"Seamstress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of popular habits, is apt to take an exparte view. Accomplishments are derided as useless, in comparison with what is considered household virtues. The accomplishment of a cook is to make good dishes; of a seamstress to sew well, and of a lady to possess refined tastes, a cultivated mind, and agreeable and intellectual habits. The real VIRTUES of all are the same, though subject to laws peculiar to their station; but it is a very different thing when we come to the mere accomplishments. To deride all ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... too occupied a halfway place between these and the better-spoken, gentler-mannered house-servants. In the winters, after Christmas, which usually terminated the picking-season, Lizay was called to the place of head assistant of the plantation seamstress. Indeed, she did little field-service except in times of special pressure and during the quarter of cotton-picking. She was so nimble-fingered and swift that she could not be spared from the field in picking-season, especially if, as was the case this year, there was a heavy crop. And occasionally ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... gray creature, half blind, and she felt her way about gropingly. By the droop in her spine and by the corners of her lips, permanently puckered from holding pins in her mouth, a close observer would have guessed that she had been a seamstress before her eyes gave out on her and she took to keeping lodgers. Of the character of the establishment the innocent old major knew nothing; he knew that it was cheap and that it was on a quiet by-street, and for his purposes ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... His sword lies on the floor; for though our professor of poetry waged no war, except with words, a sword was, in the year 1740, a necessary appendage to every thing which called itself "gentleman." At the feet of his domestic seamstress, the full-dress coat is become the resting-place of a cat and two kittens: in the same situation is one stocking, the other is half immersed in the washing-pan. The broom, bellows, and mop, are scattered round the room. The open door shows us that their cupboard is unfurnished, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... bruised her legs, and progressive movements of the body by which she gradually forced her companion out of bed—it was a cold winter's night—to the floor of the fireless room. During the day, the seamstress took Germinie in hand, catechized her, preached at her, and by detailing the tortures of the other life, inspired in her mind a horrible fear of the hell whose flames she caused her ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Dober, wife of John Andrew Dober. Rosina Zeisberger, wife of David Zeisberger. Judith Toeltschig, Catherine Riedel, Rosina Haberecht, Regina Demuth, going to join their husbands already in Georgia. Anna Waschke, a widow, to join her son. Juliana Jaeschke, a seamstress.* ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... of their own is constantly in mind. Families look forward to the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered brothers and sisters work awhile in domestic service to gain the common fund for the purpose; your seamstress intends to become a dress-maker, and take in work at her own house; your cook is pondering a marriage with the baker, which shall transfer her toils from your cooking-stove to her own. Young women are eagerly rushing into every other employment, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of a black gown ornamented with cretonne roses, carefully applied. She and Sally cut out the flowers, and applied them with buttonhole stitch, sewing until their fingers were sore, their faces flushed, and their hair in frowsy disorder. It was slow work. Miss Pepper, the seamstress, engaged for one day only to do the important work on both Sally's and Martie's gown, kept postponing, as she always did postpone, the day, finally appointing the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day. Pa's ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... freak for you!" continued Madame Boche in a lower tone of voice. "She never does any laundry, not even a pair of cuffs. A seamstress who doesn't even sew on a loose button! She's just like her sister, the brass burnisher, that hussy Adele, who stays away from her job two days out of three. Nobody knows who their folks are or how they make a living. Though, if I wanted to talk . . . ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... by dying for them. It was the joy of Sydney Carton that he could! He contrived to enter the Conciergerie; made his way to Darnay's cell; changed clothes with him; hurried him forth; and then resigned himself to his fate. Later on, a fellow prisoner, a little seamstress, approached him. She had known Darnay and had learned to trust him. She asked if she might ride with him ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... virgins and martyrs, and Christendom fared very well. But now it amounts to nothing more than praying and singing. Ought not, indeed, every Christian at the age of nine or ten years know the entire holy Gospel, in which his name and life is written? Does not the spinner and the seamstress teach the same handicraft to her daughter when she is still young? But now even the great men, the learned prelates and bishops, do not know the Gospel. How unjustly do we deal with the poor youth entrusted to us, failing, as we do, to govern and instruct them! What a severe reckoning will ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... The seamstress was now summoned, and the orders were given for Priscilla's dress, to be made to fit Daisy. It was very amusing, the strait-cut brown gown, the plain broad vandyke of white muslin, and etceteras ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... their husbands do not dress them well enough, they will soon receive presents from others. They used to spend whole days on board our vessel, examining the fine clothes and ornaments, and frequently making purchases at a rate which would have made a seamstress or waiting-maid in Boston open ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... time on a tour to Quebec and the Falls of Montmorency. They decided to shut their house in Boston, and Lulu asked me if I would employ and look after a protegee of hers, in whom she took some interest. The woman was a tolerable seamstress, she said, and would come to me the next day. She knew nothing about her except that she was poor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with 'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Gray's dressing-room. She'd gone home deathly ill, of course. They gave me the best seamstress in the place. She let out the waist a bit and pulled over the lace to cover it. I got into that mass of silk and lace—oh, silk on silk, and Nance Olden inside! Beryl Blackburn did my hair, and Grace Weston put on my slippers. Topham, himself, hung ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... motion generated,—thought as little of the patient industry with which all had been elaborated as they who admire an exquisite ball-dress, that seems a part of the lovely form which it adorns, think of the pale weaver's loom and the poor seamstress's needle. We have known brilliant men; we have known laborious men; but we have never known any man in whom the two elements were met in such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Benjamin to a masked ball, after sending at the same time his nephew supperless to bed.—When they have left Heinrich reappears in the garb of Mephistopheles and clapping his hands, his fiancee Bertha, a poor seamstress soon enters. