down ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cellar, with its mud floor, into a dormitory capable of giving bed space to twenty or twenty-five Galicians, and still left room for the tin stove on which to cook their stews. Upon his advice, too, the partitions by which the cottage had been divided into kitchen, parlour, and bed rooms, were with one exception removed as unnecessary and interfering unduly with the most economic use of valuable floor space. Upon the floor of the main room, some sixteen feet by twelve, under Rosenblatt's ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... was Somewhat puzzled in his mind by a projection of the beauties of Nora Black upon his desire for Greece and Marjory, His thoughts formed a duality. Once he was on the point of sending his card to Nora Black's parlour, inasmuch as Greece was very distant and he could not start until the morrow. But he suspected that he was holding the interest of the actress because of his recent appearance of impregnable serenity in the presence of her fascinations. If he now sent his card, it was a ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... harm, anyway? You was sayin' yourself only the other day that it's a crime the way the young fellers in this town never git married. Just set around the parlour stoves all winter holdin' hands, and on the front steps ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... beyond the languid pleasure of sitting on the grass after a burning day and listening to the plash of water and the tuning of instruments; the same thought and emotion, the same interest and pleasure, being equally obtainable from an inn-parlour oleograph. Then, as regards scientific interest and pleasure, there may be days when the diarist will be quite delighted with a hideous picture, because it affords some chronological clue, or new point of comparison. "This dates such or such a ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... the door. His surprise manifested itself aloud, yet did he not forget a becoming reverence to the stranger, as he invited him into the only apartment, besides his workshop, of which the roof could boast. It served for parlour, bedchamber, and kitchen; where the presiding deity, Grim's helpmate, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... she was aware, had just entered the carriage-drive, and after having rung, was now standing under the white "Queen Anne" porch; Mitchell, the rosy-cheeked and still half-trained parlour-maid, was audible in the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Hambledon's parlour here are huge glasses at either end; whenever you look into them you see a never-ending chain of rooms with yourself standing in the middle, vanishing in the distance, every one the same, with the same person in the middle, only a little smaller, a little more insignificant, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the least possibility of getting his Royal Highness to sign such a document, but as he himself was leaving the country for good at any rate, he did not mind adding a little forgery to his other necessary arrangements. Paper and seal were easily accessible in the parlour, where the Duke often kept Eben waiting for hours. He was an expert in other people's penmanship, and the princely scrawl would not present the least difficulty to him. Still, in case of accident, it would be as well to keep back the document till the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... him to the company, than all the gentlemen asked whether they should stay and protect me, or withdraw; and when I assured them that their protection was not necessary, one and all of them retired; though Lord R— M— went no farther than the parlour below, being determined to screen me against all violence and compulsion. I sent a message to my lord, desiring him to walk up into my apartment; but although his sole errand was to see and carry me off, he would not venture to accept of my invitation, till he had demanded me in form from ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Show him into the Parlour—Senior tome vind sueipora; cete Momenta les Junta les Manos. ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... the way to the back parlour, dingy by nature, but bearing living evidence to the charm which she infused into any room. Scratched table, desks, copybooks, and worn grammars, had more the air of a comfortable occupation than of the shabby haunt of irksome taskwork. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which must almost certainly be 'undesigned.' Mr. Welton's wife was what modern occult philosophers call a 'Sensitive.' In 1851, he wished her to try an experiment with the rod in a garden, and sent a maid-servant to bring 'a certain stick that stood behind the parlour door. In great terror she brought it to the garden, her hand firmly clutched on the stick, nor could she let it go . . . ' The stick was given to Mrs. Welton, 'and it drew her with very considerable ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... sat drinking and smoking in a little parlour at the back of an old public-house in Shadwell. The room was about as large as a good-sized cupboard, and was illuminated in the day-time by a window commanding a pleasant prospect of coal-shed and dead wall. The paper on the walls was dark and greasy with age; and every ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... would be glad to Lave that in his parLour ratherthan wat he has got now. of corse, you wont be ab?e to apreciate the fulll bauty of the design since i underst and that the retched paper which is going to print this has no redink and no green inq either; so you must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... which her father sought to combine with pleasures so expensive. She is even said to have had the honour of dancing with the Prince of Wales. Meanwhile, the old gentleman, appearing "genteel in dress" and keeping a plentiful table, lay in wait for such eligible visitors as should enter his parlour. ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... Poke Drury, swinging toward her, his hand lifted as though to stop one in full flight. "You see ... just that end there is the bar room," he explained nodding at her reassuringly. "The middle of the room here is the ... the parlour; an' down at that end, where the long table is, that's the dinin' room. I ain't ever got aroun' to the partitions yet, but I'm goin' to ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... the Duke of Berwick and Laura as fast as possible, and found the landlord showing them into a small sanded parlour on the left hand, after passing a door which swung to and fro ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... going to marry Marian, it would be polite in him to call. These events came to pass late in the autumn, and Catherine and her aunt had been sitting together in the closing dusk, by the firelight, in the high back parlour. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... it. The children dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-place than a little garden before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, and with a pear-tree and two or three plum-trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in front of the parlour-windows. The trees and shrubs, however, were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage, with here and there a pendent icicle ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... entrance just in front of the door of the cage was left open for the lions. The wiseacres to whom I showed my invention were generally of the opinion that the man-eaters would be too cunning to walk into my parlour; but, as will be seen later, their predictions proved false. For the first few nights I baited the trap myself, but nothing happened except that I had a very sleepless and uncomfortable time, and was ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... walk into my parlour" said a spider to a fly: "'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy. The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I have many pretty things to show you when you are there." "Oh, no, no!" said ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... to harpe on another Ride to Sheepscote this Morning, and persuaded Father to let him have the bay Mare, soe he and I started at aboute Ten o' the Clock. Arrived at Master Agnew's Doore, found it open, no one in Parlour or Studdy; soe Dick tooke the Horses rounde, and then we went straite thro' the House, into the Garden behind, which is on a rising Ground, with pleached Alleys and turfen Walks, and a Peep of the Church through the Trees. A Lad tolde us his Mistress was with the Bees, soe ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... must come inside and see my invaluable Brigida. She is, as usual, fatiguing herself with our accounts." The old lady led the way into the darkened parlour. It was small and rather stiff. As one's eyes became accustomed to the dim green light one noticed the incongruity of the furniture: the horsehair chairs and sofa, and large accountant's desk with ledgers; the large Pleyel grand piano; ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... contention then, is, that whether in the shop or on the ship, in the parlour or in the kitchen, in the factory or in the field, on the Salvation platform or in the coal mine, whether Officers or Soldiers, we are all alike, as servants of God, under the obligation to do all we possibly can in the service ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... riches! we have neither moveables nor house at Senegal; every thing we can claim as our own is here." I embraced my father, and my brothers and sisters, and then went to unload our boat. Our house was soon filled. It served at once for a cellar, granary, store-house, a parlour, and bed-chamber. However, we found a place for every thing. Next day we began to fit them up more commodiously. My sister and myself lived in the small house to the west; my father took up his residence in ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... proportion to the living rooms as Falstaff's gallon of sack to his halfpennyworth of bread. No doubt there are persons whom this style of house exactly suits, the portico represents their pride, the parlour their economy. What was intended for the Walsall public library consists of a thin closet behind a gigantic Ionic portico, now tottering to its fall; and in like manner a perfectly dungeon-like effect has been ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... this arbour, roof and all, As is a pretty parlour; and also The hedge as thick was as a castle wall, That whoso list without to stand or go, Though he would all day pryen to and fro, He should not see if there were any wight Within or no; but one within ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... wood, bearing on his shoulder the shield of England and under it that of Brown with, many quarterings: ten other bucks, in various attitudes and of the size of life, were planted at intervals. There was a parlour more elegantly adorned with the works of Holbein and his scholars;—a chapel richly furnished;—a long gallery painted with the twelve apostles;—and a corresponding one hung with family pictures and with various old paintings on subjects religious and military, brought from Battle Abbey, the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin |
