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Bodice   /bˈɑdɪs/   Listen
Bodice

noun
1.
Part of a dress above the waist.



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"Bodice" Quotes from Famous Books



... her protests, adjusted her own dress upon her mistress,—short striped petticoat, black bodice, winged turban-like white cap, and a great muffling gray cloth cloak and hook over the head and shoulders—the costume in which Veronique was wont to run to her home in the twilight on various ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ball was in progress; we passed under the brightly lit windows of the hall in which it was being held. A masker stood at the door, a woman dressed to impersonate the Queen of Spades. She waved her hand to Indiman, who had chanced to look up; then she plucked a rose from her bodice and tossed it over to him. He caught the flower, as becomes a gallant man, but ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... she added, giving Vronsky one finger of the hand in which she held her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders she twitched down the bodice of her gown that had worked up, so as to be duly naked as she moved forward towards the footlights into the light of the gas, and the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... already?' said May, as she leaned towards the glass, illuminated on either side with wax candles, and looked into the whiteness of her bosom. She wore a costume of Prussian-blue velvet and silk; the bodice (entirely of velvet) was pointed back and front, and a berthe of moresque lace softened the contrast between it and the cream tints of the skin. These and the flame-coloured hair were the spirits ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... done with it," said the leader, making a motion toward his hip pocket. "Yo' will, eh!" answered the girl, "yo' kan't skeer me. But ef yo' wanter search me I'll take off ma clothes, so yo' won't have ter tear 'em," and Lizzie began to hurriedly unfasten her bodice. "Yo've got ter search me right," she continued, throwing off piece after piece; "yo'll fin' I am jes' like yo' sisters an' mammies, yo' po' tackies." "That'll do," growled one of the men, as Lizzie was ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... with scarlet lacquer glowing, That o'er the Katashiha's stream is laid, All trippingly a tender girl is going, In bodice blue and crimson skirt arrayed. None to escort her: would that I were knowing Whether alone she sleeps on virgin bed, Or if some spouse has won her by his wooing:— Tell me her house! I'll ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... the brook, or at the garden-palings, or about Castlewood: it was, "Lord, Mr. Henry!" and "how do you do, Nancy?" many and many a time in the week. 'Tis surprising the magnetic attraction which draws people together from ever so far. I blush as I think of poor Nancy now, in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and a canvas petticoat; and that I devised schemes, and set traps, and made speeches in my heart, which I seldom had courage to say when in presence of that humble enchantress, who knew nothing beyond milking a cow, and opened her black ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... around until I get my Carnival dresses fitted. Oh, Norvin, you ought to see them. There's one-white brocaded peau de soie, all frills and rosebuds; the bodice is trimmed with pearl passementerie, and it's a dear." After a moment's hesitation she added: "Norvin dear, what does it cost to rent the front page of ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... the yellow blossoms, and I often found these fragrant tokens of her presence scattered about my house after she had been there. Once, when we were all out walking together, she stopped to pick some from a bush, and as she was putting them into her bodice she made a remark which gave me ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay, palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs. The folds hung from her waist, and the short close bodice that she wore above them, like a Bengali woman, left visible the narrow gap of flesh which nobody notices when it is brown. Her head covering had slipped and clung only to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked, pathetically, the conscious ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... suddenly from her bodice a piece of crumpled parchment that had been torn across. She thrust it into ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... and yet interesting and exciting. They were both clad in uniforms cut unskilfully out of poor cloth, the man in a short coat with brass buttons, braided trousers, and a circular cap like a sailor's, and the woman in an old-fashioned dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a gored skirt; and round his cap and round the crown of her poke-bonnet were ribbons on ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... her hands palm to palm between her knees, glancing at Dominic Iglesias now and again sideways as she spoke. The bodice of her dress, cut slightly en coeur, showed the nape of her neck, and the whole of her throat, which was smooth and rounded though rather long. Her make altogether was that not uncommon to London girls of the lower middle- class: ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... massive braids, shading her brow and cheek, was concealed under a head-dress, somewhat resembling an eastern turban, but well suited to her countenance. Her dress, of the fashion before described, was all of white—the jacket or bodice richly woven with gold threads; but so thick a veil enveloped face and form, that her sweet face was concealed, until, at one particular part of the mysterious rite (for such, to the Spaniards, this ceremony must have been), the veil was ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... Hardy, "the superstition that struck me most was that of the Huldr, who in different districts was differently described. Generally the Huldr was described as a tall fair woman, with a yellow bodice and a blue skirt, with long fair yellow hair loose over the shoulders; but she was as hollow as a kneading trough, and had a cow's tail. She was described as coming to the Saeter farms on the fjelds, after they were vacated by the Norwegian ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury Lane in her smock-sleeves and bodice, looking upon one. She seemed a ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... good cheer. Nouns! Dick, Doll Lister is a delightful lass, and if you can only get Alizon out of your head, would be just the wife for you. She sings like an angel, has the most captivating sigh-and-die-away manner, and the prettiest rounded figure ever bodice kept in. Were I in your place I should know where to choose. But you will see her at Hoghton to-day, for she is to be at the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... confusion. I thought I might have been speaking as I was coming to, mentioning a name perhaps, out of that dim and sacred chamber of the unconscious soul into which God alone should see. I noticed, too, that my bodice had been unhooked at the back so as to leave it loose ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... It is disgraceful to try and make me eat more than I do already. I am getting hideously stout. I found my maid in tears to-night because I positively could not get into my most becoming bodice." ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... murmured the young man vaguely, sinking back in his chair with his arms folded. He looked at Mrs. Luna with intelligent incredulity. She was sufficiently pretty; her hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack with her vivacity; and from beneath the stiff little plaits of her petticoat a small fat foot protruded, resting upon a stilted heel. She was attractive and impertinent, especially the latter. He seemed to think it was a great pity, what she had told him; but he lost himself ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... Scowrers drove before them all who pretended to keep up Order or Rule to the Interruption of Love and Honour. This is his way of Talk, for he is very gay when he visits me; but as his former Knowledge of the Town has alarmed him into an invincible Jealousy, he keeps me in a pair of Slippers, neat Bodice, warm Petticoats, and my own Hair woven in Ringlets, after a Manner, he says, he remembers. I am not Mistress of one Farthing of Money, but have all Necessaries provided for me, under the Guard of one who procured for him while he had any Desires to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... her look so disreputable. She was wearing an old black dress many sizes too big for her. Great pleats of it were secured by pins in unexpected places, so that quaint chaos was made of the scheme of decoration—black velvet and bugles—on the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged, fat, second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago for synagogue wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous. Preposterous too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in black, with a cheap black ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... old man is talking to her, she dances with him, and she refused a young man a moment before. This is a bad sign; our Lovelace knows it; there is a stout woman of thirty-five, who is looking at him, red satin bodice, doubtful taste. He looks away; a little blonde woman fixes her eyes on him, she looks as innocent as a child; instinctively our Lovelace turns to his host. "Who is that little blonde woman over there, the right hand corner?" he ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... Queen or Ccoya (in blue chucu, white cotton bodice, and red mantle secured by a golden topu or pin, set with emeralds, and a blue skirt), and the princess CUSI COYLLUR (in a chucu, with feathers of the tunqui, white bodice and skirt, and grey mantle with topu, set ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham

... their grandmothers did. They wear a little round black felt hat with rolled rim and two long ribbons hanging down at the back. Their hair is carefully braided and coiled, and stuck through and through with great silver pins. A black bodice, fastened with silver clasps, is covered in front with the ends of a brilliant silk kerchief, laid in many folds around the shoulders. The white shirt-sleeves are very full and fastened up above the elbow with coloured ribbon. If the weather is cool, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... to Philippe that the muslin of her bodice touched his clothes and he breathed the scent of her hair. He felt a mad temptation to take her in his arms. And it would have been a very small thing, as she had said: one of those moments of happiness which one plucks like a ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... linens; and the half was—well, I was not quite sure what it was at first, though I could see that it was pretty. It was pale green and there were two parts of it. The bigger of the two (it was not very big) was of soft silk, and extremely fluffy. It had a low-necked and short-sleeved bodice, and attached to that was a skirt—or something that would have been a skirt if it had had more time to grow. The second part was silk, too, but more difficult to describe. Perhaps I'd do best to say that it was like long stockings, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... in groups, or walked about the room gazing at the many beautiful pictures and ornaments. There were only three or four really vulgar-looking women present, and they were clothed in conspicuous raiment. One, and all but her waist was huge, wore a bodice of transparent gauze; another, also of middle years, had crowned her hard over-coloured face with a large gentian-blue hat turned up in front with a brass buckle. Another was in pink silk and heavily powdered. But although these women were offensively ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... blue and white; and shoes so short that the toes are bent under the ball of the foot so as to make it appear nearly round. Their hair is without powder and is divided into small braids behind, hanging over the shoulders. Their bodice is generally of gold or silver stuff, over which there are two short cloaks, that underneath of muslin and the other of wool of different colours, blue, yellow and pink. The upper one is drawn over the head when they are in the streets and the weather is cold; but within doors it is usual to place ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... circumstances which led me to suspect that the spy I pursued was a female. As the mustang sprung over the zequia, the flowing skirt of the manga was puffed upward, and hung for some moments spread out in the air. A velvet bodice beneath, a tunic-like skirt, the tournure of the form, all impressed me as singular for a cavallero, however rich and young. The limbs I could not see, as the goat-skin armas-de-agua were drawn over them; but I caught a glimpse of a gold spur, and a heel of a tiny ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... nearer, like a connoisseur bent on examining a picture. She saw before her within the carved gilt framework a beautiful maiden's form, in sky-blue satin robe that fell in wide, heavy folds around her full and blooming figure. The low-necked bodice left wholly uncovered her dazzling white shoulders, and beneath the transparent gauze of her sleeves shone the fair white arms as from out a silver cloud. Her head rested proudly and gracefully upon the slender alabaster neck, and was crowned by a profusion of black hair, caught up behind in ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... her, and had been a merchant's wife by whom he had a good estate, and was a godly woman; and because she wore such apparel as she had been formerly used to, which were neither excessive nor immodest, for their chiefest exception were against her wearing of some whalebone in the bodice and sleeves of her gown, corked shoes and other such like things as the citizens of her rank then used to wear. And although, for offence sake, she and he were willing to reform the fashions of them, so far as might be, without spoiling of their ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... hat her hair showed dark as night; and her southern skin filled with rich tints, yellow and dark green where the hair grew scanty on the neck; the shoulders drooped into opulent suggestion in the lace bodice. And it was interesting to compare her ripe beauty with the pale deciduous beauty of the waitress. Mademoiselle D'Avary sat, her fan wide-spread across her bosom, her lips parted, the small teeth showing ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... as I took it; how the Herr postmaster looked at me through his horn spectacles and watched me, for he knew the writing! it was his son's, the writing of Franz. And I felt the blood rush up hot to my face, and the tears blind me as I placed in my bodice the little letter that I dare not open while there were questioning eyes to ask: "What is he to thee, Lisba, and ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... jet, Susette, but that white embroidered lisle, and take time to sew three inches of tulle around the top of the bodice in front and put folds five inches deep across the back. Let it come just below the shoulder," she commanded, as she commenced the whirlwind of a toilette with which, she had assured the hurrying Dennis, ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... intended, and then she tried it on. As she looked at herself in the mirror the vision of her loveliness surprised and charmed her. She had drawn a blue ribband that she happened to possess, round the arms of the dress and round the bodice of it, and when she saw how this little thread of colour set off the full outlines of her bust and the white roundness of her arms, she could have kissed her image in the glass. She was lovely, prettier than any girl in the section. George would see that; he loved beautiful ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... frightfully thin and white; one saw nothing but great dark eyes in their faces. The mother was crouched on the floor close to the children. She hardly moved at first, and was really a terrifying object when she got up; half savage, scarcely clothed—a short petticoat in holes and a ragged bodice gaping open over her bare skin, no shoes or stockings; big black eyes set deep in her head, and a quantity of unkempt black hair. She looked enormous when she stood up, her head nearly touching the roof. I didn't feel very comfortable, but we were two, and ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... my father's signet," the girl added. "Here is his ring," and she drew from under her bodice a man's ring, hung on a slender gold chain, the stone a great emerald carved with the Greek "AEI"—"Always." Alan cut the cord of the packet and handed it to her. "It is not for me to open it," ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... be required to replace another that has fallen out. We should furnish a large shield to prevent it being swallowed. We can try the method of weaning the baby from the comforter by tying a ribbon to it and to the child's bodice. The system is gradually to shorten the ribbon until it becomes too short for the baby to suck in comfort. It will then gradually grow ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... thought of. Some, however, we saw with trousers and long yellow boots, turned over at the tops. They were evidently the dandies of the population. The women appeared in coloured petticoats, with a well-fitting bodice and a red cape. Some wore handkerchiefs instead of the funnel cap, and others mantillas and black hoods, by which the whole face and figure can be concealed. In consequence of the steepness and hardness of the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... the other, catching his sword-point in the front of her bodice and laying it open. "A fair maiden indeed. Not thine, but mine shall she be," and he motioned his ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... nights and days passed in one continued revel, her complexion was as pure, her cheeks as rosy, her neck as fresh and fair, as if she had that morning issued from some peaceful home. Her costume, though singular and fantastic, suited her admirably. It was composed of a tight, long-waisted bodice in cloth of gold, trimmed with great bunches of scarlet ribbon, the ends of which streamed over her naked arms, and a short petticoat of scarlet velvet, ornamented with golden beads and spangles. This petticoat reached half way down a leg, at ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Clara, Janet Foster; a part her mother had chosen for her, as more appropriate to a girl not yet come out. Certainly, Tony Foster would scarcely have recognized his demure little Puritan under the little lace hood, the purple bodice, and white skirt, at which Clara looked with such exultation; and Janet was further to be supposed to have taken possession of the Countess's orient neck-pearls, and was to wear them as the only ornament ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... a practised writer, You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, As if it held but the might of a child; You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. Tell him — No, you may quibble there, For it would split his heart to know it, And then you and ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... different aspect that you would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political artifices of her sex so naturally ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... remained his slave until the slaves were freed. Mary looks her age. She is a tall gaunt black Negro with white hair about one inch long and very kinky, and still she dresses as the older slave woman dressed in the past days. She wears an old bodice with a very full skirt that comes to her ankles and this skirt has very long deep pockets and when I asked her why she had such pockets in her skirt her answer was, "Wal you sees honey I jes am used ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... without the faintest trace Of disappointment, weariness, or tean Upon the childlike earnestness and grace Of the waiting face. These close-wound ropes of pearl (Or common beads made precious by their use) Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear; But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare And half the glad swell of the breast, for news That now the woman stirs within the girl. And yet, Even so, the loops and globes Of beaten gold And jet Hung, in the stately way of old, From the ears' drooping lobes On festivals and Lord's-day ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... gateway of the White Hart, into the court, but before listening to them, the monk exchanged greetings with the hostess, who stood at the door in a broad hat and velvet bodice, and demanded what cheer there ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... clouds from the wooden-wheeled ox-carts. But for its magenta tiling, the pillared market stood, a huge monochrome, its deep yellows splashed here and there with the crimson of the female hucksters' dresses. This was their every-day wear—a sleeveless bodice, cut low over the matchless amplitudes and so short that the smooth waist showed at each uplift of the round, bronze arms; a skirt that was little more than a cloth wound about the limbs; a shawl, all of deep blood color. Small wonder that he ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... his kisses. All at once she ceased to struggle, and, vanquished, resigned, allowed him to undress her. One by one he neatly and rapidly stripped off the different articles of clothing with the light fingers of a lady's maid. She had snatched her bodice from his hands to hide her face in it, and remained standing amidst the garments fallen at her feet. He seized her in his arms and bore her towards the couch. Then she murmured in his ear in a broken voice, "I swear to you, I swear to you, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... began clambering carefully over the rocks and made her way to the landing-place. The twins saw now that she wore the rainbow skirt and the dark bodice over a white waist, which forms the costume of the Raettvik girls and women; but they saw, also, that she ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... her by a discreet official, and this time she received the letter, pressed it to her heart, and then slipped it into the bodice of her gown. But this time, as before, she left ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... yards away from us, over the dark water, was Mildred. She stood on a slender azure cylinder that came just to the surface. Tall, slender, superbly graceful, with only the scant bodice of green silken stuff about her, she looked like the statue of a goddess in white marble. Her head was thrown up, golden-brown hair fell behind her shoulders, and the pure notes of her ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... She was barefooted, clothed only in bodice and leather jacket and a rather short ochre-colored skirt that blew in the gaining wind and showed the outline of her lithe young figure. Her long black hair billowed and galloped in the wind ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... the rainbow had a place in her costume for the occasion: The bodice was of light blue silk; the skirt orange; encircling her small waist was a green sash; while her jet-black hair was fastened with a crimson ribbon. Diamonds flashed from the earrings in her ears as well as from the rings on her fingers. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... up. Their straight, slender shoulders rebuked Connie's obesity, and Sarah's bent back, her bodice stretched hump-wise from the stuck-out ridges ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair

... By the heave of her bosom it was plain to see that either her fears still possessed her or that she had been running for dear life, and must catch breath. Her hand went up to her bodice. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... and Nellie, Let us study BOTTICELLI When we feel the gnawing craving to be smart; If we want to be de rigueur We must educate the figure To show the downward trend of "plastic art." The outline should be slack, Slippy-sloppy, front and back, Till bodice, skirt and tunic—every stitch— Seems to call for the support Of the handy-man's resort— That naval gesture termed the "double hitch." The shoulders must be drooping. The knees a trifle stooping, And the widest waist, remember, takes the prize; When motoring or shopping The coatee must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various

... with red, lips carnation-hued, and teeth white as pearls. Her parti-coloured, linsey-woolsey petticoats looped up on one side disclosed limbs with no sort of rustic clumsiness about them; but, on the contrary, a particularly neat formation both of foot and ankle. Her scarlet bodice, which, like the lower part of her dress, was decorated with spangles, bugles, and tinsel ornaments of various kinds,—very resplendent in the eyes of the surrounding swains, as well as in those of Dick Taverner,—her ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... been removed; and, where any plaster remained, it was either mapped and blistered with damps, or festooned with dusty cobwebs. Over an old crazy bedstead was thrown a squalid, patchwork counterpane; and upon the counterpane lay a black hood and scarf, a pair of bodice of the cumbrous form in vogue at the beginning of the last century, and some other articles of female attire. On a small shelf near the foot of the bed stood a couple of empty phials, a cracked ewer and basin, a brown jug without a handle, a small tin coffee-pot without a spout, a saucer ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Hunsdon, who no doubt was the leader likewise of the fashion; but it is impossible, with our ideas of grace and comfort, not to commiserate this unfortunate lady; whose standing-up wire ruff, rising above her head; whose stays, or bodice, so long-waisted as to reach to her knees; and the circumference of her large hoop farthingale, which seems to enclose her in a capacious tub; mark her out as one of the most pitiable martyrs of ancient modes. The amorous Sir Walter Raleigh must have found some of the maids of honour the most ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... flounced white skirt stopped short just above her white-stockinged ankles and little feet, hidden in white satin, low-quartered slippers. Her black silk, shell-like jacket half clasped her stayless bust clad in an under-bodice of soft muslin that faintly outlined a contour which struck him as already womanly. A black lace veil which had protected her head, she had on entering slipped down to her shoulders with a graceful gesture, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... out bad about Easter. My pleasure club," she explained, turning to me—"my pleasure club, 'The Moonlight Maids,' give a ball to-night." Which fact likewise explained the curl-papers as well as the slattern shirt-waist, donned to save the evening bodice worn to the factory that morning and now tucked away in a big ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... complexion was a little muddy, her hair was light brown, always untidy, and done up in a slovenly chignon. She was slight of figure, small-boned. And her movements were lazy. Dressed carelessly—a gaping bodice, buttons missing, ugly, worn shoes, always looking a little slovenly—she charmed by her grace and youth, her gentleness, her instinctively coaxing ways. When she appeared to take the air at the door of her shop, the young men ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... knitted in brioche stitch with black and purple wool, so that the raised ribs appear black on one side and purple on the other. The bodice fits quite close. It is fastened in front with black bone buttons and a steel buckle. Two strips of silk elastic are knitted in at the bottom. Begin at the bottom of the bodice with black wool, and cast on 170 stitches. The needles must be rather fine, ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton

... her costume, except for a shy suspicion that it becomes her, and she, it. Her waist is of its natural size and in its proper place. Her shoulders are covered, and her arms have free play; and although her bodice is cut rather low, the rising chemise and the falling kerchief redeem it from all objection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... with old cream lace. The material of a woman's dress had never interested him before. He knew calico from silk, but beyond that he never ventured an opinion. To colour alone he was responsive. This combination of red and creamy white, with the bodice cut low, showing the lines of her beautiful white shoulders, and the great mass of dark hair rising in graceful curves from her full round neck, heightened her beauty to ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... at steadily, until his companion was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye. Then he passed it over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his distant relative at some ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... such an advertisement, I say, Sir! Now, what's the use of using the words that belonged with the thumb-screws, and the Blessed Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and sleeves and bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire, if we can't have the things themselves, Sir? What's the use of painting the fire round a poor fellow, when you think it won't do to kindle one under him,—as they did at Valencia or Valladolid, or ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... bidden to help by giving an heroic 'boost' when the word of command came. The device was completely successful, and in a trice the conqueror disappeared, to reappear at the window holding the precious pearl-embroidered bodice wrapped in a towel. "I wouldn't stop to fool with the door-knob till I dropped you this," she said. "Oonah, you go and wash your hands clean, and help Miss Peabody into it,—and mind you start the lacing right at the top; and you, Peter, run down to Rooney's and get the donkey and the cart, and ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... round the lawn and drew up outside the windows. Hortense sprang out and helped an old woman to alight, dressed in a fluted linen cap, a black velvet bodice ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... little cry and fell quite prone In the long grass, and lay there very still. Gervase leapt from the tree at her soft moan, And kneeling over her, with clumsy skill Unloosed her bodice, fanned her with his hat, And his unguarded lips pronounced his heart. "Eunice, my Dearest Girl, where are you hurt?" His trembling fingers dart Over her limbs seeking some wound. She strove To answer, opened wide her eyes, above Her knelt Sir ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... said the duchesse, as she drew from her bosom a small packet of papers, flattened by her velvet bodice. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... same time, that love in no way hindered her, not only from being averse to parting with her adored husband, but also from desiring to visit Madame Annette's and order there a lovely cap, a hat trimmed with a magnificent blue ostrich feather, and a blue Venetian velvet bodice which was to expose to the public gaze the snowy, well shaped breast and arms which no one had yet gazed upon except her husband and maids. Of course Katenka sided with her mother and, in general, there became established between Avdotia ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... charming than ever. The fashion of lighting drawing-rooms and dining-rooms gives ample opportunity for a harmless deception in these days, and the blue half-circles were not seen round Helena's eyes, nor would any of the company in the drawing-room have guessed that the heart under that silken bodice was bleeding. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... Beautiful, but not radiant, she was; cold and calm, but not blushing and uncertain. Her wedding gown was all in white, true enough to tradition, though but of delaine, pressed new from its packing trunk by her mother's hands. Her bodice, long and deep in front and at back, was plain entirely, save for a treasure of lace from her mother's trunk and her mother's wedding long ago. Her hands had no gloves, but white short-fingered mitts, also cherished remnants ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... notable occasion, when Hallie led me to the bedroom of her grown-up sister, and exhibited to me with awe-struck pride the dress her sister was to wear to the Sumner Light Guards' ball that night. It was a blue tulle with a fine frost of spangles over the bodice, and it seemed too dazzling to belong to a creature less wonderful than a fairy. But when Hallie went on, in a cautious whisper lest we be discovered, to confide to me that when she was grown up and out of school her mother had promised ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... both saw and perceived something that I had never noticed before. A fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from sight beneath the edge of her bodice. But my sense of perception dug a modest diamond, and I could even dig the tiny initials engraved in ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... nine o'clock, Alice in black velvet, with a wreath of flowers in her black hair—I in alight blue velvet bodice, and white silk skirt. We were waiting for the ball hack to come for us, as hat was the custom, for no one owned a close coach in Rosville, when Charles brought in some splendid scarlet flowers which ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... visit to Padua he shows less preference for costume, and his women are generally clothed in a loose white chemise, rather than the square-cut bodice. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... friend's finances. During the next moment or two he glanced meditatively through the open door into the adjoining room, where Sally Creighton was busy beside the stove. The sleeves of the girl's light bodice were rolled up well above the elbow, and she had pretty, round arms, which were just then ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... may get out that pale yellow dress. No, beautiful, the one with the black satin stripes on the bodice—because I don't want my hair cast completely in the shade, do I? Now, let me see—black feather, gloves, large pompadour, and a sweet smile. No, I don't want a fan—that's a Lydia Languish trade-mark. And two silk skirts rustling like the deadest leaves ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... is the mantle of St. Cecilia; others are the bodice of St. Agnes, St. Stephen's robe, a prophet's tunic; and above these, before reaching the lapis-lazuli border of sky, the robe ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... contrasted with her brilliantly pale complexion. Her brown hair brought out all the golden color in her eyes, in which blue streaks mingled as in Florentine marble; their expression seemed to increase the significance of her words. A studied grace lay in the charms of her bodice. Perhaps a rival might have found the lines of the thick eyebrows, which almost met, a little hard; or found a fault in the almost invisible down that covered her features. I saw the signs of passion everywhere, written on those Italian eyelids, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... had been cup-bearer to Frederick Barbarossa. Thirty years' observation of Roman society had sharpened her wits and given her an inexhaustible store of anecdotes, but she had beneath her crumpled bodice a deep-welling fund of Teutonic sentiment, which she communicated only to the objects of her particular favor. Rowland had a great regard for her, and she repaid it by wishing him to get married. She never saw him ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... Several very full underskirts. Long skirt of dark blue, made very full around the bottom. This skirt is patched with squares of dark red and striped goods. Large blue gingham apron edged with stripes of dark red. White waist. Blue bodice of same material as skirt. Small white cap fitting close to head in back, but turned back in front with points over each ear. Face round and rosy. If the wooden shoes are not easily obtained, fair substitutes may be made by covering an old pair of ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare

... dressed in a great blob upon the top of her head. It was a noticeable colour, fair and startling. She did not decorate her eyebrows and eyelashes, which were darker than her hair. And she wore high corsets, because her bosom, although firm, was inclined to be over-flowing. The bodice of her dress fitted closely and emphasised what was still a very shapely figure. She was what would be called a fine woman. Her eyes were full and clear; her lips were well-moulded; her teeth, rather ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... little bunch of mignonette upon her breast, just at the point where the slashing of her bodice ended, and the gray gave way to a wedge of virginal white, as if her sempstress had started to lay bare her heart. The flowers quivered as from some internal agitation, nestling their pale gold spikes ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... the sense of possession, once and for all. When I first went to Belgium with a pair of fleece-lined gloves, I was sure, if I ever lost that pair, that they were irreplaceable. I lost them. I lost article after article, and was freed from the clinging. I lost a pin for the bodice. I left my laundry with a washerwoman. Her village was bombarded, and we had to move on. I lost my kit. A woman has a tie-in with those material things, and the new life brought freedom ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... the door, and come in. What's up with her? Gone off with a handsomer man, eh?' queried Mrs. Gordon, as she bit her thread through, and held up a newly-trimmed dress bodice for admiration. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... She wondered if her green silk gown with the black velvet sleeves was different in style from the gowns the other women were wearing under their furs? Had sleeves of a different colour from the bodice, which Miss Polly considered the last touch of elegance, really gone ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... faults caused amusement, and if she had preserved many of the characteristics of a clever child, she was none the less a tall and handsome woman, who looked older than her years on account of that low curve of the hair over the ears, and that fulness of bodice and skirt which Mr. Gibson has either initiated or imitated. The whisk of those skirts, and the frank incisive voice and pleasant, catching laugh were familiar and welcome sounds on board of the Korosko. Even the rigid Colonel softened into geniality, and the Oxford-bred diplomatist forgot ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top, tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The head is turned aside—with great judgment—probably ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... but herself to open. Here she treasured all the things she had inherited from her mother, and of these she was especially careful. Here lay a couple of old-time peasant dresses, of red homespun cloth, with short bodice and plaited shirt, and a pearl-bedecked breast pin. There were starched white-linen head-dresses, and heavy silver ornaments and chains. Folks don't care to go about dressed like that in these days, and ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... only smiled when her eyes opened, and waking with a start, she got up in sudden confusion. Mrs. Darnell went back to her room and dressed slowly while her husband still slept, and it was only at the last moment, as she fastened her cherry-coloured bodice, that she roused him, telling him that the bacon would be overdone unless he ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... bent forward from the waist, her dainty lavender skirts spread out on the faded blue of the sofa mattress, the contours of her dainty lavender bodice in fine relief against the faded blue cushions, her whole person, in the subdued light, bright and apparently fragile as some delicate toy of spun glass. She put out her hand, and lightly, mischievously, touched the string of pearls ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... told no story? You asked me what I came for—at least, so I understood it—and I answered you, "Dinner," and that's what I am here for. Oh, do make haste, Miss Sarah! You could keep on that white skirt, and just slip on this pretty bodice; master won't never notice. There's the gong! Oh dear, oh dear!' said Naomi, getting quite flustered in her anxiety to get ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... children gave amusing amateur theatricals, gotten up by Lorraine and Ted. The acting was upon Laura Roosevelt's tennis court. All the children were most cunning, especially Quentin as Cupid, in the scantiest of pink muslin tights and bodice. Ted and Lorraine, who were respectively George Washington and Cleopatra, really carried off the play. At the end all the cast joined hands in a song and dance, the final verse being devoted especially to me. I love all these children and have great ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... merry-go-round; which had been the delight of the village urchins all day, appealed for custom by the aid of a barrel-organ on which a woman in a white bodice was playing the waltz from ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... the circle, and Lucian watched a lank girl of fifteen as she came round and round to the flash. She was quite drunk, and had kicked her petticoats away, and the crowd howled laughter and applause at her. Her black hair poured down and leapt on her scarlet bodice; she sprang and leapt round the ring, laughing in Bacchic frenzy, and led the orgy to triumph. People were crossing to and fro, jostling against each other, swarming about certain shops and stalls in a dense ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... these, there were diamonds from the Queen of Spain and from the Empress of Russia and sundry grand duchesses. No lady violinist ever appeared before an American audience more gorgeously arrayed. "Fastened all over the bodice of her soft white woollen gown she wore these sparkling jewels, and in her hair were two or three diamond stars," said the account in Dwight's Journal of Music. Yet with all this the criticisms ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... owdacious!