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Tidy   Listen
noun
Tidy  n.  (pl. tidies)  
1.
A cover, often of tatting, drawn work, or other ornamental work, for the back of a chair, the arms of a sofa, or the like.
2.
A child's pinafore. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tidy" Quotes from Famous Books



... horrible dry feeling returned; and so I went on, swallowing repeated glassfuls of the spirit until at last I had drained the very last drop which the jug contained. My appetite grew by what it fed on; and, having a little money by me, I with difficulty got up, made myself look as tidy as possible, and then went out to buy more rum, with which I ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... they are at all coquettish; but you country people do not know anything about such things. They are coquettish through and through. That is the reason she wished to look her prettiest. She was afraid of being thought ugly, don't you understand? So I had to put on her peignoir, and tidy her up, and arrange her hair just as ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... Lazarus, at least it was possible to soften the terrible impression his face produced. With this in view, skillful painters, barbers, and artists were summoned, and all night long they were busy over Lazarus' head. They cropped his beard, curled it, and gave it a tidy, agreeable appearance. By means of paints they concealed the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face. Repulsive were the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they were puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth background, wrinkles of ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... walked two miles to ask so simple a question when there was a telephone in the house. Obviously Miss Perry also comprehended why Alice thought it important to know what Mildred meant to wear. Adams understood why Alice should be concerned with what she herself wore "to look neat and tidy and at her best, why, of course she'd want to," he thought—but he realized that it was forever beyond him to understand why the clothing of other people had long since become an absorbing part ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... prodigies of the Old Testament or the mighty works of the New were extravagances because they were exceptions; and they were exceptions because there was a rule, and that an immutable rule. In short, there was no rose-tree growing out of the carpet of a trim and tidy bedroom; because rose-trees do not grow out of carpets in trim and tidy bedrooms. So far it seemed reasonable enough. But it left out one possibility; that a man can dream about a room as well as a rose; and that a man can doubt about a rule as ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... never went past his shop but my heart beat somewhat faster. And when I saw the newly-built house, with the green-painted shutters, the vine beside the doorway, and the bench and bundles of osiers before it; when I saw a tidy, neatly-dressed woman within it, nursing a plump, pink and white baby among the workmen, who were singing merrily and busily plaiting their wicker-work under the superintendence of a man who but lately had looked so pinched and ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... Streatham. There was much company. Mrs. Thrale had a taste for literary guests and literary guests had, on their part, a taste for her good dinners. Johnson was the lion-in-chief. There was Dr. Johnson's room always at his disposal; and a tidy wig kept for his special use, because his own was apt to be singed up the middle by close contact with the candle, which he put, being short-sighted, between his eyes and a book. Mrs. Thrale had skill in languages, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... "of course, you want to keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind of foller along with him, whatever he does. That's me." He placed a dingy bottle on the keg. "I jest dropped in to see how you boys were gittin' along—mighty tidy little place you got here." He changed the stub of his burnt-out cigar to the other side of his mouth, shifting his eyes in the opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: "I thought I'd look in and leave this ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... had just perceived the stranger, hardly disguised his lack of appreciation of so inopportune a caller, and went out to see what consolation could be got out of Vespasian. When he returned, tidy and clean, even to Vespasian's satisfaction, he found the two men talking hard and slipped quietly into his seat behind the little tea-table hoping to be unobserved; but Caesar called him ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... sufficient to know the need of buying brains and to pay a tidy bit over the current market price for the most capable brains. And he had brain sufficient to direct the brains he bought ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... plots have been provided for gardening, and provision made for the children's play, and pictures given to parents as prizes for tidy homes. Soap and clothes and medicines are given here also; a special series of lectures on diseases and the evils of drink has been started. A lecture a week is given—cholera, malaria, typhoid fever, dysentery have been touched on—lantern slides and charts and pictures ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren

... on coming to verify the little book, signed the new contract as witness for Hubert, by which the latter promised to treat the child kindly, to keep her tidy, to send her to school and to church, and to give her a good bed to herself. On the other side, the Administration agreed to pay him all indemnities, and to give the child certain stipulated articles of clothing, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... went on, "I will cover you up warm, and you must try to get to sleep. Grandma is trying to keep the house quiet and Ben has taken off the boys. I am going to tidy up the room and stay here with you for awhile. There, now; you will be more comfortable that way," and under her mother's loving touches Edna felt happier already and in a short time fell into a sound ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard

... sorts of things besides the revolution. I had expected every Russian to be absorbed in the struggle. It seemed at first as if my notions of what a revolution ought to be were contradicted everywhere. And I assure you it wrenched the imagination to see tidy nursemaids wheeling perambulators and children playing diavolo on the very square where Bloody Sunday had gone into history. It takes a long perspective and no very vivid acquaintance with revolution to be melodramatic ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... happened. M. Puaux yelled, and clapped a hand to his eye. Miss Braithwaite rose. His Royal Highness wrote a rather shaky French verb, with the wrong termination. And on to this scene came Nikky for the riding-lesson. Nikky, smiling and tidy, and very shiny as to riding-boots and things, and wearing white kid gloves. Every one about a palace wears white kid gloves, except the royalties ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... "It's quite tidy for standing empty so long," mused Mrs. Lynch, sweeping the bare rooms with an appraising eye. "That stove's good as new under ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... you mustn't talk forever," was nurse's remonstrance at last; "Sir Edward told me I could send you to him for a little when you came in, and I must make you tidy first." ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre

... cottage, about the country supper-time, when he thought he should most likely find him at home. It was a clear, still, moonlit night, with just an air of frost. There was light enough for him to see that the cottage was very neat and tidy, looking, in the midst of its little forest, more like an English than a Scotch habitation. He had had the advantage of a few months' residence in a leafy region on the other side of the Tweed, and so was able to ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... other habits of ill-breeding, which, though easy to conquer at first, grow and strengthen with indulgence, if she would retain her husband as her lover and her dearest and nearest friend. She should be equally as neat and tidy respecting her dress and personal appearance at home as when she appears in society, and her manners towards her husband should be as kind and pleasing when alone with him as when in company. She should bear in mind that to retain the good opinion of her husband is worth far more than to gain ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... whenever she doesn't find our rooms tidy, and then we get a bad mark. Perhaps mamma wouldn't give you one this first day, but it is best to make sure. Shall I help you, or you won't have time to eat ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... out into the side porch and looked about her with a glance of pleasure in the neatness and charm of the little place. House and fence had been painted and mended, put in tidy order. A new gate and a cement sidewalk in front running down to the corner of the street spoke for the industry of Harvey Spencer who had worked like a son for her in ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks

... a winter in this Cimmerian hole We're forgetting sheets, and baths, and tidy skins. In the dark and deadly calm last night they took us on patrol. Seven, little ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... sons to mind pigs, or scare birds, instead of hanging about the Heart of Oak, begging of the visitors who now begin to invade us. Do you know that the very boys won't settle to work, that the children are taking to gutter-life and begging, that the women won't even tidy up their houses, and that the men are retailing the horrors of the fever in every alehouse in the county, instead of getting in the crops? I give you my word, I had to go down to the inn yesterday, and a lad of eleven or twelve, who didn't recognize me ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... northeast, through a landscape so English that there was no incongruity in the sprinkling of khaki along the road. Even the villages look English: the same plum-red brick of tidy self-respecting houses, neat, demure and freshly painted, the gardens all bursting with flowers, the landscape hedgerowed and willowed and fed with water-courses, the people's faces square and pink and honest, and the signs over ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... that I've got command of the 'Lady Parker,' a very tidy craft, and that we are to cruise in company. Arrah, now—won't we have a jovial time of it, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... looked from the kitchen,— Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she; There at her window a sempstress sat stitching; "Were I a sempstress, how happy ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... How pure the cloth looked, how clear the glass; and then the bouquet of fragrant roses which adorned the center, how homelike, fresh, and beautiful it seemed! An air of comfort—American, southern comfort—pervaded the whole. The breakfast was brought in by a middle-aged negress, whose tidy appearance, and honest, happy, smiling face presented the best refutation of the gross slanders of our northern brethren. I would that her daguerreotype, as she stood arranging the dishes, could be contrasted with those of the miserable, half-starved seamstresses of ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... up the long steps that scale the cliff, and approached the episcopal residence. The bell was plainly visible. He rang, and presently came a tidy little housemaid. He had meditated a form of words. It would be absurd to say "Is the Bishop in?" for he knew the Bishop WAS in. So he said "This is Mr. Gissing. I think ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... tidy few, and he seemed well pleased with himself, and then we came to a sort of a hollow place where one brook floweth into the other. Here he was a-casting of his fly, most careful, for if there was ever a trout on the feed, it was like to be a big one, and lucky for me I was keeping round ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore

... Nelson, slim, slight, slender, fair-haired and hollow-eyed, was made cabin-boy, with orders to wait on table, wash dishes and "tidy up things." And he set such a pace in tidying up the captain's cabin that that worthy officer once remarked, "Dammittall, he isn't half as bad as he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... even of the silences, but through my glasses I was sure I could see the strained anxiety of their eyes. It was a relief to have them go. Then the Trained Seals were with us, lovely things like gentle, tidy, sleek-headed little girls. My heart was going like a metronome set for a tarantella and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... spearmen tumbled out. They marched gleefully to the castle gate. Hoddan saw them tantalizingly displaying large sums in cash to the watchers above them. Thal held up the box for Don Loris. It was the box the lawyer's clerk had turned over to him, with a tidy sum in cash in it. The sum was partly depleted, now. Hoddan had paid off his involuntary crew with it—had paid them, in fact, as if they'd done the fighting they'd expected and he'd thought would be necessary. But there was still more in it than Don Loris would ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... the walls are decorated with pictures and processions of animals, many painted and cut out by the children themselves, and every room has an impressive little rod tied with blue ribbons. But the little ones do not look as if they needed a rod much. They are cheerful, tidy little people, although many of them come from poor homes. In the middle of the morning they have a slice of rye bread, which they eat decorously at table on wooden platters. They can buy milk to drink with the bread for 5 pf., ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... sometimes a trifle irksome) they never hear an unkind word. They grow in grace, partly because they return as many of these favors as is possible at their age. They water the plants, clean the bird's cage and fill the seed cups and bath; they keep the room as tidy as possible to make the janitor's work easier; they brush up the floor after their own muddy feet; the older ones help the younger and the strong look after the weak. The conditions are almost ideal; why should they not respond ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... a longer way home for Lilac than across the fields, but she never thought of disputing Agnetta's decision, and the cousins left the orchard by another gate which led into the garden. It was not a very tidy garden, and although some care had been bestowed on the vegetables, the flowers were left to come up where they liked and how they liked, and the grass plot near the house was rank and weedy. Nevertheless it presented a gay and flourishing appearance ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... in a pitiable plight. Nellie's garments were soaked by the water through which she had passed, but the heavy heat of the air prevented her suffering from cold, though the clinging garments caused her to feel ill at ease; and, like her tidy mother, she longed to be at home, that she might change ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. A pair of old, worn, beaver gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and a faded green umbrella, with plenty of whalebone sticking through the bottom, as if to counterbalance the want of a handle at the top, lay on a chair beside him; and, being disposed in a very tidy and careful manner, seemed to imply that the red-nosed man, whoever he was, had no intention of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... to his industry. He arrayed himself in the plainest manner, although he aimed to look neat and tidy. His board was simple and cheap, and everything about his business was graduated on the most economical principles. In order to save expense, and at the same time show the public that he was not proud, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... you were a bit of a fraud—even when I thought you were Butteridge. You're jolly lucky the Prince took it calmly. He's a pretty tidy blazer when he's roused. He wouldn't stick a moment at pitching a chap of your sort overboard if he thought fit. No!... They've shoved you on to me, but it's my ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... said his wife, "you're dreaming. Or perhaps you smell the scraps of that little boy you liked so much for yesterday's dinner. Here, you go and have a wash and tidy up, and by the time you come back your breakfast'll be ready ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... as the house was tidy, Mercy ran out to see the donkey. More snow had fallen in the night, and had filled up all her footmarks, so that she might have ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various

... stiff, ungracious lips could not utter a word of thanks. Mary Abbot lived in a neat cottage surrounded by a neat garden. She was a dressmaker in a small way, and had supported her mother till her death. She had been very happy with her work and her bright, tidy house and her garden and her friends, but for more than a year a black fear had brooded over her. Her sight, which was her living, was going. She saw nothing before her but the workhouse. Death she would have welcomed, but ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... whose Indian name was Meyooachimoowin, was very industrious, and kept her wigwam and her children tidy and clean, yet she was never considered as merely a drudge and a slave and left to do all the heavy work. Strange to say, she was not allowed to cut the wood in the forest and then drag it home. Neither did she carry the heavy ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... the Consul's office this morning," went on Mrs. Van Buren, smiling at her husband's astonishment; "and the Consul said to me, 'Wouldn't you like to have a neat, trim, tidy, honest, faithful, tender-hearted, polite boy to learn general work?' I said to the Consul, 'Yes, that is the person that I have been needing for years.' He said, 'Would you have any prejudice against ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth

... duties are nominal; he exchanges views with the men of the Farm, corresponds with his friends in Suabia, wanders over the fields and occasionally shoots at some game without ever hitting. His room must have been occupied before his arrival by a beautiful girl, for in it he finds a tidy hood and kerchief that betray the charms of their wearer, and he dreams of her at night. And one day, while wandering through the woods, he catches sight of a lovely girl looking into the calyx of a wonderful forest flower. He is on the point of going ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Captain Stoddard doing to his boat?" he continued. Captain Enos was evidently not bound out on a fishing trip, for he was making his boat as tidy as possible. ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... seemed to be turned into a wing of the small castle by some easy magic. The boys used to lay wagers and keep watch, and there was a cheer out of the engine-cab and all along the platforms one day when a tidy sty first appeared and a neat pig poked his nose through the fence of it. The buns and biscuits grew famous; customers sent for them from the towns up and down the long railroad line, and the story of thrifty, kind-hearted ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett

... His father was sitting up in bed. Mrs. Ginnell had been endeavouring during the past hour to make her patient clean and comfortable, and to tidy his room; but had been at last obliged to desist, owing to the mixture of ill-humour and bad language with ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the others with merriment. But as always, after abandonment to laughter a little reaction followed, and when they went upstairs from his sitting-room where they had been so uproarious, so that it might be made tidy again before Sunday, and sat in the drawing-room overlooking the street, there did come this little reaction. But it was already eleven, and soon Mrs. ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... to the stores or anywhere, or to have her ride in the carriage with me," Gertrude had said to Vi as the little girls were having their hats put on; but Vi answered indignantly, "She's clean and tidy, and she isn't vulgar or rude, and I do believe she's good; and mamma says dress and riches ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... that what he wanted was a house exactly like Sam Clark's, which was exactly like every third new house in every town in the country: a square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broad screened porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resembling the mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to church once a month and owns a ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... her horse and saddled it, took a look around camp to see that everything was in shape—for she liked to leave things tidy, in case some of the neighbors should stop in—and was about to mount, when a man's head and shoulders appeared from behind her own cottonwood log. A glance showed her that it was the sheep-herder. His head was bare, his wild hair in ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... indeed, sir,' returned Mrs Plornish. 'Father, dear, would you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your taste being ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... without rumpus, all well and good; if not, it will be the worse for him. My idea is that we should ride two or three hundred miles along the coast until we get to a river, follow it up till we find a tidy place for a camp, and stop there for three or four months, then come back again and keep ourselves quiet until we find out that a ship is going to sail; then we will do a night among the farmhouses, and clean them out of their watches and ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... previous cleaning. This was disheartening, but at least it taught me to begin at the furthest point in future. When I had finished, I was as hot and dirty as if it were half-time at a football match. I thought of our tidy charwoman at home, and realised what splendid ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... there—all the details that she thought likely to interest Lisbeth. The old woman listened, and forgot to be fretful, unconsciously subject to the soothing influence of Dinah's face and voice. After a while she was persuaded to let the kitchen be made tidy; for Dinah was bent on this, believing that the sense of order and quietude around her would help in disposing Lisbeth to join in the prayer she longed to pour forth at her side. Seth, meanwhile, went out to chop wood, for he surmised that ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... of Free Town have a creditably clean and tidy appearance considering the climate, and the quantity and variety of things exposed for sale—things one wants the pen of a Rabelais to catalogue. Here are all manner of fruits, some which are familiar to you in England; others that soon become so to you in Africa. You take them as a matter ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... surprised at you, Katharine Maitland! You takin' a bath every mornin', in cold water, too, an' keepin' yourself so tidy all the time, to go an' stun raisins after handlin' a dog! Wash 'em, an' clean your nails with this pin, an' tie that apern back—loose if you want—but wear it you must, or I won't be responsible for no smutch ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... the herdsman of a large estate in nineteenth-century France, whilst his English compeers two generations before, and in much humbler employ, had their tidy bedroom and comfortable bed under the farmer's roof. What would my own Suffolk ploughmen have said to the notion of spending the night in an ox-stall? But autres pays, autres moeurs. In Droulde's fine little poem, "Bon gte", a famished, foot-sore soldier returning home is generously ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... for I'd seen a good many of that lot during six months I'd spent at a house in Fleet Street, and their get-up hadn't sumptuousness about it, so to speak. "Kipper's" rig-out must have totted up to a tidy little sum. He had a diamond pin in his tie that must have cost somebody fifty quid, if ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome

... inwardly, but she undressed Robin and put her in bed, laying everything away and making things tidy ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... incredible if I wrote them all down. I cared little in what vessel I ate, or whether I had to tear meat with my fingers. I could march in reserve more than twenty miles a day for day upon day. I knew all about my horses; I could sweep, wash, make a bed, clean kit, cook a little, tidy a stable, turn to entrenching for emplacement, take a place at lifting a gun or changing a wheel. I took change with a gunner, and could point well. And all this was not learnt save under a grinding pressure of authority and harshness, without ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... in discovering that Douglas, the marvelous boy, was in their midst. He must make an address. They erected a platform and billed the town. I stayed near until Douglas rose to speak. He looked fresh and tidy in his new suit, and with freshly shaven face. I heard his great voice roll out over the large crowd collected to hear him. I heard the applause that welcomed him, that responded to the first thrill of his fluent eloquence. Then I stole away ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... alone, and on the way she met a plum-tree. 'Oh, Peasie!' cried the tree, 'stop a bit, there's a good soul, and tidy up my thorns a little; they are scattered about so that I feel ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... the cooking rack in the case they had made for it, the two mothers packed up debris and burned it so the beach would be left clean and tidy, and all the others gathered wood. Such a lot as they did find! Linn piled it on high and by the time the sun went to sleep in the west, the fire was so bright that nobody noticed the growing darkness. They all sat around on the warm sand and sang—college ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson

... Chanor; "but he must work. He would have a tidy sum by now if he had stayed with us. What is to be done? Artists have a horror of not ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... condition, a special shed is advisable. Don't try to keep them in a tool house or section given over to saws, planes, chisels and bits. They get in a hopeless jumble. Nothing is more discouraging than to go out to what should be a tidy little spot to do a bit of mending or minor job of carpentry and find earth encrusted garden trowels, weeders, and such gear scattered all over the work bench. The grit so adhering is fatal to sharp-edged tools, ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... in finishing the washing, hanging out the clothes, and preparing the tea—an easy and informal meal, which should consist of something easy to cook; for, after all that she has done during the day, this hard-worked girl must "tidy up" her kitchen before she can enjoy a well-earned repose. It is so annoying to a maid-of-all-work to be obliged to open the door for visitors that ladies often have a little girl or boy for this purpose. In the country it can ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... colony consists of about thirty souls; there is a school for the children, and on Sundays they meet for Divine worship after the manner of Wesleyans. The wages of these Cornishmen are eight, ten, twelve pounds a month, and there are very tidy houses on the property, with a large cottage, or house, for the agent—Mr. Cruikshank. The works are in the ravine below the house, and the Caima furnishes ample water power.... Many women and girls are employed preparing the ores, some of them remarkably good-looking.... Their wages are ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... chaps, nearly all of them. That's where the perplexity of the whole thing comes in. If only they weren't such good chaps! If only they were like the Prussian officers to their men, then we'd just take on a revolution as well as the war, and make everything tidy at once. But they are decent, they are charming.... Only they do not think hard, and they do not understand that doing a job properly means doing it as directly and thought-outly as you possibly can. They won't worry about things. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... craft from the fine frigate to which I had before belonged. She was of narrow beam, and carried taunt masts and square yards; indeed, we all saw that she would require careful handling to avoid being capsized. But she was a new, tidy, fast little craft, and no one on board allowed forebodings of evil to trouble his mind. The commander did not express his opinion till we were clear of the Channel, when he ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... neat house, Tenanted by peasants poor. The mother was a loving spouse, One who never was a blowze, But most tidy evermore. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... carriage that had drawn up before the neatest and most ideal of English cottage homes. Lady Eleanor More stood at the garden wicket to receive her friend, and behind her in the doorway was to be seen a tidy, white-capped little old woman. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... time they are thinking and watching and planning. 'Here is Egypt weak,' they cry. 'Allons!' and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust. 'You have no right there,' says the world. 'Come out of it!' But England has already begun to tidy everything, just like the good Miss Adams when she forces her way into the house of an Arab. 'Come out,' says the world. 'Certainly,' says England; 'just wait one little minute until I have made everything nice ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with a chemise, a short flannel petticoat, and a shawl, which she gave to Smallbones, desiring him to take off his wet clothes, and substitute them. She would return to him as soon as he had put them on, and see that they were put tidy and right. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and after the first day's travelling, we stopped all night at a half-breed's house, where they had a large fire-place made of mud, which was just like a solid piece of stone; they had a bright fire, and everything appeared nice and tidy within; a woman was making bannock, and when she had the dough prepared, she took a frying pan and put the cake in and stood it up before the fire. This is the way they do all their baking, and then she fried some ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney

... what is sham. It is true that a very young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig. Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of a toy-shop. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... old dame, poor but tidy, left Gaud with cordial thanks as soon as the letter had been read again and the envelope closed. She lived rather far away, at the other end of Ploubazlanec, in a hamlet on the coast, in the same cottage where she first had seen the light of day, and where her sons and grandsons had been ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... seem to think he's a little angel, basin' their opinion, I suppose, on something I must 'a' missed during my time out. On the other hand there's a tidy few thinks that one German left will spoil the earth. Now me, I holds they're both wrong. The second's nearer than what the first is, I don't deny. But a incident what occurred in that Prisoners' Camp set me thinking that you might make something ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various

... at present her ideal of Sunday occupation, and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney's guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine's positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... smiling, sharp and shining for a thrust; Use does not seem to blunt her point, nor does she gather rust. Oh! I wish some hapless specimen of mankind would begin To tidy up the world for me, ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... difficulty in smuggling the Scotch lasses with the regiment. As we were leaving Ayr there was, I remember, a young fellow—a wild, uncouth youth who came to me and begged me to get him over to England with the regiment. I told him that if he would get his hair cut and tidy himself I would provide him with a soldier's uniform; if he donned himself in that there would be a possibility of getting him over. He accordingly got his hair cut, and when he had put himself into a spare uniform which ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... Scandinavian folk-belief the time when the dead revisit their old homes, as on All Souls' Eve in Roman Catholic lands. The living prepare for their coming with mingled dread and desire to make them welcome. When the Christmas Eve festivities are over, and everyone has gone to rest, the parlour is left tidy and adorned, with a great fire burning, candles lighted, the table covered with a festive cloth and plentifully spread with food, and a jug of Yule ale ready. Sometimes before going to bed people wipe the chairs with a clean ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... good sense and delicacy will teach you the desirability of keeping your room tidy, and your articles of dress and toilet as much in order as possible. If there is a deficiency of servants, a lady will certainly not hesitate to make her own bed, and to do for herself as much as possible, and for the family all that is in her ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... moment, but that mother had been very kind to her during the last two days, and Sibyl had enjoyed studying her character from a new point of view. Mother was polite to people, even though they were not quite perfect. Mother always looked sweet and tidy and ladylike, and beautifully dressed. Mother never romped, nor tore her clothes, nor climbed trees. It was an uninteresting life from Sibyl's point of view, and yet, perhaps, it was the right life. Up to the present the child had never seriously thought of her own conduct at all. ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... water oaks in Jasper's yard was a welcome sight when the interviewer completed the long walk to the old Negro's place in the sweltering heat of a sunny July afternoon. The old house appeared to be in good condition and the yard was clean and tidy. Jasper's wife, Lula, came around the side of the house in answer to the call for Jasper. A large checked apron almost covered her blue dress and a clean white headcloth concealed her hair. Despite her advanced age, she ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... longed to turn his murderous weapons against the right side. He was labored with; he bided his time; but I knew in my heart that whoever went there next summer would find that picturesque road bristling with barbed wire on both sides. It will be as ugly as man can make it, but it will be "tidy" (New England's shibboleth), for no sweet green thing will grow up beside it. Nature doesn't take kindly ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... Uncle John would say, "is to keep the garden clean and tidy, and to water the plants every morning so that they may be very green." And Toby would go and whisper this to the baby, and she would stare at the ceiling ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... livin' on a farm there named Mrs Hardwick—an' she was a hard wick. Her husban', Jimmy Hardwick was throwed from his horse agenst a stump one day when he was sober, an' he was killed—an' she was a widder. She had a tidy bit o' land, an' a nice bit of a orchard an' vineyard, an some cattle, an' they say she had a tidy bit o' money in the bank. She had the worst tongue in the district, no one's character was safe with her; but she wasn't old, an' she wasn't bad-lookin'—only ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... slowly and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes from under the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long and black to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the full shock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flung down the gauntlet ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... people, in constant communication with the town where they sell their corn, oil, vegetables, and wine, and easily getting confused with the lower class of artizans with whom they doubtless largely intermarried. These peasants whom we see in tidy kilted tunics and leathern gaiters, driving their barrel-laden bullock carts, or riding their mules up to the red city gates in many a Florentine and Sienese painting of the fourteenth and fifteenth ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... she whipped off her white coif. Her bronze hair ruffled up all over her head in a shining crop of short curls. She put up her hands to tidy the mass, enduring his exploring gaze with a twinkle in her eyes, perfectly sure the alteration in her appearance would not help him, since on that other occasion she had worn a hat. After a close scrutiny he slowly ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves; she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was just going to leave the room, when her eyes fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. She uncorked it and put it to her ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll

... cottage, I'll stop. But you must say so right out. And it isn't the cottage so much as the background I'm after. To be frank, this looks a promising place. I'm out for woodland—something that's not too tidy." ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... malhelpi. Thy cia, via. Thyme timiano. Tibia tibio. Tick bateti, frapeti. Ticket bileto. Tickle tikli. Ticklish tiklosentema. Tidal marmova. Tide, incoming alfluo. Tide, receding forfluo. Tidings sciigo. Tidiness malnegligxeco. Tidy malnegligxa. Tie ligi. Tie together (unite) kunligi. Tie (cravat) kravato. Tier (row) vico. Tier (string, etc.) ligilo. Tiger tigro. Tight prema, troprema. Tile tegmenta briko. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... silk dress, with a lace collar and cuff set contributed the Christmas before by her Aunt Kate from Ontario, and at her waist, one of the doctor's roses. The others had been brought over by Mary, and were in a glass jar on the tidy desk, where they attracted much attention and speculation as to where they had come from. They seemed to redeem the bare school-room from utter dreariness, and Pearl found herself repeating the phrase in the doctor's letter, "Like a rose in ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... the clear trill of a canary singing blithely in its cage. Within the tidy, homely little room a pale-faced girl and a youth of slender frame listened intently while the bird sang its song. The girl was the first to ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert

... ain't no use for you-alls to stop here. The Injuns have got this section combed out clean. You couldn't get enough plumes around here to pay for your bacon. Now, I knows of a tidy little island 'bout twelve miles south of here where there's stacks of the birds. If you start right now you'll hit it before them pesky varmints of redskins find it. I'm telling you in pay for that tobacco. Max Hilliard ain't the kind ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Mo. 16th. Very busy making things tidy, and resolved, almost religiously, to keep them so. I think I would not, for any consideration, die with all my things in disorder. Disorder must be the result of a disordered mind, and not only so, it reacts on the mind and makes it ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... call you Doome, don't they? and a tidy name, too,—I think, Doome, Bertha doesn't ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... Blanche drew near to her, and talked to her in a calm and soothing manner, and Jennie seemed really distressed, as she vainly tried to divert her from her grief by emptying the treasures of her pocket before her. The room was as clean as it could possibly be, and the persons of its occupants neat and tidy, but every thing betokened severe and pinching poverty. The bed for the three was in one corner, and this, with one table and a few chairs, comprised all their worldly goods. The healthy girl was washing for those who never knew how many a tale of want and woe their finely-embroidered ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... Mrs. Deer, an old tidy wench, of fifty, pretty well bent by rheumatism, and so square in the lower half of her figure, and so spare in the upper, that she appeared to have been carved out of her own hips: "why, as to dat, he ain't good-looking to brag ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... at Annapolis, and leave the ancient town, with its modern houses and remains of old fortifications, without a thought of the romantic history which saturates the region. There is not much in the smart, new restaurant, where a tidy waiting-maid skillfully depreciates our currency in exchange for bread and cheese and ale, to recall the early drama of the French discovery and settlement. For it is to the French that we owe the poetical interest that still invests, like a garment, all these islands and bays, just as it ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... terrors for me, when a child, than Heaven—as pictured for me by certain of the good folks round about me. I was told that if I were a good lad, kept my hair tidy, and did not tease the cat, I would probably, when I died, go to a place where all day long I would sit still and sing hymns. (Think of it! as reward to a healthy boy for being good.) There would be no breakfast and no dinner, no tea and no supper. One ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... up; arrange itself, range itself, place itself; fall into one's place, take one's place, take one's rank; rally round. adjust, methodize, regulate, systematize. Adj. orderly, regular; in order, in trim, in apple-pie order, in its proper place; neat, tidy, en regle [Fr.], well regulated, correct, methodical, uniform, symmetrical, shipshape, businesslike, systematic; unconfused &c (confuse) &c 61; arranged &c 60. Adv. in order; methodically &c adj.; in turn, in its turn; by steps, step ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... door and went over the way. Here she found a somewhat tidy woman at work ironing. Nobody else in the room. She made known her errand. The ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner

... 'It is a tidy little lark for a Blunderbore to have thought of,' said Edgar. 'Tis a good sort of giant after all, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... things had happened. The room was swept and tidy, the flowers were watered, and the piece of work she had left half done was lying finished on the broad window seat. The poor woman looked round her in astonishment. She went downstairs to enquire if any neighbours had prepared this surprise for her, but they ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... bothered with a young one. If you speak a civil word to a wench she soon fancies you are in love with her. I want one who can cook a chop or a steak, fry me a bit of bacon, and boil an egg and keep the place tidy. I intend to look after ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... that doesn't make him less stand-offish. He may be in the business, but he's not of it. I doubt myself whether even old Cramphorn would venture to invite him to dinner, and if he did, I'd bet a tidy sum that ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... son-in-law of Lady Malkinshaw was obliged to hold up his head, and set up his carriage, and live in a street near a fashionable square, and keep an expensive and clumsy footman to answer the door, instead of a cheap and tidy housemaid. How he managed to "maintain his position" (that is the right phrase, I think), I never could tell. His wife did not bring him a farthing. When the honorable and gallant baronet, her father, died, he left the widowed Lady Malkinshaw with her worldly affairs in a curiously ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... when it came upon the table. One or two cases were related of young girls having made quite a handsome sum from a small garden-bed. But the general testimony went to prove that strawberry-growing was so simple an art that any woman who had sufficient good sense to keep herself tidy could successfully practise it, more especially if she had a taste for horticultural occupations. I concluded, therefore, that the true reason why women had not engaged more extensively in this employment was because no one had taken pains to call ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... heavens, how the cat likes to be petted and generally approved! It likes love, but not all the time. And it likes to choose the people it consorts with. It is a predatory creature, also, and likes to be neat and tidy, while it sticks to its old trousers with a love that passeth understanding—there, I've slipped up, but you ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... furnished, extremely plain and tidy. It was impersonal, neutral, like the room in a hotel. And yet he had spent in it twelve years of his life. Most people collect no end of trifles during such a period; presents, little superfluous nothings, ornaments. Not ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... Emilie pleasantly, "now, we shall see what sort of a manager you will be; you must do all you can to make things tidy and comfortable for the lodgers. Is their room swept ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... continuance of the vision, but at that moment the dressing-bell clanged loudly. It was plainly time to go and tidy up for supper. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... no use to earn bread, Clare did not therefore allow him to be idle. He insisted on his keeping the place clean and tidy, and in this respect Tommy was not quite a failure. He even made him do some washing, though not much could be accomplished in that way where there was so little to wash. Now that Abdiel was nurse, Tommy had the run of the garden, and often went beyond it for an hour or two without Clare's ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... was Polly's clearing-up day, and Fan found her with a handkerchief tied over her head, and a big apron on, just putting the last touches to the tidy little room, which was as fresh and bright as water, air, and a pair of hands ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... "A tidy little sum to retire upon. Would build two thousand Board Schools at a thousand pounds each," said the detective, who was an adept at figures,—as at ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... matter. Was he not the owner? But his favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning stanchion on the bridge, almost against the binnacle. He had even in the early days more than one tussle on that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the bridge to be kept tidy. He had been overawed then. Of late, though, he had been able to defy his partner with impunity. Captain Whalley never seemed to notice anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe of that scowling man not one of the crew would ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... more than two years after he began to retrieve the early mistakes of his life, M.S. established a provision shop on his own account, in the city of New-York, and was successful. He and his tidy little wife called on Friend Hopper, from time to time, and always cheered his heart by their respectable appearance, and the sincere gratitude they manifested. The following record stands in the Register: "M.S. called at ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... should be provided with a rough sponge and a tin dipper to be used in bailing out the water. Always bail out the water after a rain and keep your boat clean and tidy. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... a very agreeable or cheerful piece of work to tidy the disordered house and take command of the domestic forces under any other circumstances; but now Grace found it a very nice diversion to prevent her thoughts from running too curiously on this future meeting. "After all," she thought to herself, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... turning his eyes on the cloth, which bore traces that a party, and not a scrupulously tidy one, had ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... that money has been once so intended; suppose it kept its destination. About L500 would put up a tidy little industrial school, and you might not object to have a scholarship or two for some of our little —th Highlander lassies whose fathers won't make orphans of them for the regular military charities. What, crying, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... damsel, with folly a-flutter, Until you have learned how to manage a broom, If never you know how to tidy a room, Manipulate bread or decide about butter, The duties of matron how dare you assume, Or ever be bride to ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... any one time; but the village is a large one. Both these villages are built in the native style, of plaster and thatch; have their own headman government—under supervision—and are kept pretty well swept out and tidy. Besides these three main gathering places are many camps and "shambas"[8] scattered everywhere; and the back country counts millions of raw jungle savages, only too glad to drift in occasionally for a ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... to-morrow is, Kitty?' Alice began. 'You'd have guessed if you'd been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we'll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.' Here Alice wound ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

... children to put on pinafores and tidy their hair, washed Rowley's hands, and seated him in his high chair at the table, then made herself so useful in passing bread and butter, spreading jam, and handing round mugs of milk, that Mary gave a heartfelt sigh ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... is, that he does not look upon the tidy state of a room as a result, but as one into which, if left to itself, it would naturally fall and remain. We know, alas! too well, that every room not only has within itself possibilities of untidiness, but that its constant tendency ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... always bin a tidy lot of money behind young Darcy, and is yet I reckon, Mrs. Faircloth being the first-class business woman she is. Spend she may with one hand, but save, and make, she does and no mistake, Lord love you, with the other. Singular thing though," he added meditatively, his face growing wholly expressionless, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... to think I must be rich and showed me marked attention, and made many inquiries about their neighbors who started for California about the same time I did. The young ladies smiled pleasantly when near me, and put on their best white aprons, looking very tidy and bright, far superior to any of the ladies I had seen in my crooked route from San Francisco through Acapulco, Panama, the West Indies and ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... and discouraged. "If it's a woman ye have with ye, ye better ride on to the next ranch. My woman is sick. Very sick. There's nobody here with her but me, and I have all I can tend to. The house ain't kept very tidy. It's six weeks since she ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... Who is not very tidy; And he's lazy, alack! He sleeps all day Friday. About a yard wide The Yak is, precisely; With fringe on each side He's ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... so the glossy waves of golden hair are nicely combed, and the bright dress put on, to heighten, by contrast, the dimpled fairness of the neck and shoulders; then, the little white apron, to keep all tidy; then the Cinderella boots, neatly laced. I can see you, little pet! I wish I had you in ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... man. But they soon got used to it; and they used to think it great fun to watch Jip, the dog, sweeping his tail over the floor with a rag tied onto it for a broom. After a little they got to do the work so well that the Doctor said that he had never had his house kept so tidy or ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... its calm water in almost any weather. The villages, embowered on the landward side in groves of trees of many useful sorts and screened in front by rows of stately coco-nut palms, are composed of large houses solidly built of timber and are kept very clean and tidy. The Monumbo are a strongly-built people, of the average European height, with what is described as a remarkably Semitic type of features. The men wear their hair plaited about a long tube, decorated with shells and dogs' teeth, which sticks out ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... isn't it?" he said, smiling. "Everything united in a common element of dust.' But, really, after the first terrible day of your absence, when I wasted at least an hour in hunting for things which the tidy domestic had carefully hidden, I could stand it no longer, and gave orders that no one was to bring brush or duster or spirit ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... an' Lablache and company in number two. Nobody else, I guess. I've a notion you'll find plenty of room. Chips, no? All right; goin' to play a tidy game? Good!" ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... impartial eye, it appeared to him that she really was not ill-looking, and he didn't believe she could be more than nine or ten years older than he was. She certainly was a notable sort of body; she kept her place wonderful nice, and she had a tidy bit of brass laid by in the bank. There was a very comfortable ring about this last item. It was odd that from the time these reflections took possession of him Ted became pensive and serious. The conversation flagged, and by-and-by ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... to knock them down; only don't mention my ideas. Madame will bother me, and say it is unladylike; and perhaps she will give me Theresa Tidy's maxims to do ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... nor Armand noticed what she did; the spell had been broken, but the dream lingered on; they did not see Aunt Marie putting the room tidy, and then quietly tiptoeing out ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... Rosy's room," she said. "I thought it would be nice for you to be near each other. And I know you are very tidy, Bee, so you will set ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth

... my pledge every day, of course," Madaline declared. "But I do feel lonely for my nice, tidy uniform. Do you suppose we shall attract attention ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... to enter," said Mere Bideau again. "Monsieur and madame may like to visit the studio? I do not say that it is very tidy—but my master's beautiful paintings are not affected by untidiness—" and ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... poisoned. I wish little Mary would come. Ah! her mother would never have served me so.' He lay awake, thinking such things over and over again, all night long, and I stood watching him from a dark corner, till the dayspring came and shook me out. When I came back next night, the room was tidy and clean. His own daughter, a sad-faced but beautiful woman, sat by his bedside; and little Mary was curled up on the floor by the fire, imitating us, by making queer shadows on the ceiling with her twisted hands. But she could not think how ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald

... over early, made the room very tidy, dressed Miriam in her holiday clothes, put on her own Sunday gown, and sat down to wait for Marian and the visitor. The morning passed slowly, in momentary expectation ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... can feel so about it," murmured the Mexican stepping to the entrance of the larger tent and glancing inside. "I will admit, Senor Reade, that you keep a very tidy house under canvas, and your wants may be extremely simple. But a house offers comforts that cannot possibly be found in a tent like this. And the other is still smaller and more cheerless," he added, crossing into ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... to a "cash, credit, and barter store," kept by an enterprising Caledonian—an additional proof of the saying which ascribes ubiquity to "Scots, Newcastle grindstones, and Birmingham buttons." A tidy, bustling landlady, very American in her phraseology, but kind in her way, took me under her especial protection, as forty men were staying in the house, and there was an astonishing paucity of the softer sex; indeed, in all my subsequent travels I met with an undue ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... name, and a tidy-looking lad making his appearance, he told him to get me a wench just as though he were ordering a bottle of champagne. The lad went out, and presently a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... early days could be considered a hardship for the men it was ten times more annoying to women. The hardships of housekeeping, for instance and home making, keeping the home tidy and comfortable, not to say attractive, were much greater than any hardships the men were called upon to endure. The first year or two, there was no mirror at the head of the lakes. Those who were fortunate enough to have a new tin boiler, or new tin dishes could get along very well. One ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... child scatters her toys and playthings all over the room, the natural penalty is to require that they be gathered up and the room made tidy; when the boy scampers across the newly-cleaned floor with his muddy boots, he should be made to mop up the floor carefully; thus in a thousand similar ways, the parent may train the child to observe care ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... into action with a lot of bales and cases hamperin' their movements; but now that they've got everything snugly stowed under hatches, they're comin' down to try conclusions with us; and if they really mean business we've a very tidy little job afore us." ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... now at home in the shabby cottage on the outskirts of Colversham where he lived with his mother and four sisters. Poor as the place was it was spotlessly neat and Tim's family were spotlessly tidy too. Mrs. McGrew, who supported her household by doing washing for some of the families in the town, might have had a permanent and much more lucrative position elsewhere had it not been for leaving ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... my waist; a cocked-hat, of an enormous size, stuck on my head; and, being perfectly satisfied with my own appearance, at the last survey which I had made in the glass, I first rang for the chambermaid, under pretence of telling her to make my room tidy, but, in reality, that she might admire and compliment me, which she very wisely did; and I was fool enough to give her half a crown and a kiss, for I felt myself quite a man. The waiter, to whom the chambermaid ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat



Words linked to "Tidy" :   kempt, neat, neaten, ruly, clean, unlittered, uncluttered, order, trig, goodish, slicked up, considerable, well-kept, square away, clean house, shipshape, healthy, goodly, receptacle, respectable, hefty, untidy



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