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... seething in her mind, and she never took her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... However, it led to a little conversation, by which I learned that he was a street candy merchant, and that some young thief had run off with all his stock in trade. He was then in hot pursuit. Learning that his mother was a seamstress and a worthy woman, I employed her to make me some shirts. I have followed the fortunes of the family, and have been Paul's adviser since then, and latterly his banker. He is now proprietor of a street-stand, and making, for a boy ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... Mrs. Miles Merryweather, six children, cook, housemaid and seamstress, two dogs, two cats (at least the basket mewed, so I infer cats), one canary ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... whom I had not seen before since I came to England; we were mighty glad to see each other, and she has engaged me to visit her, as I design to do. It is one Mrs. Colledge: she has lodgings at Whitehall, having been seamstress to King William, worth three hundred a year. Her father was a fanatic joiner,(15) hanged for treason in Shaftesbury's plot. This noble person and I were brought acquainted, some years ago, by Lady Berkeley.(16) I love good creditable acquaintance: I love ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... old Bablington: delightfully bound—so light." And it was in July that Holm Oaks, as a gathering-place of the elect, was at its best. For in July it had become customary to welcome there many of those poor souls from London who arrived exhausted by the season, and than whom no seamstress in a two-pair back could better have earned a holiday. The Dennants themselves never went to London for the season. It was their good pleasure not to. A week or fortnight of it satisfied them. They had a radical weakness ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... delicacy of the colour being rather injured by the red damask background. These pictures do not possess any particular merit beyond that of being extremely good likenesses, especially the one of the Marchioness of Ormonde. Over them is hung a picture of a seamstress, pale and vacant-looking, with eyes red from tears and long watchings in the night, hemming a shirt. It is meant to illustrate Hood's familiar poem. As we look on it, a terrible contrast strikes us between this miserable pauper-seamstress and the three beautiful daughters ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... Mr. Devins, looking after him with contracted brow. "He has spent two Christmas days of twenty-three out of jail. He is a burglar, or was. His daughter has brought him round. She is a seamstress. For three months, now, she has been keeping him and the home, working nights. If I could only get him a job! He won't stay honest long without it; but who wants a burglar for a watchman? And how can I ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... photographic paper, (a paper made in Europe for this special purpose, very thin, smooth, and compact,) and floats it evenly on the surface of the albumen. Presently she lifts it very carefully by the turned-up corners and hangs it bias, as a seamstress might say, that is, cornerwise, on a string, to dry. This "albumenized" paper is sold most extensively to photographers, who find it cheaper to buy than to prepare it. It keeps for a long time uninjured, and is "sensitized" when wanted, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in the useful arts. Improved machinery lightens the toil of the sailor. Machines in a great variety facilitate agricultural labor. They open the furrow, sow the seed, reap and winnow the harvest. In-doors, the sewing-machine performs a great part of the labor formerly done by the fingers of the seamstress. The art of printing has attained to a marvelous degree of progress. Hoe's printing-press, moved by steam, seizes on the blank paper, severs it from the roll in sheets of the right size, prints it on both sides, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... their services decreasing—the milk trade and cheap foreign cheese having rendered common sorts of cheese unprofitable. They are usually cottagers. Of the married labouring women and the indoor servants something has already been said. In most villages a seamstress or two may be found, and has plenty of work to do for the farmers' families. The better class of housekeepers, and those professional dairymaids who superintend the making of superior cheese, are generally more or less nearly related to the families ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... hear it, and it would distress her, she is so full of love and goodness. The boys study with all their might and main. Why? Partly, at least, because they like to teach Carol, and amuse her by telling her what they read. When the seamstress comes, she likes to sew in Miss Carol's room, because there she forgets her own troubles, which, Heaven knows, are sore enough! And as for me, Donald, I am a better woman every day for Carol's sake; I have to be her eyes, ears, feet, hands—her strength, ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... human sympathy, diffused and living. The world has had enough of charities. It wants respect and consideration. We desire no longer to be legislated for, it says; we want to be legislated with. Why do you never come to see me but you bring me something? asks the sensitive and poor seamstress. Do you always give some charity to your friends? I want companionship, and not cold pieces; I want to be treated like a human being who has nerves and feelings, and tears too, and as much interest in the sunset, and in the birth of Christ, perhaps as you. And ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of setting up a petty shop is almost the only resource of women, in circumstances at all similar to those of our unfortunate recluse. With her near-sightedness, and those tremulous fingers of hers, at once inflexible and delicate, she could not be a seamstress; although her sampler, of fifty years gone by, exhibited some of the most recondite specimens of ornamental needlework. A school for little children had been often in her thoughts; and, at one time, she had begun a review ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dilapidated body very much as I should have regarded a damaged garment; and, turning up his cuffs, whipped out a very unpleasant looking housewife, cutting, sawing, patching and piecing, with the enthusiasm of an accomplished surgical seamstress; explaining the process, in scientific terms, to the patient, meantime; which, of course, was immensely cheering and comfortable. There was an uncanny sort of fascination in watching him, as he peered and probed into the mechanism of those wonderful bodies, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... proud even to insolence. Old companions, who, a very few years before, had punned and rhymed with him in garrets, had dined with him at cheap ordinaries, had sate with him in the pit, and had lent him some silver to pay his seamstress's bill, hardly knew their friend Charles in the great man who could not forget for one moment that he was First Lord of the Treasury, that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he had been a Regent of the kingdom, that he had founded the Bank of England and the new East India Company, that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... looking in vain for a seamstress for the last three or four weeks. And I thought I really should have to go to the trouble and expense of sending to Baltimore or Washington for one; for all our spring and summer sewing is yet to do. I am sure I could keep one woman in fine needlework ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... clothes absorb a little of the character of their wearer, so that I recognised this jacket by a certain coquetry? If she has a way with her skirts that always advertises me of her presence, quite possibly she is as cunning with jackets. Or perhaps she is her own seamstress, and puts in little ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... and he trembled with agitation as he thrust the pocketbook into his pocket. He would have trembled still more if he had known that his mother's confidential maid and seamstress, Felicie Lacouvreur, had seen everything through the crevice ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... parts of the three kingdoms; and they came from all classes of the community. To mention one interesting case, Sweden sent in 2296 subscriptions "from all sorts of people," as the distinguished man of science who transmitted them wrote, "from the bishop to the seamstress, and in sums from five pounds to ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Machine, awakens sympathy for the printer of Christmas story books and reveals Gibson as the twentieth-century Thomas Hood of The Song of the Shirt. One of the most richly human of his poems is The Crane, the story of the seamstress mother and her lame boy. His realistic volume of verse bearing the significant title, Daily Bread (1910), contains a number of narrative poems, which endeavor to set to music the "one measure" to which all life moves,—the earning ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... came out from hiding and scampered merrily about the kitchen floor. The chorus of clock-ticks sounded drowsily through the silent house, Madam was taking her daily rest on her lounge in the sitting-room, and after a time the seamstress's good intentions passed into a maze of dreams. In them she seemed to be eternally climbing steep stairs into a chamber of horrors tenanted by one starving boy; or she was watching Madam choke to death over a lump of hot scorched porridge; or she was being ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the State Public School was opened at Coldwater, in charge of Professor Truesdell, superintendent, and Miss Emma A. Hall, matron. I went into the school as seamstress and nurse, and remained there nearly two years. Instead of overhauling, cutting, and making over second-hand clothes for the three hundred little homeless waifs we had cared for in our orphans' home, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... resistance to the action of the drug, her system became accustomed to enormous quantities of it. She could not eat, nor sleep, nor work without it. Most of her scanty earnings went to purchase it. She was a seamstress, and by toiling many hours a day managed to get enough money to buy it. Some years back she had been a happy wife and mother. Her husband loved her; she was devoted to him and to their two children. She lost him; she lost the care of her children; ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... preparations for M'ri's wedding. Rhody Crabbe's needle and fingers flew in rapturous speed, and there was likewise engaged a seamstress from Lafferton. Rhody had begged for the making of the wedding gown, and when it was finished David ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... patriotic sentiments of the parents, Madame Lanoy left with the children the viscount's house, where they had hitherto resided, and occupied with both of them a small shabby house, where she established herself as seamstress. The little eleven-year-old Hortense, the daughter of the Citizeness Beauharnais, was now the assistant of the Citizeness Lanoy, at the trade of seamstress. Eugene was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker; a leather apron was put on, and then with a plank under his arm, and carrying a ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... where Gloriana sat pretending to sew, she laid the mother's letter on the table before the seamstress, and when the gray eyes had read the message and glanced inquiringly up at the dark face beside her, Tabitha nodded her head. "Yes," she half-whispered. "I can't desert them now." Then after a moment of silence, she added, "But you ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... dirty babies in the region round about. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling alleys back of our house, than ever you have in Chestnut Street, though you know every body is half dying to see you; and now, to crown all, you must give this choice little bijou to a seamstress girl, when one of your most intimate friends, in your own class, would value it so highly. What in the world can people in their circumstances ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... first, the industrial revolution. A large number of the activities once carried on in the home have removed to other quarters. In earlier times the mother of a family served as cook, housemaid, laundress, spinner, weaver, seamstress, dairymaid, nurse, and general caretaker. The father was about the house, at work in the field, or in his workshop close at hand. The children grew up naturally in the midst of the industries which provided for the maintenance of the home, and for which, in part, the home existed. The ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... is an expert seamstress. She is finishing men's coats at six cents apiece; and with nothing to bother her, working sixteen hours a day, she makes fifty-four cents. The rent for the narrow little back room is one dollar and ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... contrary to the expressed wish of Louis XI., after he had killed a man who had insulted him. But in 1483 the element of romance appears again. A priest called Robert Clerot, with a sword beneath his cloak, was accustomed to pester with his attentions a pretty seamstress in the parish of St. Eloi. Her legitimate lover interfered, and, when the priest drew his sword, called in help and killed him with his dagger. Twice more in this period is a "couturiere" the heroine of the Fierte. In the very next year ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... a pair of compasses, balanced them for a moment in his fingers, and with the precision of a seamstress threading a needle, dropped the points astride a wavy line ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... whir of sewing-machines in Madame Levaney's large dressmaking establishment. Cicely Leeds's head ached as she bent over the ruffles she was hemming. She was the youngest seamstress in the room, and wore her hair hanging in two ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... not flinch from the three hundred francs for Pierrette's clothes. During the first week her time was wholly taken up, and Pierrette's too, by frocks to order and try on, chemises and petticoats to cut out and have made by a seamstress who went out by the day. Pierrette did not know ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... bone, bend over my sewing till the film of blindness gathered in my eyes; nay, even beg from street to street. I told Mr. Garland so, and he gave me permission to see what I could do. I was fortunate in obtaining work, and in a short time I had acquired something of a reputation as a seamstress and dress-maker. The best ladies in St. Louis were my patrons, and when my reputation was once established I never lacked for orders. With my needle I kept bread in the mouths of seventeen persons for two years and five months. While I was working so hard that others might live in ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... him here a few days since, in a sadly seedy condition. He told me that he was still extravagantly fond of whiskey, though he was constantly "running it down." I inquired after his wife. "She is dead, poor creature," said he, "and is probably far better off than ever she was here. She was a seamstress, and her greatest enjoyment of happiness in this world ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... kept their pace, which quickened imperceptibly, ruminating in silence her experiences of the day. Mortification mingled with self-ridicule was uppermost. To be a bridesmaid amongst the grand folks at Fairfield—could anything be more absurdly afflicting? To be a seamstress at Madame Michaud's—the odious idea of it! Poor Bessie, what a blessing to her was her gift of humor, her gift for seeing the laughable side of things and people, and especially the laughable side of herself ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... an' Mis Roby lived on er big plantation near Goldston an' dey had 'bout three hundred slaves. Hannah, my mammy, wuz de head seamstress. She had to 'ten' to de makin' of all de slaves clothes. De niggers had good clothes. De cloth wuz home woven in de weavin' room. Ten niggers didn' do nothin' but weave, but every slave had one Sunday dress ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... you that her most valuable stage possession is her Makeup Box. It contains the necessary tools of her trade, without which she would be helpless to carry on. It is to her what the brush and colors and palette are to the painter; the needle and thread to the seamstress; the hammer and saw and plane to the carpenter. Before you enter upon a stage career supply yourself with a complete makeup box equipped with all the needed tools and ingredients for making up for the part you are to assume. This is a necessary purchase, ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... forms and stability of the substances they encounter, and that there is no more quality of Energy, though much less quality of Art, in the swiftly penetrating shot, or crushing ball, than in the deliberately contemplative and administrative puncture by a gnat's proboscis, or a seamstress' needle. ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... voice, and—as it was pretty much all that he had to lose— had fallen into a state of hopeless melancholy. The table was likewise graced by two of the gentler sex,—one, a half-starved, consumptive seamstress, the representative of thousands just as wretched; the other, a woman of unemployed energy, who found herself in the world with nothing to achieve, nothing to enjoy, and nothing even to suffer. She had, therefore, driven herself to the verge ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... magnificent scale, pinching, however, at certain points with unexpected meanness. When she was alone, her table was of a Spartan austerity; she exacted a great deal from her servants, and paid them as small wages as she could. After that she did not mind lavishing money upon them in kindness. A seamstress whom she had once employed fell sick, and Miss Kingsbury sent her to the Bahamas and kept her there till she was well, and then made her a guest in her house till the girl could get back her work. She watched her cook through the measles, caring for her like a mother; and, as Olive Halleck ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few months old, a situation in a private family either as governess, seamstress, or ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... looked at her without much interest, supposing that she might be a seamstress, or laundress, or some applicant for charity. So many years had passed since he had met with this woman that she had ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were filled with curiosity; they besought an explanation. It appeared that when a party of slaters were engaged upon a roof, they would now and then be taken with a fancy for the public-house. Now a seamstress, for example, might slip away from her work and no one be the wiser; but if these fellows adjourned, the tapping of the mallets would cease, and thus the neighbourhood be advertised of their defection. Hence the career of the tapper. He has to do the tapping and keep ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same phantasm. Compare with La Louve, the strength of wild virtue in the "Louvecienne" (Lucienne) of Gaboriau—she, province-born and bred; and opposed to Parisian civilization in the character of her seamstress friend. "De ce Paris, ou elle etait nee, elle savait tout—elle connaissait tout. Rien ne l'etonnait, nul ne l'intimidait. Sa science des details materiels de l'existence etait inconcevable. Impossible de la duper!—Eh bien! ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... that famous gossip and seamstress, had been called in again, and the girls all had plenty of up-to-date winter frocks made. Miss Titus' breezy conversation vastly interested Dot, who often sat silently nursing her Alice-doll in the sewing room, ogling the seamstress wonderingly as her tongue ran on. ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... was not a bad seamstress, and the two friends began to make Lottie little frocks; and, as Hopewell only had to supply the material out of the store, Lottie was more prettily dressed—and for less ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... which otherwise would have been stowed thriftily away for little Jenny. Lucy added her contribution for the same object, and it was considered a good opportunity for teaching her what she so much needed to learn—plain sewing. Mrs. Ford, who was a capital seamstress as well as housewife, undertook to make Nelly a good needlewoman, if she would be diligent in trying to learn; and she was too grateful, and too anxious to please, not to try her best, though the long, tedious seams often tried her restless, active spirit. ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... changes since we met; A patient little seamstress yet, With small means striving, Have you a Lilliputian spouse? And do you dwell in some doll's house? ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... would be the chosen receptacles for the numerous oddments which are required in the practice and pursuit of every home handicraft, and especially those connected with plying the needle. There was a time, however, when the fabrics used in the making up of clothing were home-made, when the seamstress and the needleworker stitched and embroidered upon cloths spun if not actually woven by the housewife and her handmaidens. In the barrows containing remains of people of the Stone Age, and the peoples of the early Bronze Age, among the few ornaments and personal adornments buried ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... man does not write to a Moorish girl in Algiers in the same way as to a seamstress of Beaucaire. It was a very lucky thing that our hero had in mind his numerous readings, which allowed him, by amalgamating the Red Indian eloquence of Gustave Aimard's Apaches with Lamartine's ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... clear idea of just how he should improve them. My programme was the general one, and simple enough it was. First, of course, to make ready for inspection, and, that ceremony well gotten through with, to enact the familiar performance of every man his own washerwoman and seamstress: the remainder of the day should be devoted to the soldier's sacred delight of correspondence—to completing a letter to Wynne, begun back at Columbia, and writing home. Out by the smouldering fire, where the cooks of our mess had prepared breakfast nearly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she replied, with a sort of fright. "He does not wish it—and he is right. You see, Monsieur, when he married me, five years ago, he was not what he is now; he was a railway clerk. I was a working-girl; yes, I was a seamstress. Then it was all right; we used to walk together, and we went to the theatre; he did not know any one. It is different now. You see, if the Baroness Dinati should see me on his arm, she would ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... some time, and has never since been heard of. He was her only means of support, as the rest of the family were out of employment. Her daughter is a very interesting young woman, and would like a situation as seamstress and nurse. I would have no fear in recommending her to any one who might ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... despair which seized the fair princess, commanded by her ugly step-mother to assort a whole garret full of tangled silk threads of every kind and colour, when in comes Prince Percinet with a wand, whisks it over the miscellaneous mass, and lo! all the threads are as nicely arranged as in a seamstress' housewife. It has often happened to me that when I went to bed with my head as ignorant as my shoulders what I was to do next, I have waked in the morning with a distinct and accurate conception of the mode, good or bad, in which ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... surprised to learn that, with the death of the gallant captain, this "incomparable sweet girl," who would ere long reconcile even a supercilious Frenchman to the English stage, had to seek her living as a seamstress. How she sewed a bodice or hemmed a petticoat we know not, nor do we care; it is far more interesting to be told that, though only in her early teens, the toiler with the needle found her greatest recreation in reading Beaumont ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... A native of Savoy, he possessed the mountaineer's taciturnity and love of home. War carried him to Paris. The rigors of conscription threw him into the ranks of the army; and when the first Empire fell, the child of Savoy made Paris his home, married a young seamstress, and obtained the lodge of house No. 5 Rue des Trois Freres. This marriage gave to French letters Henry Murger. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... My establishment consists of a housekeeper, cook, and chambermaid, seamstress, and two footmen. There are, besides, two fishermen and four bargemen always at command. The department of laundress is done abroad. The plantation affords plenty of milk, cream, and butter; turkeys, fowls, kids, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... sedulously seek by art. A little woman, of clear olive complexion and regular features, her face was almost a perfect oval, except as time had marred its outline. She had been in the habit of coming to the class with some young women of the family she lived with, part boarder, part seamstress and friend of the family. Sometimes, while waiting for her young charges, the music would jar her nerves, and she would seek the comparative ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... worthy public memorial of Darwin. Subscriptions flowed in abundantly, and came from all countries of Europe, the United States, the British Colonies, and Brazil. Sweden sent the astonishing number of 2296 subscriptions; persons of all ranks contributed, from a bishop to a seamstress. Over L4,000 in all was subscribed, and it was resolved, in the first place, to procure the best possible statue. This work was entrusted to Mr. Boehm, R.A., with admirable results. Permission was obtained ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... long year after Carl died." She seemed brimming over once with things to tell me, and wanted me to know about her teaching some of the blind girls to sew, which she takes great pride in, threading the needle, and making her pupils pick out their work if it is not done nicely. She is a good seamstress herself, does fancy work, and can run a sewing machine. Next, she caught hold of my hand and led me up two flights of stairs to her room to shew me her things; but the first movement was to take me to the window, ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... little dark-eyed seamstress sits and enjoys her ice at the same tin-topped table at the Gambrinus where the foreign Princess has sat in April. In winter Florence is a city of the wealthy; in summer it is given over entirely to the populace. So great is the sweltering, breathless ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... His version of "Genevieve" will be issued, upon its completion, by the publishers of The International. We give a specimen of its quality in the following characteristic description, of Marseilles, premising that the work is dedicated to "Mlle. Reine-Garde, seamstress, and formerly a servant, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... Jackson began. "Sillerton took me to the first night of the Opera, and I can only tell you that Jane Merry's dress was the only one I recognised from last year; and even that had had the front panel changed. Yet I know she got it out from Worth only two years ago, because my seamstress always goes in to make over her Paris ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... into her new life very happily. She became engrossed in housekeeping for several hours every morning, and was delighted to hear of a seamstress who could come in and work by the day. Deb Howitt was sent for, and she proved a skilful and industrious needlewoman, and amused and interested all who came in contact with ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... the poor to help the rich. It is equally important that the rich help the poor. It is impossible to overestimate the value of those visitations of the noble few who leave their homes and seek out the little room of the poor seamstress, and carry sunlight and love and comfort into the abodes of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... are visitors," she cried to the seamstress who had followed her, and she put her ear to the door to listen. At first she could not make out anything that was going on, but the end of the strange conversation that was being carried on within was so hideously intelligible ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... night, and in one of the upper rooms of Mr. Livingstone's house she stood awaiting the summons to the parlor. They had arrayed her for the bridal; Mrs. Livingstone, Carrie, 'Lena, Anna, and the seamstress, all had had something to do with her toilet, and now they had left her for a time with him who was so soon to be her husband. She knew—for they had told her—she was looking uncommonly well. Her dress, of pure ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... from the corner of a seat near by. From the beginning of this unpleasant affair, it was observed that a plainly dressed woman—a seamstress accompanying the family of a Mr. Graft—had become very pale and nervous, and had been seen to move uneasily in her seat. This woman had fainted away. She it was who had stared so strangely at Marcus in ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... a seamstress made it. You must let me get you cake and a glass of wine." The unwilling hostess crossed over to the hospitable cupboard and Mrs. Abbott amiably accepted a glass of port, the while her eyes could hardly tear themselves from the books on the table by the ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... work, work! Sang HOOD, in the "Song of the Shirt," Of the seamstress slave who worked to her grave In poverty, hunger, and dirt. Work, work, work! The Bar-maid, too, can say, Work for ten hours, or more; Oh, for "eight hours" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... things on which our destiny seems to hang! In a moment I was remembering what Mrs. Oliver had said about my being a good seamstress; and, almost before I knew what I was about, I was hurrying up the side street and knocking with my ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... "That's true. A seamstress gets done for. When Toussaint was laid up here I myself wanted to go back to my old calling as a needlewoman. But there! I spoilt everything and did no good. Charring's about the only thing that one can always do. Why don't you get some jobs ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... somewhat like a cartman's frock. Stuyvesant had had it made by the seamstress at his mother's house, in New York, before he came away. He was a very neat and tidy boy about his dress, and always felt uncomfortable if his clothes were soiled or torn. He concluded, therefore, that if he had a good, strong, serviceable frock to put on over ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... Haunted by hunger, he battled for years to gain a mere living, often on the brink of despair. His only help was a small stipend from the king of Denmark, which enabled him to spend two years in Paris and Rome, and the meager pennies that his devoted friend Elise Lensing, a poor seamstress in Hamburg, sent him. His short stories, his dramas, although they brought him fame, were of little avail in this struggle that seemed all too hopeless. Then a sudden change for the better came. Stopping at Vienna on his ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... to some purpose. One day she walked over to the farm and made her way quietly to the back door. By good fortune she found blind Nora hemming napkins and in a mood to converse. Nora was an especially neat seamstress, but required some one to thread her needles. Mary the cook had been doing this, but now Mrs. Clark sat down beside Nora to "hev a little talk" and keep ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... ingenious inventor of the great patent machine erected at Groningen, where they put in raw hemp at one end, and take out ruffled shirts at the other, without the aid of hackle or rippling-comb—loom, shuttle, or weaver—scissors, needle, or seamstress. He had just completed it, by the addition of a piece of machinery to perform the work of the laundress; but when it was exhibited before his honour the burgomaster, it had the inconvenience of heating the smoothing-irons red-hot; excepting which, the experiment was entirely satisfactory. He will ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... highly pleased with Polly's manner and appearance, and concluded to make a seamstress of her. Major Berry had a mulatto servant, who was as handsome as an Apollo, and when he and Polly met each other, day after day, the natural result followed, and in a short time, with the full consent of ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney
... it collects honey and pollen; but its special art will remain an utter secret, notwithstanding all the scrutiny of the microscope. In our own industries, the plane denotes the joiner, the trowel the mason, the scissors the tailor, the needle the seamstress. Are things the same in animal industry? Just show us, if you please, the trowel that is a certain sign of the mason-insect, the chisel that is a positive characteristic of the carpenter-insect, the iron that is an authentic mark ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... were told off. From the farmer-general of seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... have been corrected: "a" added (page 10; orignial text reads: "...thread ready alike for the sewing machine or the needle of seamstress." "aecording" corrected to "according" (page 36) "produed" corrected to "produced" (page 52) "qnantities" corrected to "quantities" (page 63) "reamains" corrected to "remains" (page 121) "rapily" corrected to "rapidly" (page 125) "to to" corrected to "to" (page 133) "correet" corrected to "correct" ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... "If this labor was as important as that of seamstress or governess why not the same courtesy—Oh she's a most superior and opinionated young person, I can ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... (if he own a bit of land and a shed to cover him), a person, and may enjoy the proud honor of paying into the hand of the complaisant tax-gatherer the sum of seventy-five cents. Even so with the white woman—the satellite of the dinner-pot, the presiding genius of the wash-tub, the seamstress, the teacher, the gay butterfly of fashion, the feme covert of the law, man takes no note of her through all these changing scenes. But, lo! to-day, by the fruit of her industry, she becomes the owner of a house and lot, and now her existence is remembered ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a cook for your mutton and beef. I require a far better thing. A seamstress you're wanting for stockings and shirts, I look for a ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... have to work, just stayed in the house with my mammy. She was a seamstress. I'm tellin' you the truth now. I can tell it at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... all day. Her painting materials had been put meekly aside, and, as a further precaution at old Mata's hands, hidden under the kitchen flooring. Toward the last it was found necessary to employ an assistant, a seamstress, known of old to Mata. Her companionship, as well as her sewing, proved a boon. Seated upon the springy matting, with waves of shimmering silk tumultuous about them, the old dames chatted incessantly of other brides and other wedding outfits they had known. Marvellous ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa would amount to something after all, since she could do so well as housemaid, teacher, seamstress, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... of his return to the house of his childhood Arthur had noticed there a little seamstress, with pale, transparent face, hazel eyes and a figure as small as a child's. She wore a spare thin dress, spoke little, and passed through the rooms noiselessly and shy. They called her "Little Dorrit." She came in the morning and sewed quietly till nightfall, when she vanished. It had been ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... was in the bottom of the vehicle. He swung this into the unconscious girl's face as he thrust her upon the seat. He had expected to see one of the servants of the mansion—a seamstress, or one of the maids, perhaps—but he was totally unprepared for the vision of girlish ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... birth to the hour of her escape she had worn the yoke under Mrs. C., as her most efficient and reliable maid-servant. She had been at her mistress' beck and call as seamstress, dressing-maid, nurse in the sickroom, etc., etc., under circumstances that might appear to the casual observer uncommonly favorable for a slave. Indeed, on his first interview with her, the Committee man was so forcibly impressed with the belief, that her condition ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... novel entitled The Bounder of Genius, and has kindly furnished us with a brief outline of its contents. The hero, who starts life as an artificial raspberry-pip maker and amasses a colossal fortune in the Argentine grain trade, marries a poor seamstress in his struggling days, but deserts her for a brilliant variety actress, who is in turn deposed by (1) the daughter of a dean, (2) the daughter of an earl, and (3) the daughter of a duke. Ultimately Jasper ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... seamstress thus far subjected me to mere trials of temper, or mortifications of personal pride, but never to the calamities which sometimes fall so heavily on others in a like position. Hence, while spared the latter, I was too much disposed to magnify the former: for, let our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... two circumstances about servants, illustrative of the mind and manners of that class of persons in this country. A young woman engaged herself to me, as lady's-maid, immediately before my marriage; she had been a seamstress, and her health had been much injured by constantly stooping at her sedentary employment. I took her into my service at a salary of L25 a year. She had little to do; I took care that every day she should be out walking for at least ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... was Maria Dunlap and daddy's name was Saul. Mamma was de seamstress and don't do nothin' but weave cloth on de spinnin' wheel and make clothes. Daddy from Lake Providence, I heared him say, but I don't know where at dat is. He do all de carpenter work. I has five sisters and two brothers, but dey ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... herself on being happy. It is beyond the narrow limits of our present sphere. The maids that wait upon us envy us and think that in our places they would have nothing left to wish for. The discontented seamstress that stitches away at my expensive dresses fancies they must shelter a happy heart, whose lot she covets; and all the while I am wishing for anything else in the world besides what I have. Whether we marry or remain ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... the door and Mimi, a little seamstress, who lives on the same floor, appears and asks Rudolph to give her a match to light her candle. As she is about to go out, she falls in a faint. Rudolph gives her wine and restores her to consciousness. She tells ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... Love's a thin Diet, nor will keep out Cold. You cannot satisfy your Dunning Taylor, To cry—I am in Love! Though possible you may your Seamstress. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... growing all the time by reflection, and thus be saved from falling into a morbid state, such as too often results from long confinement to an occupation demanding little exertion of its powers. The farmer at his plough, the mechanic at his bench, the seamstress at her needle, and a host of others, too often suffer the thoughts to wander into realms of morbid egotism and discontent, when, if they would turn them upon moral or intellectual themes, they might be growing ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... was it to be done? Where was the money to come from? He must have some new trousers, and pay a debt of long standing to the shoemaker for putting new tops to his old boots, and he must order three shirts from the seamstress, and a couple of pieces of linen. In short, all his money must be spent. And even if the director should be so kind as to order him to receive forty-five or even fifty rubles instead of forty, it would be a mere nothing, a mere drop in the ocean towards the funds ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... word of English. As we see her there, looking up from her sewing, from time to time, neat and dainty, her black hair dressed to perfection, a pathetic expression in the dark eyes with which she regards us from time to time, we think of Marie Claire, and wonder if this little seamstress has not a story of her own to tell, and one which like the story of that other sewing girl, would touch the heart because of ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... more than a year before. She was obliged to take in plain sewing, and when she could do so, she gave occasional lessons in French to eke out a livelihood for herself and child. A very short interview resulted in Mrs. Arnold persuading the widow to take a permanent situation with her, as her seamstress. And from that date until her death, which took place five years later, the fortunate widow and her child lived with the Arnolds as full members ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... precisely with those of the character in "The Mikado" that we referred to her habitually as Katisha. She had been a serf, a member of the serf aristocracy, which consisted of the house servants, and had served always as maid or nurse. She was now struggling on as a seamstress. Her sewing was wonderfully bad, and she found great difficulty in bringing up her two children, who demanded fashionable "European" clothing, and in eking out the starvation wages of her husband, a superannuated ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... arrival, for he insisted upon accompanying Pixie himself, and could not see that it made the least difference whether she arrived at the beginning of the term or a few weeks later on. Miss Minnitt protested faintly, but soon relapsed into silence, and consoled herself by turning seamstress and helping Bridgie and Joan with the school outfit. It was a case of making new lamps out of old, for little money was forthcoming to buy fresh material, and, with the best will in the world, the workers were ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... made a new patchwork quilt. Seven were neatly folded and put away in an old trunk in the attic. The eighth was progressing well, but the young seamstress was becoming sated with quilts. She had never been to school, but Miss Mehitable had taught her all she knew. Unkind critics might have intimated that Araminta had not been taught much, but she could sew nicely, keep house neatly, and write a stilted letter in ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... no rain for a long time; many people were sick and dying, and the world looked very dark to some of them. Mrs. Holmes lived high up in the topmost rooms of a tall block of buildings. Her rooms were small and hot, for the sun shone into her windows and upon the roof all the long day. She was a seamstress and a widow with one little ...
— Sunshine Factory • Pansy
... months old was amusing herself upon the floor with her playthings. "Would you like to come and live with me, and take care of Dora?" asked she, as Nannie stooped to caress the child, "I need Biddy as seamstress, and you love babies and know how to please them, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... But th' judges say: 'Hold on, there; yell have to weigh out,' an' a little later a notice is posted up that Dorgan is disqualified f'r ridin' undherweight in th' matther iv soul. On th' other hand, there's little Miss Maddigan, th' seamstress. She's all but left at th' post; she's jostled all th' way around, an' comes in lame, a bad last. But she's th' only wan iv th' lot that's kept th' weight. She weighs ninety-six pounds—six iv it bein' tea an' toast an ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... ground beside her trunk, turning the things over, in a misery of annoyance and mortification; half inclined to laugh too as she remembered the seamstress in the small New England country town, who had helped her own hands to manufacture them. 'Well, Miss Lucy, your uncle's done real handsome by you. I guess he's set you up, and no mistake. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... talk of except their lover-like wishes, Wiegandt used to tell the girl about the recruits, so that by degrees Frieda learnt to know all their names and idiosyncrasies, and began to take a certain interest in them. Above all had the case of Frielinghausen appealed to her. The sympathetic little seamstress saw in him something of the romantic disguised prince; and it amused her to make the credulous Wiegandt a little jealous, until at last she would assure him with a hearty kiss that he was her dearest ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... which required her to stand long on her feet. As soon as she was comparatively well she spoke to him alone. Since she was forbidden to walk and bustle about, and, indeed, could not do so, it became her duty to leave. She could very well work at something sitting down, and she had an aunt a seamstress. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... one drawer was sufficient. In the wardrobe there hung an old hunting suit of Jeff's and several dancing frocks belonging to Mildred and Nan, that had been temporarily discarded to await future going over by the seamstress. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... junkers and the priests had driven him to this Protestant city of the South, where from the beginning he had acquired the respect of people through his ready wit and speech. Theresa Hoellriegel had lodged in the house in which he opened his shop, and gained her living as a seamstress. He had thought that she had some money, but it had proved to be too little for his ambitious notions. When he discovered that, he treated Theresa as ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... pension; he just came back to his farm and worked on till he died. Now the son has the farm, and he and his sister live there with their mother. The daughter takes in sewing, and in that way they manage to make both ends meet. The girl is really a first-rate seamstress, and so cheap! I give her a good deal of my work in the summer, and we are quite friends. She's very fond of reading; the mother is an invalid, but she reads aloud while the daughter sews, and you've no idea ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... that stretches to the next block plunk down dollars that they have earned at their own particular combinations of life to see the combination you have made of yours. Why, tears come into my eyes when I see some little, old, dried-up seamstress pay a dollar to sit in the roost to see Gerald Height love the powder off of Violet while she is cursing him under her breath for so doing, and it tickles me under my ribs to see some fat, jolly, lonely, old party buy a front seat two days hand-running to sit and watch ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... woman who lived opposite to them, and who earned a scanty living by working for cheap tailors. Often had the child looked from the window, and across the Court watched the poor girl bending her pale face over her work, never pausing to rest, but for ever stitch, stitch. However, the young seamstress had seen her little neighbour watching her, and once or twice had nodded to her, and so a sort of acquaintance had sprung up between them; indeed, on several occasions they had met, and the child's prattle had cheered the ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... life at the Henrys' there seemed such a confusion of servants that Primrose was almost frightened. Mistress Janice Kent kept them in order, and next to Madam Wetherill ruled the house. Patty was a seamstress, a little higher than the maid who made her mistress ready for all occasions, looked after her clothes, did up her laces, and crimped her ruffles. But Patty wrote her invitations and answered the ordinary notes; and she was appointed to look after and care for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... intelligence, and was so faithful, that her master and mistress could not help seeing it was for their interest to take care of such a valuable piece of property. She became an indispensable personage in the household, officiating in all capacities, from cook and wet nurse to seamstress. She was much praised for her cooking; and her nice crackers became so famous in the neighborhood that many people were desirous of obtaining them. In consequence of numerous requests of this kind, she asked permission of her mistress ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... and the women were placed in a row on one side of the room and the men on the other. Persons desirous of purchasing them passed up and down between the lines looking the poor creatures over, and questioning them in about the following manner: "What can you do?" "Are you a good cook? seamstress? dairymaid?"—this to the women, while the men would be questioned as to their line of work: "Can you plow? Are you a blacksmith? Have you ever cared for horses? Can you pick cotton rapidly?" Sometimes the slave would be required to open his mouth that the purchaser might examine the teeth ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... had to hustle for themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who'd got himself disliked, though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I'd heard the titled person was Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day, named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He didn't mind if he did, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... what you say about the American Monthly, my answer is, I would gladly sell some part of my mind for lucre, to get the command of time; but I will not sell my soul: that is, I am perfectly willing to take the trouble of writing for money to pay the seamstress; but I am not willing to have what I write mutilated, or what I ought to say dictated to suit the public taste. You speak of my writing about Tieck. It is my earnest wish to interpret the German authors ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... heedless of shells. There are tailors, too, who have done their best to keep officers and civilians clothed, not even quitting their benches when shrapnels burst near them, and I know of at least one poor seamstress who, by working night and day, has earned enough to buy something more than bare rations even at famine prices. Cynics do not look for heroes or heroines among such as these. They toil for gain, that is all. But they have stuck to their notion of duty in the ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... different costumes as there were trees in the country without cost, all of them becoming, and wholly adequate, your Aunt Jerusha has to be satisfied with three or four gowns of indifferent fit, made by the village seamstress at an average cost of thirty or forty dollars apiece. A sheath-gown, costing Jerusha seventy-five dollars, in the distance, gives no more of an impression in the matter of figure to an admiring world than your original grandmother ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... begin the actual scrubbing and window-washing. You do not mind ripping up an old gown while John reads to you under the evening lamp, but you are positively cross in the reflection that you must sew all of to-morrow with the seamstress who is to put the gown ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Detorit and went to work where they sent me to work. I had to stay there until I pay them the sum of $24.92c so I want to leave Mobile for there, if there nothing there for me to make a support for my self and family. My wife is seamstress. We want to get away the 15 or 20 of May so please give this matter your earnest consideration an let me hear from you by return mail as my bro. in law want to get away to. He is a carpenter by trade. so please help us as we are in need of your help as we wanted to go to Detroit ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... the White Farm, and a late supper was spread upon the hospitable board. (Aunt Hitty was always sure of a bountiful repast. If one were going to economize, one would not choose for that purpose the day when the village seamstress came to sew; especially when the aforesaid lady served the community in the ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and others walking two and two behind, with bits of black crepe round their hats and arms, while Mary and I, and Nancy and Tom, followed as chief mourners all the way to Kingston Cemetery. Nancy, with the help of a friend, a poor seamstress, had managed to make a black frock for Mary and a dress for herself, out of mother's gown, I suspect. They were not very scientifically cut, but she had sat up all night stitching at them, which showed her affection and her desire to do what ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... other for the mutual sustenance of all. The husbandman tills the ground and provides food; the manufacturer weaves tissues, which the tailor and seamstress make into clothes; the mason and the bricklayer build the houses in which we enjoy household life. Numbers of workmen thus contribute and help to create ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... I knew a French seamstress who had a gutter cat, of which she was very fond. One day the cat fell from the roof of the house. She seemed dead, but her faithful friend put her upon a soft bed, gave her homoeopathic medicine, and watched all night by her to put a drop of something into her mouth ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... the true sense of an abused term, catholic. We must not suffer Association to be merged in mere partisanship for any class or calling, or blind hostility to any abuse or oppression. We are not the champions of the slave or the hired servant, the factory girl or the housemaid, the seamstress or the washerwoman. We are not the advocates merely of labor against capital, of the employers as opposed to the employed. Ours is the cause of all classes and vocations, and our success is the triumph of all. We are in danger ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... is done for her!" she protested. "Why, I have never yet seen all the servants in this house! And you know there is a housekeeper? Lizzie sees her a little while in the morning, that's all. And she never sews a stitch—there's a seamstress here all the time, you know, and that has nothing to do with the clothes that come home in boxes. And little Dudley has his tutor, and his old nurse that looks after his clothes. What is it that she does to ...
— Mrs. Dud's Sister • Josephine Daskam
... a woman named Lacombe, a cripple living with her goddaughter, who is a seamstress. There is no mistake, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... with a crimson face; "our pretty seamstress hath the manner of a princess! One would almost suppose that she had been born and bred in a palace and was the mistress of millions, instead of being only a common working-girl and dependent upon the ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... have clothes in that sense," said Karen. "A little seamstress down here makes most of them and Louise helps her sometimes if she has time. Tante gave me twenty pounds before she went away; would twenty pounds do ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick |
