"Petticoat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... And must be emptied, or must split, In name of president APOLLO, And other gentle folks, that follow: Such as URANIA and CLIO, To whom my fame poetic I owe; With the whole drove of rhyming sisters, For whom my heart with rapture blisters; Who swim in HELICON uncertain Whether a petticoat or shirt on, From vulgar ken their charms do cover, From every eye but Muses' lover; In name of every ugly GOD; Whose beauty scarce outshines a toad; In name of PROSERPINE and PLUTO, Who board in hell's sublimest grotto; In name ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the diggins the squire did it for, Gaffer Solomons?" asked one many-childed matron, with a baby in arms, an urchin of three years old clinging fast to her petticoat, and her hand maternally holding back a more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes turned to a sage old man, the oracle of the village, who, leaning both hands ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Maurice, twisting and untwisting a ragged handkerchief as he spoke, "the first beginning of all the mischief was, we had nothing to do, so we went to the ashes to make dirt pies; but Babet would go so close that she burnt her petticoat, and threw about all our ashes, and plagued us, and we whipped her. But all would not do, she would not be quiet; so to get out of her reach, we climbed up by this chair on the table to the top of the press, and there we were well enough for a little while, till somehow we began ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... kerchief, lace scarf, and green silk hood, and my petticoat with the border newly purfled. Hark! 'Tis the bell for prayers. Be quick with my pantofles:—not those, wench—the yellow silk with silver spangles. Now my rings and crystal bracelets. I would not miss early matins to-day for the best ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... leather bag she wore hidden in her bosom; then, cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, she would stagger joyously away. The men's garments she would modestly sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and transmogrified and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning; scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the great economic process by which cast-off clothes renew their youth and freshness, and having set in their original sphere rise endlessly on other ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... either side of her head, like horse-tails, half-way down her waist; her skin was dark and swarthy, like that of a toad, and the expression of her countenance was particularly evil; her arms were bare, and her bosom was but half-concealed by a slight bodice, below which she wore a coarse petticoat, her only other article of dress. The man was somewhat younger, but of a figure equally wild; his frame was long and lathy, but his arms were remarkably short, his neck was rather bent, he squinted slightly, and his mouth was much awry; his complexion was dark, but, unlike that ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... tramp" with a female companion to Middlesborough. It was early in the morning when we turned our backs upon Keighley for the North. We trudged by road to Otley, Ripley, and Ripon, Thirsk and on to Stockton-on-Tees. Here my petticoat companion was so tired and weary that I left her, having secured her lodgings with an old lady, who agreed to take care of her until my return; my intention being to get work and a home in Middlesborough, and then to fetch ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... her present gaudy trim, all flaunting with ribbons and shining with trinkets, the same Betty who used to deal out pecks of potatoes and superintend her basket of cantaloupes in the Jersey market, in pasteboard bonnet and linsey petticoat. Her companions were of the infamous class. If Arthur were still in the city, there is no doubt that the mother and son might renew the ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... not twist and squirm in his strong arms, and Rosemary deftly washed out the great jagged cut that had slashed across the slim instep, and then, further scandalizing Nina, tore a wide bandage from the bottom of her petticoat, brought the edges of the cut closely together ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... down a larger tree betwixt the rising of the sun and the coming of the shadows than many a smart beaver of the other sex. As for her wit, try her at the game of the dish, and see who gets up master; and for cleanliness, look at her petticoat." ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... morning over the prairies—I haven't seen one for twenty-five years! That is, she skimmed over the little knolls rather than walked, as if made of something lighter than ordinary human clay. Her dress was ragged, faded, and showed through the tears in it a tattered quilted petticoat, and she wore no bonnet or hat; but carried in, her hand a boy's cap—which, according to the notions harbored by us then, it would have been immodest for her to wear. Her hair was brown and blown all about her head, and her face was tanned to a rich brown—a very bad complexion then, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... eager to enter their place of rest. The wave-like movement of these animals is particularly graceful and cleverly done. A little shepherdess is guiding them, as anxious to get them in as they are to enter, for this means the end of her day's work. Her worn-out blue petticoat is lighted up by a moonbeam; in her hand she appears to have a hoe. It is a most harmonious picture; every line is in accord with ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... impressed upon my memory; I continually recalled them to mind, and thus I became a philosopher long before my wise teeth were in embryo, or I had even shed the first set with which kind Nature presents us, that in the petticoat age we may fearlessly indulge ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... frame before her. Her head-dress was a small sort of hood, richly ornamented, with a veil falling behind. She had a long waist with an embroidered stomacher, and a handsome girdle which hung down in front. Her gown was open, showing a richly-decorated petticoat beneath, so long as completely to hide her feet when she stood up on the entrance of her husband, Master Gresham. On either side of the room were several damsels with spinning-wheels and distaffs by their sides, or else actively plying their needles. A little boy, fair and delicate—a ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... Maslova, I say!" called out the jailer, and in a minute or two a small young woman with a very full bust came briskly out of the door and went up to the jailer. She had on a grey cloak over a white jacket and petticoat. On her feet she wore linen stockings and prison shoes, and round her head was tied a white kerchief, from under which a few locks of black hair were brushed over the forehead with evident intent. The face of the woman was of that whiteness peculiar to people who have lived long in confinement, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... like Hercules have such weaknesses occasionally. Was the one I had fallen in love with at all beautiful? No. I can see her now. She had a splotch of vermilion on either cheek, short soft arms, horrible wooden hands, and long sprawling legs. Her flowered petticoat was fastened at the waist with two pins. Even now I cans see the balck heads of those two pins. It was a decidedly vulgar doll—smelt of the faubourg. I remember perfectly well that, child as I was then, before I had put on my first pair of trousers, I was quite conscious ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing jacket, ran up to Sonya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother's head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... systematically. On crutches I hobbled round St. Paul's and through the Abbey. I saw the Tower, the Albert Memorial, and all the sights that I could remember or the taxi-driver think of sufficient importance to need a visit. I even went down Petticoat Lane. But most of all I did the theatres, four in one day, returning to the hospital at 1.30 A. M. Next day I repeated and enlarged the dose, returning a little later, but the following morning I was summoned before the O. C. He said: "It is reported to me ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... trusty squire provided needments meet, As for their journey fitting most should be; Meanwhile her vesture, pendant to her feet, Erminia doft, as erst determined she, Stripped to her petticoat the virgin sweet So slender was, that wonder was to see; Her handmaid ready at her mistress' will, To arm her helped, though ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... for Mr. Alden's tray," she announced primly, "if he should speak will you call me?" Felicia nodded. She stitched steadily. She was putting new rows of lace on a torn petticoat, and so intent was she in joining the pattern of the lace that she forgot to watch Babiche. That inquisitive one was exploring, sniffing cautiously as she approached the invalid's bed but a second later she was trotting hastily back to ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... she might sell it to the schoolmaster's daughter in Dorfli and get a good deal of money for it. But Heidi stuck to her intention and hid the hat quietly in a corner behind the grandmother's chair. Then she took off her pretty dress and put her red shawl on over her under-petticoat, which left her arms bare; and now she clasped the old woman's hand. "I must go home to grandfather," she said, "but to-morrow I shall ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... the first floor of an old-fashioned house. Two high windows right. A door at back is the main entrance. A door left leads to other rooms. The walls are papered with election literature. Conspicuous among the posters displayed is "A Man for Men." "No Petticoat Government." "Will you be Henpecked?" A large, round table centre is littered with papers and pamphlets. A large desk stands between the windows. A settee is against ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... top-heavy upon the tiny steed, but he ambled along, whistling a merry lilt and as lighthearted as his master. There was no countryman who had not a nod and no woman who had not a smile for the jovial bowman, who rode for the most part with his face over his shoulder, staring at the last petticoat which had passed him. Once only he met with a harsher greeting. It was from a tall, white-headed, red-faced man whom ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... busy putting some embroidery on your white petticoat all the afternoon," said Mrs Langton trying to change the subject, "you know I had a telegram to say you are expected on Thursday instead ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... silk, both fair and white, With gold embroidered gorgeously; Thy petticoat of sendal right: And these I bought thee gladly. Greensleeves was all my joy! Greensleeves was my delight! Greensleeves was my heart of gold! And who but my ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... than Howat's; she had sympathetic hazel eyes, an inviting mouth, an illusive depression in one cheek that alone saved her from positive ugliness, and tobacco brown hair worn low with a long, turned strand. She had on a pewter-coloured, informal wrap over a black silk petticoat, lacking hoops, with a cut border of violet and silver brocade; and above low, green kid stays with coral tulip blossoms worked on the dark velvet of foliage were glimpses of webby linen and ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... was of apricot, with the bodice cut low and the skirt gathered in loops to show her white silk petticoat, which swelled from under a flowered stomacher so monstrously, that the tiny blue-heeled slipper upon the second stair seemed smaller than ever. Deep frills of lace fell from her short sleeves and a little lace cap was set on her thick ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... not unlike that of the men in appearance. They wear close jackets of various colors when they go abroad, and the same loose breeches as the men, but over them they usually have a large wrapper (sarong), not unlike the pareu of the Polynesian islanders, which is put round them like a petticoat, or thrown over the shoulders. Their hair is drawn to the back of the head, and around the forehead it is shaven in the form of a regular arch, to correspond with the eyebrows. Those that I saw at the Sultan's were like the Malays, and had light complexions, with very black teeth. The Datu ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... Tumzeen Barley Tezzezes Tezezreat Sticks Taginaste Taginast A palm-tree Tahuyan Tahuyat A blanket, covering, or petticoat. Ahemon Amen Water 381 Faycag Faquair Priest or lawyer Acoran M'koorn God Almogaren Talmogaren Temples Tamoyanteen Tigameen Houses Tawacen Tamouren Hogs Archormase Akermuse Green figs Azamotan Azamittan Barley meal fried in oil Tigot ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... with death, were left free to devote themselves to the superfluous decoration of life, the artificial tension of the moral motives would be relaxed. The swimmer who had plunged into the sea to save a woman from drowning would not take a second plunge to rescue her silk petticoat. The socialists, in short, when dealing with military and other cognate heroisms, ignore both of the causes which alone make such heroisms possible. They ignore the fact that the internal motive is essentially isolated and exceptional. ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... put on a fair corset of pure silk camblet; above that went the petticoat of white, red tawny, or gray taffeta. Above this was the cotte in cloth of silver, with needlework either (according to the temperature and disposition of the weather) of satin, damask, velvet, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... one of the clay heaps, a woman shot into silhouette against the sky. An odd figure, clad in a skimpy green petticoat, with a scarlet shawl held about her shoulders, wisps of frowsy red hair standing out round her head, she balanced herself on the slippery earth, spinning her arm like the vane of a windmill, and crying at the top of her voice: "Joe, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... may be questioned whether he could have told a petticoat from a gown. Miss Amilly was waiting with breathless ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... tak aff my hood But lat my petticoat be; Pat my mantle o'er my head; For the fire ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... house where the Crazy Lady lived—here, if you were alone, you ran—and then, reaching the verge of the woods, you took your choice of climbing a seven-rail fence or of walking a quarter of a mile till you came to the bars. The latter was much better for the lace on a Sunday petticoat. ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... a short vision of a red petticoat and blue jacket on the other bank, was followed by the ferryman himself,—the white sail rose up above the little boat, and she floated smoothly over. Then Mrs. Derrick drove carefully across the boat bridge, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... be so brusque about non-penitentiary offences, but skilful and lovely concealments in gardening were his hobby. To another he whispered, "My dear sir, tell your pretty house her petticoat shows!" and to yet another, "Take all those shrubs out of the middle of your lawn and 'plant out' with them every feature of your house which would be of no interest to you if the house were not yours. Your house's morals may be all right, but its manners are insufferable, it talks ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... by some as stomacher; by others as petticoat, or the slit or opening in those garments. Cf. Wb. It is often used figuratively for woman, as here. Placket and ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... doubtless, was why she stood there with the self-possession of a Grand Duchess, surveying that dirty-mouthed, dirty-clothed rabble of the Fishmarket, and perking her lips disparagingly when some one noticed her real pearl earrings, or the Algerian scarf, or the red-flannel petticoat from Gibraltar the Rector had given her! In fact, the only woman she thought quite her class was "Granny" Picores, agueela Picores, a veteran of the Fishmarket, a whale of a woman, mastodontic, who cowed every policeman in the market ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... over-lapping, and cross-lapping, and first and second quality of cedar shingles. Miss Lobelia Brewster, who had a rooted distrust of anything done by mere man, created strife by remarking that she could have stopped the leak in the belfry tower with her red flannel petticoat better than the Milltown man with his new-fangled rubber sheeting, and that the last shingling could have been more thoroughly done by a "female infant babe"; whereupon the person criticized retorted that he wished Miss Lobelia Brewster had a few infant babes to "put on ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mental dispositions, she got up without sound and slipped off a petticoat that she suspected of having rustled a little when she came in; folding and popping it where it could not be suspected any more, she removed her shoes and put on very old velvet slippers. She walked in these toward the bed, listening ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... crime, for A's abstention from voting gives greater weight to the vote of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a woman to vote as some man tells her to. It is based on female responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to jump back into it when threatened with a ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... a petticoat around my house since half-past nine this mornin'," lamented Alf, upsetting a pan of milk while trying to get a plate of cold ham out of the ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... a little town in all England, but has an old female spirit appertaining to it, who, in her high-crown hat, nicely clean linen, and red petticoat, has been viewed by half the parish. This article of dress is of mighty concern among some ghosts; wherefore a skilful and learned apparition writer, in the Preface of Drelincourt on Death, makes a very pious ghost talk to a lady ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... been forgotten,' replied Mrs. Mortimer; 'and you shall have the pleasure of carrying the bundle prepared for her yourself. There it is:—the cotton gown, and stuff petticoat, the shoes, stockings, and apron, lying together at the ...
— Christmas, A Happy Time - A Tale, Calculated for the Amusement and Instruction of Young Persons • Miss Mant
... were all to rush to Pa, and he would save us. Well, last night Ma had to go to one of the neighbors, where they was going to have twins, and we didn't sleep much, cause Ma had to come home twice in the night to get saffron, and an old flannel petticoat that I broke in when I was a kid, cause the people where Ma went did not know as twins was on the bill of fare, and they only had flannel petticoats for one. Pa was cross at being kept awake, and told Ma he hoped when all the children ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... soil by means of buckets worked by hand. The women of the group of whom we are speaking were bareheaded, and wore their long, straight, black hair in braids hanging down over their naked shoulders, their arms being bare, and also their legs to the knee. A loose cotton tunic and short petticoat formed their dress. The men wore straw hats with tall crowns, their broad brims throwing their swarthy faces into deep shadow. Unbleached cotton shirts and drawers of the same reaching to the knees completed the costume. Some wore leather ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... life as well as princes, and on these occasions Dea was arrayed, like Fibi and Vinos, in a Florentine petticoat of flowered stuff, and a woman's jacket without sleeves, leaving the arms bare. Ursus and Gwynplaine wore men's jackets, and, like sailors on board a man-of-war, great loose trousers. Gwynplaine had, besides, for his work and for his feats ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and iron, and scrub, and sweep,—and, at our idler intervals, to repose ourselves on knitting and sewing,—these, I suppose, must be feminine occupations, for the present. By and by, perhaps, when our individual adaptations begin to develop themselves, it may be that some of us who wear the petticoat will go afield, and leave the weaker brethren to take our ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... concealments, and finally the tables and chairs were broken to pieces, and each object on the walls was torn down and flung in bits on to the gorgeous general debris, to the top of which clambered the violet hat, necklace and yellow petticoat, brandishing one single little plate, whose life had been miraculously spared. Shrieks of joy in that little plate played over the din like lightning in a thunderstorm. And the ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... porter's wife had thought it expedient to venture forth from their snug bed at such an unpropitious moment. A second time Wilton applied his hand to the bell, and with more success than before, for in stays and petticoat, unlaced and half tied, forth rushed the grumbling porter's wife, with a murmured "Marry come up: people are in great haste: I wonder who is in such ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... countenance for twenty minutes. At the end of that time the image was forthcoming. The ugly thing had burst the paper in which it was wrapped, and its grinning bullet-head projected handily. The paper was wisped about its middle like a petticoat. Dawson took it thankfully from the Greek, and made suitable remuneration ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... lacy petticoat all but swept the greasy floor. An equally spotless skirt, fresh from the laundry, gathered up in one strong pendant hand, gleamed like light against its background of greasy woodwork and greasy wool. The majestic ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... a little girl of about ten, dressed in a chemise and a linen petticoat, with dirty, bare legs and a timid and cunning look. She remained standing in the doorway, as if to ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... And so they did: for Aunt Wee began to play; and presently Daisy was shouting with fun as she sat on an old saddle, with a hair-covered trunk for a horse, a big old-fashioned bonnet on her head, and a red silk petticoat for a habit. Then they went to sea in a great chest, and got wrecked on a desert island, where they built a fort with boxes and bags, hunted bears with rusty guns, and had to eat dried berries, herbs and nuts; for no other food could be found. Aunt Wee got ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... she might, and that may have been her petticoat we saw." But in another moment she saw the impossibility of this, for she added: "But I saw her petticoat, and it was a brown silk one. She showed it when she lifted her skirt to get at her purse. I don't ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... who came along to take back one of the horses, would have been a pleasant apparition at any time and in any season. She wore her Sunday dress, consisting of a scarlet boddice over a white chemise, green petticoat, and white apron, while her shining flaxen hair was plaited into one long braid with narrow strips of crimson and yellow cloth and then twisted like a garland around her head. She was not more than twelve or thirteen years ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... the landlady, was frying some sausages for her first-floor lodgers; as usual at this hour she wore (presumably over some invisible clothing) a large shawl and a petticoat, her thin hair, black streaked with grey, knotted and pinned into a ball on the top of her head. Here and there about the kitchen ran four children, who were snatching a sort of picnic breakfast whilst they made ready for school. They looked healthy enough, and gabbled, laughed, sang, without ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... little pad, as one might call it, above her shoes. Two ear-drops, worth about three-thousand francs each, adorned her ears. She wore a lace cap with pink ribbons, a mousseline-de-laine gown in pink and gray stripes with an edging of green, opened at the bottom to show a petticoat trimmed with valencienne lace; and a green cashmere shawl with palm-leaves, the point of which reached the ground as ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... to be as brutal as possible with the axe, so that she might properly put greater spirit into her lines. One morning, feeling more frisky than usual, she fell upon her knees and wept in the woodman's petticoat. Curiously enough, her sense of proportion rejected this as soon as it ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... door, shook her head at me, and closed it gently in my face. Castro, sitting on the floor not very far away, seemed unaware of me in so marked a manner that it inspired me with the idea of not taking the slightest notice of him. Now and then the figure of a maid in white linen and bright petticoat flitted in the upper gallery, and once I fancied I saw the black, rigid carriage of the duenna ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... into an under waistcoat and a wide belt. Its impenetrability was tried, and it resisted all thrusts of the dagger, and several balls were turned aside by it. Madame Campan wore it for three days as an under petticoat before an opportunity could be found for the king to try it on unperceived. At length, one morning, in the queen's chamber, a moment's opportunity occurred, and he slipped it on, saying, at the same time, ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... before the great discovery of some modern authors, that the best novels are those in which there is never a petticoat. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... the favorite Earl in the piazza of Covent Garden, muffled in a large coat, and with a hat and wig drawn down over his brows. His lordship's established type with the mob was a jack boot, a wretched pun on his Christian name and title. A jack boot, generally accompanied by a petticoat, was sometimes fastened on a gallows, and sometimes committed to the flames. Libels on the court, exceeding in audacity and rancor any that had been published for many years, now appeared daily both in prose and verse. Wilkes, with lively ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... men folks of this church, and I'm goin' to deliver it, Paul or no Paul,' says she. 'And as for you, Silas Petty, I ain't forgot the time I dropped in to see Maria one Saturday night and found her washin' out her flannel petticoat and dryin' it before the fire. And every time I've had to hear you lead in prayer since then I've said to myself, "Lord, how high can a man's prayers rise toward heaven when his wife ain't got but ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... silk, faded a little here and there but still extremely imposing, and the sleeve was part of a dress, which was worn by a lady who lay on the stone seat asleep in the sun. The rosy gold dress fell open over an embroidered petticoat of a soft green colour. There was old yellow lace the colour of scalded cream, and a thin white veil spangled with silver ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... Fair. She sat in a great chair by the fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box. She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-colored brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an odor of musk was shook out of her ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... into solids. In the former ambition she was unsuccessful, obtaining only bruises and disappointment; but she did develop the latter to a certain extent, for she met the laundress going out one day and, without a conscious effort, she knew that she had the best table napkins pinned to her petticoat. She accused the ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... petticoat,' said the younger, 'but to make up for it I shall wear my cloak with the golden flowers and my necklace of diamonds, ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... had learned from his old grandmother, who died the year before the famine. She used to sit in the open air knitting, or spinning with a distaff, and the scarlet yarn that trailed across the gray jacket and green petticoat glowed in the sun like a thread of crawling fire, and seemed to keep time to her droning voice, as she poured story after story into the wide-open ears of the ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and beautiful Penthesilea across a tea-table; but in the height of her anger, as her hand chanced to shake with the earnestness of the dispute, she scalded her fingers, and spilt a dish of tea upon her petticoat. Had not this accident broke off the debate, nobody knows where it would ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... written it out for me, in a terrifically distinct hand. There is no ambiguity on the subject; I know perfectly where I must go. Mr. Wentworth informs me that the carriage is always at my disposal, and Charlotte offers to go with me, in a pair of tight gloves and a very stiff petticoat. And yet for three days I have been putting it off. They ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... so warm that it would be absurd for them to dress up as we do. The king's dress on grand occasions was a crown of gay-coloured feathers, and a sort of Scotch kilt of the same material, with a cloak over his shoulder. The queen also wore a petticoat, and so did little Chickchick, but not a rap else, nor did they seem to think it was necessary. The king's name was Rumfiz, and her majesty was called Pillow. They were an amiable couple, and remarkably fond of each other. When I observed that everything in the island was made of coral, I ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... meanwhile, as he went on up the street, he perceived a beggar-girl, thirteen or fourteen years old, and clad in so short a gown that her knees were visible, lying thoroughly chilled under a porte-cochere. The little girl was getting to be too old for such a thing. Growth does play these tricks. The petticoat becomes short at the moment when ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... found in this country; there were only close-clipped plants trained to stakes. But there was a sound of talking and of laughter, and the pickers, moving among the even lines in their gay rags, lent motley color to the picture. There was scarlet of waistcoat or of petticoat, blue and saffron of jacket and apron, and a blending of all bright tints in the kerchiefs above the hair. The rich dark soil made a background for it all: the moving figures, the clumps of pale green vine leaves, the great baskets ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... dream?" asked Nijeradze, opening wide his oriental, somewhat sheepish eyes. "Whence this beauteous child, this comrade in a petticoat?" ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... canvassing. By George, anything is better than that. Come along. We may get Pump Lane, and Petticoat Yard, and those back alleys done before dinner. You've got cards, of course, Trigger." And the old, accustomed electioneerer led the way out ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... alike interesting to the slowly moving throng of men and women amongst whom they were threading their way. The attitude of her sex towards Berenice was in a certain sense a paradox. She was distinctly the most talented and the most original of all the "petticoat apostles," as the very man who was now walking by her side had scornfully described the little band of women writers who were accused of trying to launch upon society a new type of their own sex. Her last novel ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was very grand in her satin petticoat and brocade gown, that fell away at the sides and made a train at the back. Her imported hat of Leghorn, very costly at that period but lasting half a lifetime, had a big bow of green satin on top, and the high front was filled in with ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... up of a winter night and found her woollen petticoat spread onto my bed, and she ashiverin' by the dyin' fire. One mornin' she surprised me uncommon by holdin' of a cap afore my eyes. 'A new one made of the old one,' says she, 'but you 'd never dream on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... husband and coach, a noble, fine woman, and a good one, and one my wife shall be acquainted with. So home, and to dinner alone with my wife, who, poor wretch! sat undressed all day, till ten at night, altering and lacing of a noble petticoat: while I by her, making the boy read to me the Life of Julius Caesar, and Des Cartes' ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... romantic meetings aided by those diminutive steps, but, peering into their shadows, we saw nothing but a vision of Marie Antoinette, half clad in dishevelled wrappings of petticoat and shawl, flying distracted from the vengeance of the furies through the refuge ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... the end of three months, the cruel pangs which had gone near to break Pons' sensitive heart had died away; he forgot everything but the charms of society; and languished for them like some elderly slave of a petticoat compelled to leave the mistress who too repeatedly deceives him. In vain he tried to hide his profound and consuming melancholy; it was too plain that he was suffering from one of the mysterious complaints which the mind brings ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... in the British Museum, Minerva appears with her aegis on her breast, and clothed in a petticoat and upper tunic worked in sprays, and a border of kneeling lions. On another Panathenaic vase she has a gown bordered with fighting men, evidently the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... our desire; which made the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras—[Theano, the lady in question was the wife, not the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras.]— say, "That the woman who goes to bed to a man, must put off her modesty with her petticoat, and put it on again with the same." The soul of the assailant, being disturbed with many several alarms, readily loses the power of performance; and whoever the imagination has once put this trick upon, and confounded with the shame of it (and she never does ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... been evolved through experiment, many of his notable experiments have called forth the exercise of highly inventive faculties in their very inception. Investigation and experiment have been a consuming passion, an impelling force from within, as it were, from his petticoat days when he collected goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child, boy, and man revealed a born investigator with ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... a half apast ten! Seffy, I'm glad you ain't breaking your reputation for being fastnachtich. Chust about a quarter of an inch too late for the prize wiss flour on its hair and arms and its frock pinned up to show its new petticoat! Uhu! If I had such a nice petticoat—" he imitated the lady in question, to the tremendous delight ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... not so sure about that. I think, with a few more touches, it will stand well enough for your Andalusian. Grummet's given her all the wealth of hair you're so constantly bragging about. The only poverty's in that petticoat. But if you get the skirt stretched a bit, that will remedy it. You want sleeves, too, to make her a lady. Then set a tall tortoise-shell comb upon her crown, with a spread of lace over it, hanging down below the shoulders—the mantilla—and you'll make almost as ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... out and lifted it up, grew rapidly larger and larger until it floated away. He set out to search for it; nor did he desist until one day he came upon a large pool in the river and found a beautiful woman bathing. On the bank lay her grass petticoat where she had cast it off. He sat down upon it; and when her attention was attracted to him by his dogs, they recognized one another. She was the moon, and he was the man who had dug her up out of the earth; and he claimed her as ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the areaway. The blue mercerized dress she slid over a hanger, covering it with one of her cotton nightgowns and putting it into careful place behind the cretonne curtain that served her as clothes closet. Her petticoat, white, with a rill of lace, she folded away. And then, in her bare feet and a pink-cotton nightgown with a blue bird machine-stitched on the yoke, stood cocked to the hurry of indistinct footsteps across her ceiling, and in the narrow slit of hallway ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... the day appointed for his coming, and never sure was there a busier afternoon at the farmhouse than the one which followed the receipt of the letter. Everything that was not spotlessly clean before was made so now. Aunt Betsy in her petticoat and short gown going down upon her knees to scrub the door sill of the back room, as if the city guest were expected to sit in there. On Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Lennox devolved the duty of preparing for the wants of the inner man, while Helen and Katy bent ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... to be the entire factory, adding the two office girls; the model, who was wont to run around our part of the world now and then in a superior fashion, clad in a scanty pale-pink-satin petticoat which came just below her knees and an old gray-and-green sweater; plus various male personages, full of business and dressed in their best. Goodness knows what all they did do to keep the wheels of industry running—perhaps they were salesmen. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... cloth—surely Madame had found great satisfaction in wearing the bisque cloth?" But your ears are as stone to her blandishments! As a traveling suit, bisque-colored cloth had not been serviceable! Black lace with a cerise velvet under petticoat might be effective at Armenonville, but it had seemed queer, to say the least, at the tennis match in August. No, you are at last immune from any of those sudden attacks of new fashion fever that result in ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... dark, leaden, lowering,— Grey purple shadows fading on the hills; Dreary and desolate the far expanse And gloomy sameness of the open plain. A peasant woman, in white wimpled hood, White vest, and scarlet petticoat, surveys The meadow, with rough hands crossed on ...
— Poems • Sophia M. Almon
... pleased! and I say so to you openly, although my belief is that you are under a vow to our Lady of Loretto to make giddy with all manner of high vanities, some head, ... not too strong for such things, but too low for them, ... before you see again the embroidery on her divine petticoat. Only there's a flattery so far beyond praise ... even your praise—as where you talk of your verses being liked &c., and of your being happy to bring them here, ... that is scarcely a lawful weapon; and see if the Madonna may not signify so much to you!—Seriously, you will not ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... soon after our arrival, that we were all invited to witness a play called "Adam and Eve." Eve was personated by a pretty young girl known as Dolores Gomez, who, however, was dressed very unlike Eve, for she was covered with a petticoat and spangles. Adam was personated by her brother—the same who has since become somewhat famous as the person on whom is founded the McGarrahan claim. God Almighty was personated, and heaven's occupants seemed very human. Yet the play was pretty, interesting, and elicited universal applause. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the treat for the world. Ippolita, whimpering in hers, wondered what the buzzing and sliding of shoes in the street below could be about. She had troubles of her own, poor girl, but she could not stand this. Up she got: a single glance out of window was enough. She shuffled on a shift and a petticoat, snatched a shawl, and tiptoed out. Annina, her bosom friend, had no troubles. She was half undressed, but she too slipped a shawl over her head and went peering into the alley. There she met Ippolita, and joined hands. Flaring torches, a swarm of eager black heads, whispers, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... rattling pyx within. They lived in Bury Street, and Prescott Street, and Finsbury—these aristocrats of the Ghetto—in mansions that are now but congeries of "apartments." Few relations had they with Belgravia, but many with Petticoat Lane and the Great Shool, the stately old synagogue which has always been illuminated by candles and still refuses all modern light. The Spanish Jews had a more ancient snoga, but it was within a ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... an old black-satin gown of her mother's, and it was fitted as softly over her sweet curves as a leaf over a bud. A long garland of flowers after her own design had she wrought in bright-colored silks around the petticoat, and there were knots of red ribbon to fasten the loopings here and there. And she wore another red rose in her lace tucker against her soft brown bosom. Madelon wore, too, trim black-silk stockings with red clocks over her slender ankles, and little black-satin shoes with steel buckles and ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to translate any more of this Epistle; but I presume the argument which the Right Hon. Doctor and his friends mean to deduce from it, is (in their usual convincing strain) that Romanists must be unworthy of Emancipation now, because they had a Petticoat Pope in the Ninth Century. Nothing can be more logically clear, and I find that Horace had exactly the same views upon ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... supports the girl, are another man and woman, who cast from time to time pitying glances at the pale face beneath the straw bonnet. These are as raggedly picturesque in their attire as the rest—a short red petticoat, a blanket substituted for a shawl, and a bundle on the back, distinguish the female; a long great coat and short trousers the male. They are deep in conversation upon the common theme. A young man of more stalwart figure ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... } I gave you,' {petticoat} they said, all {gown } at once, and began tearing the clothes ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marneffe come in for first honors—in each the leopard crossed on the serpent and united under a petticoat, beautiful and wicked—but since the Balzac and Dumas days the story-tellers and stage-mongers have made exceeding free with the type, and we have between Herman Merivale's Stephanie de Mohrivart and Victorien ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... forth dreadful arrows from the far-resounding bow; he should have looked only to that "child upon the cloud," or rather, he should have seen his little muse as she walks upon the earth—we have her in Gainsborough's picture—with her tattered petticoat, and her bare feet, and her broken pitcher, but looking withal with such a sweet sad contentedness upon the world, that surely, one thinks, she must have filled that pitcher and drawn the water which she carries—without, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... youngsters, but he is a sly fellow in the main. Do you observe how fond he is of the cross roads above this valley? Now, if I were to halt the troops twice in the same place, you would all swear there was a petticoat ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us. The dress of her figure by no means suited the head and elegance of her attitude. What her nether weeds might be we could not distinctly see, but they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what Molly Bristow's children would wear. After surveying us and hearing our name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us follow her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle.' She led the way with the grace of a young lady who has been taught to ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... Perhaps the most regal of these floral screens was one formed of costly orchids, each worth a fortune. One of the most beautiful of the spring wedding dresses was made of cream-white satin over a tulle petticoat, the tulle being held down by a long diagonal band of broad pearl embroidery, the satin train trimmed with bows of ribbon in true-lovers' knots embroidered in seed-pearls; a shower of white lilacs trimmed ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... niece Susan, of Princeton, Maine, are experts at this work.] And this dress she shaped like those worn of old. [Footnote: This remark indicates the lateness of the Micmac version of this very old myth.] So she made a petticoat and a loose gown, a cap, leggins, and handkerchief, and, having put on her father's great old moccasins,— which came nearly up to her knees,—she went forth to try her luck. For even this little thing would see ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... washing—maybe half a dozen times in all; he had been out, but Emma and I had talked a bit of old things and new. The last time I was there Lars came home suddenly and made a scene the moment he got inside the door, because Emma was sitting on a stool in her petticoat. "It's too hot for a skirt," she said. "Ho, yes, and your hair all down your back—too hot to put it up, I suppose?" he retorted. Altogether he was in a rage with her. I said good-night to him as I left, but he did ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... us through his horn spectacles, and, able to make nothing of our faces, let his glance fall to our garments which were as ragged as his own, and of much the same pattern. Indeed, they were those of Thibetan monks, including a kind of quilted petticoat and an outer vestment not unlike an Eastern burnous. We had adopted them because we had no others. Also they protected us from the rigours of the climate and from remark, had there been any ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... story within whose implications lies all that has ever been said, or ever will be said, about censorship. The copy-readers and make-up men, it seems, could see nothing especially infamous in their reviewer's little simile. As poor George Sampson said of the outraged Mrs. Wilfer's under-petticoat: "We know it's there." At all events, the offending word passed all the sentries and was printed as written, when, too late, it caught the horrified eye of the proprietor. At the sight of so crassly physical a term in the chaste columns of his own paper, he ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... believe du Maurier's art England is a petticoat-governed country. The men in his pictures are often made to recede into the background of Victorian ornament merely as ornaments themselves. As for the women, the mask of manner, the pleasantness concealing every shade of uncharitableness, all the arts of the ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... to pass the low doorway, and seated himself beside a small deal table which, although destitute of a cloth, was thickly covered with ink-stains. The Malay rover was clad in a thin loose red jacket, a short petticoat or kilt, and yellow trousers. A red fez, with a kerchief wound round it turban fashion, covered his head. He was a well-made stalwart man, with a handsome ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... at noontide, she having come forth her chamber in a white petticoat, with her hair twisted about her head, and being in act to wash her hands and face at a well that was in the courtyard of the mansion, it chanced that Calandrino came thither for water and saluted her familiarly. She returned him his greeting and fell to eying ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... sight. Along the north side of Queen Square, in front of ruins which had been three days before noble buildings, lay a ghastly row, not of corpses, but of corpse-fragments. I have no more wish than you to dilate upon that sight. But there was one charred fragment—with a scrap of old red petticoat adhering to it, which I never forgot- -which I trust in God that I never shall forget. It is good for a man to be brought once at least in his life face to face with fact, ultimate fact, however horrible it may be; and have ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was telling himself that, there came to the door a loud knock, the peculiar rat-tat-tat of a telegraph boy. But before he had time to get across the room, let alone to the front door, Ellen had rushed through the room, clad only in a petticoat and shawl. ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... of playing cards; every day after lunch Jeanne played several games of bezique with her husband, while he smoked his pipe and drank six or eight glasses of brandy. When they had finished playing, Jeanne went upstairs to her bedroom, and, sitting by the window, worked at a petticoat flounce she was embroidering, while the wind and rain beat against the panes. When her eyes ached she looked out at the foamy, restless sea, gazed at it for a few minutes, and then took ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... makes, standing beneath the great overhanging gables of the wooden chalet. She, too, favours the national green; but, as relief, there is no lack of bonny red ribbons, to flutter in the wind, and, underneath the ornamented skirt, peeps out a bright-hued petticoat. Around her ample breast she wears a dark tight-fitting bodice, laced down the front. (I think this garment is called a stomacher, but I am not sure, as I have never liked to ask.) Her square shoulders are covered with the whitest of white linen. Her sleeves are ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... girl came, petticoat and all; we gave her some breakfast, and I then went down with her to Avenue A. On the way, she told me that you gave her some money. To my great sorrow we found, on reaching the school, that they could not take another one, as they were already overflowing. As we came ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the white maiden to be captured," said Dimple, as Bubbles coolly proceeded to take off her frock, displaying a red flannel petticoat. ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... beneath her petticoat Like little mice stole in and out, As if they feared the light; But, oh, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sound of coaches and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand and deliver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue riband, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and crosier in ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... revolutionary movement. Twelve years ago she murdered General Sacharow, the governor of some Russian city, who had been condemned to death by the Socialists for his energy. She appeared before the general with a petition, holding a revolver under her petticoat. When the general began to read she fired four bullets into his body, killing him on the spot. She was sent to Siberia, where she lived for twelve years, at first in solitary confinement, afterwards under somewhat easier ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... beg your pardon, George, but you are enough to try the patience of a saint. My good fellow, I don't deny Miss Vanstone's virtues. I'll admit, if you like, she's the best woman that ever put on a petticoat. That is ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... been sitting upon one of her feet and swinging the other, rose impulsively from the garden-seat and covered the lawn in a series of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself with a rending sound. Then she removed her hand from Peter's shoulder, upon which she had been supporting herself, and together they went ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... of his entire career. It was Sunday; the boy went to his mother's place, and helped her, as usual, to wash the dishes. Then came Petra's daughters, and they spent the whole afternoon quarrelling over a skirt or a petticoat that the younger had bought with the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... the clink of the teacups. It was in the swish of every silk petticoat. If I went to the theater, church or concert, the call of that germ-ridden spot of the unholy name beat into my brain with the persistency of a tom-tom on a ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... Miners, noticing this purely perfunctory habit, occasionally supplied him slily with articles inconsistent with their service,—fragments of their shirts and underclothing, flour sacking, tow, and once with a flannel petticoat of his wife's, stolen from the line in the back-yard. Roscommon would continue his wiping without looking up, but yet conscious of the presence of each customer. "And it's not another dhrop ye'll git, Jack Brown, until ye've wiped out the black ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... not to be wondered at that the women of Roma, casting around them to view the kind of men who occupy high seats in Roma politics, should say 'we will have none of them' and should desire to enforce a little petticoat government themselves. Roma has long been proud of its homes, its wives, its mothers and its housekeepers. Perhaps it would be for the public good, were we to set a few of these model housewives to cleaning up City Hall. Let them go ahead and elect a woman-mayor. Then let her proceed ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... the dangers of both. Over her venerable satin mantle, lined with cat-skin, she wore a scarlet duffle Bath cloak, with which she was wont to attend the tent sermons of the Kilwinning and Dreghorn preachings in cold and inclement weather. Her black silk petticoat was pinned up, that it might not receive injury from the nimble paddling of her short steps in the mire; and she carried her best shoes and stockings in a handkerchief to be changed at the manse, and had fortified her feet for the road in coarse worsted ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... as well as the pretty eyes of the niece, began to interest me, but fortunately the uncle put an end to it by begging me to follow him. He took me to the maid's room, and I found her putting on a petticoat, and grumbling ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to do any work required of him. The offer was accepted, and Betty was forthwith installed as Biddy's help. Her costume when she made her appearance was not altogether suited to her new style of life, as it consisted of a man's old shirt and a piece of grass matting as a petticoat. ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... lest they should hurt themselves against the stones and gravel. Hence Shakespeare's Ariel, living under blossoms, and riding at evening on the bat; and his domestic namesake in the Rape of the Lock (the imagination of the drawing-room) saving a lady's petticoat from the coffee with his plumes, and directing atoms of snuff into a coxcomb's nose. In the Orlando Furioso (Canto xv, st. 65) is a wild story of a cannibal necromancer, who laughs at being cut to pieces, coming together again like quicksilver, and picking up his head when it is cut off, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... corners of her mouth to the bottom of her chin, and her plump neck bagged. But the thing that marked her as having passed the line was that she no longer had reticences before her husband, and no longer worried about not having reticences. She was in a petticoat now, and corsets which bulged, and unaware of being seen in bulgy corsets. She had become so dully habituated to married life that in her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun. She was a ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the two children down the grassy path and through a short stretch of woods to the neighbor's. As they returned, Hannah saw a queer looking figure digging roots in the woods. Her waistcoat and petticoat were red; her old apron green. She wore a black hat over a white linen hood tied under her chin. It was Goody Walford. Friendly Old Bluff darted to her side, while Hannah seized Jacob's hand and ran for ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... complete, than she turns into it, all complete, and gives the word 'To Lady Tippins's.' That charmer dwells over a staymaker's in the Belgravian Borders, with a life-size model in the window on the ground floor of a distinguished beauty in a blue petticoat, stay-lace in hand, looking over her shoulder at the town in innocent surprise. As well she may, to find herself dressing under ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... entered as it was trying on, and was all astonishment at the elegance of the habit, and its beautiful effect upon her graceful person; but, most of all, she was astonished at her venturing on such a character—for though it represented the goddess of Chastity, yet from the buskins, and the petticoat festooned far above the ancle, it had, on a first glance, the appearance of a female much less virtuous. Miss Woodley admired this dress, yet objected to it; but as she admired first, her objections after had ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... "will have but my ordinary silk petticoat, but I shall adorn it with an upper skirt of flowered brocade, and shall put on my diamond tiara, which is a great deal finer than ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... 'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green, An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat—jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen, An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot, An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot: Bloomin' idol made o'mud— Wot ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Lovegold, a man of 60, and his son Frederick, both wish to marry Mariana, and, in order to divert the old miser from his foolish passion, Mariana pretends to be most extravagant. She orders a necklace and ear-rings of the value of [pounds]3000, a petticoat and gown from a fabric which is [pounds]12 a yard, and besets the house with duns. Lovegold gives [pounds]2000 to break off the bargain, and Frederick becomes ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... wonderful part of the Suomi Jehu's attire was his petticoat. He had a double-breasted blue-cloth coat fastening down the side, which at the waist was pleated on to the upper part in great fat folds more than an inch wide, so that from behind he almost looked like a Scheveningen fishwife; while, if he was not fat enough for fashionable ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... chosen sylphs, of special note, We trust th' important charge, the petticoat: Oft have we known that sevenfold fence to fail, Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale; Form a strong line about the silver bound, And guard ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... lap. Adelaide only did she except, explaining to the others, "Oui, mes cheris, je garde Adelaide, car savez-vous bien, c'est elle qui me donne des idees; je prends toujours conseil avec elle. Alors, n'est ce pas?" Then, carrying the dolls in her petticoat, she solemnly undid the button, let it slip down with the dolls inside, and placed it resolutely in the basket, saying: "J'y mets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... doublet, a close-fitting jacket, introduced from France in the fourteenth century, and fashionable in all ranks till the time of Charles II. Cp. As You Like It, ii. 4. 6:—'Doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat.' ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... cup is owned by the Vintners in London, called the Milkmaid. The figure of a milkmaid, in laced bodice, holds above her head a small cup on pivots, so that it finds its level when the figure is inverted, as is the case when the cup is used, the petticoat of the milkmaid forming the real goblet. It is constructed on the same principle as the German figures of court ladies holding up cups, which are often seen to-day, made on the old pattern. The cups in the case of this milkmaid are both filled with wine, and it is quite difficult to drink ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... cylinders, with the possibility of great damage. After the steam enters the throttle valve it passes through the front end of the valve, through the top of the boiler via the dry pipe (fig. 18), through the front tube sheet, and then to the cylinders via the petticoat pipes. The throttle lever is a simple arrangement readily understood from the drawings. It has no latch and the throttle lever is held in any desired setting by the wingnut and quadrant shown in figure 18. The water level in the boiler is indicated by the three brass cocks ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... husband pounded the kalo root on a board. His only clothing was the malo, a narrow strip of cloth wound round the loins, and passed between the legs. This was the only covering worn by men before the introduction of Christianity. Females wore the pau, a short petticoat made of tapa, which reached from the waist to the knees. To our eyes, the brown skin produces nearly ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... is an event that papa desires and mamma dreads. It seems to the mother that it is the beginning of her being forsaken. She looks with tearful eyes at the petticoat laid aside for ever, and murmurs to herself, "Infancy is over then? My part will soon become a small one. He will have fresh tastes, new wishes; he is no longer only myself, his personality is asserting itself; he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... gallery of the convent of Jesuits at Lisbon, there is a picture representing Adam in paradise, dressed in blue breeches with silver buckles, and Eve with a striped petticoat. In the distance appears a procession of ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of a petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his face ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... wife to search for his child, which had been missing since the day before. Several of the Indian Brethren immediately went to the house of the parents, and discovered the footsteps of the child, and tracing the same for the distance of two miles, found the child in the woods, wrapped up in its petticoat, and shivering with cold. The joy of the parents was so great that they reported the circumstance wherever they went. To some of the white people, who had been in dread of the near settlement of these Indians, this incident was the means of making ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... hoarse voice. "It ain't your claim any more than mine. You've covered it different, that's all. Yours was always the petticoat lay. Mine's slower but safer. Is anyone else in ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... grew but slowly under her fingers, and, truth to say, the occupation bored her. It was artistic, certainly, and it was fashionable; but Lady Kynaston would have been happier over a pair of cross-stitch slippers for her son, or a knitted woollen petticoat for the old woman at her lodge gate. All the same, she took out her crewels and put in a few stitches; but the afternoon was warm, there was a humming of insects in the summer air, a click-clicking from the gardener as he dropped one empty red flower-pot into the other along ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... call to her, when it occurred to me, that it was very queer she should have crept past my door, in that stealthy manner. I was puzzled, and, for one brief moment, the thought occupied my mind, that it was not she, but some fresh mystery of the house. Then, as I caught a glimpse of her old petticoat, the thought passed as quickly as it had come, and I half laughed. There could be no mistaking that ancient garment. Yet, I wondered what she was doing; and, remembering her condition of mind, on the previous day, I felt that it might be best to follow, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... the dingy window-panes and the cobwebs hanging from the cracked and bulging plastering overhead. "We can sell plenty on tick, but getting paid is the devil. Jim Cahews is a good man, but he can't say no—to a petticoat, anyway. While I was away he went it rather reckless. Why, he let one little woman that has heretofore been the brag of the county get in clean up to ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... reached the little bay of Capri, Antonio took the padre in his arms, and carried him through the last few ripples of shallow water, to set him reverently down upon his legs on dry land. But Laurella did not wait for him to wade back and fetch her. Gathering up her little petticoat, holding in one hand her wooden shoes and in the other her little bundle, with one splashing step or two she had reached the shore. "I have some time to stay at Capri," said the priest. "You need ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... to live without fire entirely in the winter; how to give up a bird which eats a half a farthing's worth of millet every two days; how to make a coverlet of one's petticoat, and a petticoat of one's coverlet; how to save one's candle, by taking one's meals by the light of the opposite window. No one knows all that certain feeble creatures, who have grown old in privation and honesty, can get out of a sou. It ends by being ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... get them, but she was well-known to be a heedless creature. One day she found a nest of five eggs as she was going across the fields to church with a brand new blue silk dress on. So she put them in the pocket of her petticoat and when she got to church she forgot all about them and sat down on them and her dress was ruined, not to speak of the petticoat. Let me see—would not Tod be some relation of yours? Your great grandmother West was a MacAllister. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... banquet given in honour of the occasion, saying that no king ever feasted from such a platter. Las Casas remarks that as for the miserable Indian girl who found it, we may without sin suppose that they never gave her so much as a red silk petticoat, and lucky was she indeed if she got even a mouthful of ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power of her presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bombazine petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the distance, and took that huge and noble head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed and dangerous; forever cocking his ear ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... just as she was in her petticoat, in order to pass long, ringed fingers through the soft masses, and lift them up for the pleasure of letting them fall. When the golden veil, as Lella M'Barka called it, had been praised and admired over and over again, the order was given to braid it in two long ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to me one morning; and I went down to see the writer, a respectable-looking old woman, dressed in the red petticoat and blue cloak of the country-people. She repeated what she had said in her note, and added: 'Now if you could find out the name of that Saint through the press, he'd tell me his remedies; and between us, all the world would be cured. For I can't ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... found out what I wanted. And I've managed with the girl. Had a devil of a job, though! That's the worst of women! You've always got to play the sentimental with them; nothing short of making love or offering to marry 'em is any use. It's a pity this kind of thing can't be worked without a petticoat. There's always trouble and bother when they come in. To-morrow night, Parson, ten o'clock, you and I are men or mice; but it's going to be men," he added, between his teeth. "Did you bring my barker ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... lying asleep on the load, jumped down, with her shoulders hitched up, and looking cross as fire at everybody that came near her. She was barefooted and bareheaded, and had nothing but an under night-gown and petticoat on, which seemed to aggravate her, for she looked scowling enough at the handsome young lady, and would not double-shuffle worth a cent, though all the men and women were trying ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... please you," says I, yet upon my knees and stooping to view them 'neath her petticoat, "though now I see I might better them by trimming and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the spring, and saw the congregation seated underneath the pear tree, shrieking like sinners at the Judgment Day. Among them sat the priest, with features hidden in his torn black petticoat. He ventured to approach the man and put a question. The priest unveiled his face a moment and was going to speak, but recollection of his sorrow overcame him. Hiding ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... have seemed frightful in the condition she was in, for all the dress she had on was a scanty old petticoat, with a night jacket of plain fustian, and turned back at the top of her head a yellow cap, which let her hair fall in disorder on her shoulders; and yet dressed even thus she shone with a thousand attractions, and all her person ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
... And as if afraid that her brain, now strained like a body on the rack, would suddenly snap, she threw up her arms, and began to take off her dress, as if she would hush thought in abrupt movements. In a moment she was in stays and petticoat. The delicate and almost girlish arms were disfigured by great bruises. Great black and blue stains were ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... was buried in the curve of one folded arm, the other, flung out, lay with the palm of the hand uppermost. The little feet were crossed under the crumpled skirt, from which peeped the folds of her last white silk petticoat. ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest |