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler in a kind of hysterical titter, snatching at her bodice somewhere over the region of her heart. Fancy paid ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... yarn of all conceivable colours, and a pair of shoes, patched and repaired till nothing of the original structure remained, and clasped on his feet with two massy silver buckles. If the dress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his granddaughter was gay, and even rich. She wore a bodice of fine wool, wrought round the bosom with alternate leaf and lily, and a kirtle of the same fabric, which, almost touching her white and delicate ankle, showed her snowy feet, so fairy-light and round that they scarcely seemed to touch the grass where she stood. Her hair, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... pretty thus, with her feet bare, and plump fingers, fine and pink, loaded with rings. Under her bodice of gilded cloth and the folds of her flower-patterned dress was suggested a lovable creature, rather blessed materially, rounded everywhere, and nice enough to eat. The amber mouthpiece of a narghileh smoked at her lips, and enveloped her ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... I turned my attention to the collar which apparently caused her much uneasiness. The collar, as I discovered, was a part of the bodice and could not be taken off without removing the whole garment, which task required considerable time, patience, and careful maneuvering to perform. This I finally accomplished, however, with the aid of Arletta, who revived occasionally from her comatose state ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... perfectly ghastly in this last night, when you were as pale and hollow-eyed as a sick nun; but to-night," and she raised her eyes to my face, "I believe you will do. Don't you want the bodice ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... winsome maiden, and wherever she went the wooers flocked on her path. Bjarne shook his head at her, and often had harsh words upon his lips, when he saw her braiding field-flowers into her yellow tresses or clasping the shining brooches to her bodice; but a look of hers or a smile would completely disarm him. She had a merry way of doing things which made it all seem like play; but work went rapidly from her hands, while her ringing laughter echoed ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... of a train of the most superb Pekin bandannas, elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. Bodice and underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and noeuds of bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, with a bird of paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This splendid costume, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the hollows of her young bosom, at the scantiness of her bodice suspended only by bands of sheerest gauze. She wondered what Mamma would say, if she could see her so, without that drape of net. . ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... that power lies in a saltatorial ensemble of white lace skirts, pale blue hose, lustrous naked arms, undulating bodice, magnetic eyes, flying hair, and an unchanging smile, to focus the perceptions of a man, to absorb his consciousness, aided by a tune which seems to close out from him all the ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... to her, and the colour came to his face a second time. She fastened it in her bodice, looking down at ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... and her long hair fell on either side of her head, like horse-tails, half-way down her waist; her skin was dark and swarthy, like that of a toad, and the expression of her countenance was particularly evil; her arms were bare, and her bosom was but half-concealed by a slight bodice, below which she wore a coarse petticoat, her only other article of dress. The man was somewhat younger, but of a figure equally wild; his frame was long and lathy, but his arms were remarkably short, his neck was rather bent, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... dazzling army of colours! Fiery red and grass green aprons meet our gaze. The dress of the women is a black skirt, red bodice, and white sleeves: all of them had a psalm-book wrapped in the folded silk pocket-handkerchief. The little girls were entirely in yellow, and with red aprons; the very least were in Turkish-yellow clothes. ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... Her bodice, which was dark and close fitting, had a very high-standing ruff, which enclosed her slightly elongated and very pale face, just as the half-open shield of a leaf encloses a white flower-bud. Her whole person, in that chamber, with its very high ceiling and massive ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... down." "I idled down." Provision there had been for just such meeting Of stranger cousins, in a family tree Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch Of the one bearing it done in detail— Some zealous one's laborious device. She made a sudden movement toward her bodice, As one who clasps her heart. They laughed together. "Stark?" he inquired. "No matter for the proof." "Yes, Stark. And you?" "I'm Stark." He drew his passport. "You know we might not be and still be cousins: The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys, All claiming some priority in Starkness. ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost

... massive necklaces of gold, with the image of the pitriswar (manes) depending therefrom, gave the whole an air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a skirt of dark-brown camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff, with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the favourite churis or rings of hathidant (elephant's tooth) covering the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it." A little later, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... proposals as you at first make to me. Let there be a surrender of Monsieur Scott—" Here she blushed so deeply that all her sweet-rounded cheek, and her neck, and her delicious little shell-like ears, became a crimson, deep as her bodice—"and a consent to entertain as favourably as I can the suit of M. Riel. Meanwhile we can see what is the next best step. I do not think that we have much to dread by leaving Red River. We can go to your brother who lives across the border, and I am certain that he will be ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... me for my address, both in French and English; and on my turning a deaf ear, she determined to honour me by showing me some fine diamonds on her fingers, repeatedly taking off no fewer than three gloves, which were worn one over the other.... This lady's bodice was of yellow satin richly embroidered, her petticoat of gold tissue with stripes, her robe of red velvet with a raised pile, lined with yellow muslin, with broad stripes of pure gold. She wore an apron of point lace of various patterns; her head-tire was highly perfumed, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... a pretty tolerable turn of countenance, set off by a very singular head-dress; that is, a man's wig, very big, and very much raised in front; the top of the head is a tissue of hair, and the back has something of a woman's style of head-dress. Sometimes she also wears a hat; her bodice, laced behind, crosswise, is made something like our doublets, her chemise bulging out all round her petticoat, which she wears rather badly fastened and not over straight. She is always very much powdered, with a good deal of pomade, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... nonchalant sweetness of the countenance. The mass of raven black hair was only adorned by a crimson ribbon, beneath which it had been thrust into a net, with a long thing that had once been a curl on the shoulder of the white tumbled bodice worn over a gray skirt which looked as if it had done solitary duty for the five weeks since the marriage, and was but slightly relieved ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... features were providentially veiled beneath her nuptial flammeum, and of her squat figure little could be discerned under the gorgeous accoutrements of the occasion. She was ablaze with ornaments and embroidery of gold, on neck and shoulders and wrist; a wide lace collar fell over a bodice of purple silk; silken too, and of brightest green, was her pleated skirt. The priest seemed ineffably bored with his task, and mumbled through one or two pages of holy books in record time; there were holdings of candles, interchange of rings, sacraments of bread and wine and other solemn ceremonies—the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... to chaperon Miss Owenson to the Castle, replied that when Miss Owenson wore more petticoats and less paint she would be happy to do so. Yet another tradition has been handed down to the effect that Miss Owenson appeared at one of the Viceregal balls in a dress, the bodice of which was trimmed with the portraits of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... she began to take off her things in feverish haste, pacing about the room restlessly the while, as if that helped her to be quicker. Everything she wore seemed too hot, too heavy, or too tight, and she flung hat and cloak and bodice down just where she took them off in her haste to get rid of them. Throwing her things about like that was an old trick of her childhood, and becoming conscious of what she was doing, she remembered it, and began to think of herself as she had been then, and so forget her troubled self as she was ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... it seemed as if I read her very heart. She was dressed with something of her mother's coquetry, and love of positive colour. Her robe, which I know she must have made with her own hands, clung about her with a cunning grace. After the fashion of that country, besides, her bodice stood open in the middle, in a long slit, and here, in spite of the poverty of the house, a gold coin, hanging by a ribbon, lay on her brown bosom. These were proofs, had any been needed, of her inborn delight in life and ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... one, at the best; but now the very earth, perhaps, will never receive her. Oh yes, anything you like—the body trimmed with jet, if you wish it, and let me see, a gauze bodice, goffered, fastened to the throat. That is all, I think; the sleeves confined at the wrist just enough not to expose the arm, and yet ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... gazed again, and her little heart beat under her bee's-wing bodice as if it would break. The prince had a melancholy air, and he sat apart from the banquet, gazing abstractedly ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... her out of a difficulty. And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice—not a wrinkle in all ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,—the naughty baggage,—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... her head back, laid her hand lightly on the young man's arm, and allowed him to tuck the watch into her bodice and fasten the chain around ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... interest, there was nothing about that play, or about past performances of it, which he did not know! His beautiful wife (now Mrs. George Cornwallis West) wore a dress at supper one evening which gave me the idea for the Lady Macbeth dress, afterwards painted by Sargent. The bodice of Lady Randolph's gown was trimmed all over with green beetles' wings. I told Mrs. Comyns Carr about it, and she remembered it when she designed my Lady Macbeth dress and saw to its making by ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... fine oyster slipped from its shell as I was placing it between Emilie's lips. It fell on to her breast, and she would have recovered it with her fingers; but I claimed the right of regaining it myself, and she had to unlace her bodice to let me do so. I got hold of the oyster with my lips, but did so in such a manner as to prevent her suspecting that I had taken any extraordinary pleasure in the act. Armelline looked on without laughing; she was evidently surprised at the little ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... now fully refreshed and rested from the journey, and she came forward to greet her guest in her tunic, without her mantle, a cloud of soft white Indian gauze loosely pinned upon her black hair and half covering her neck. Her bodice-like belt was of scarlet and gold, and from one side there hung a rich-hilted knife of Indian steel in a jewelled sheath. The long sleeves of her tunic were drawn upon her arms into hundreds of minute folds, and where ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... partners have assembled in the cavern. Amongst the last to arrive are old Onucz and his daughter with the bridesmaids. Anicza is dressed as usual with her girdle and embroidered bodice and a round hat on her head. The only difference is that now she sparkles all over with gold and jewels and her pig-tail is interwoven with real pearls. Amongst all the picked beauties who have gathered together here, she ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... curiosity and increase faith. Pere Lactance therefore announced that on the 20th of May three of the seven devils dwelling in the superior would come out, leaving three wounds in her left side, with corresponding holes in her chemise, bodice, and dress. The three parting devils were Asmodeus, Gresil des Trones, and Aman des Puissances. He added that the superior's hands would be bound behind her back at the time ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... cut of the skirt is lovely, but I am not altogether satisfied with the severe bodice. I want you to wear this fichu of mine, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... dressing-gown, reaching to the floor, displayed to advantage the girl's lithe figure, accentuating its long, graceful lines. The bodice, opened at the neck, exposed the slender white throat, around which the summer's sun had tanned a ruddy ring. Her hair had been parted in the center and twined in adorable ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... light of a lamp burning before an image of the Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress. It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... a peasant-girl, who was weeding the ground a few feet from him, attracted his attention. It was in July, and the air was broiling, although the sun had already sank to the horizon. The peasant-girl had taken off her jacket. In a white bodice, with a coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed behind her back. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... and sleepy-eyed, who must have been a belle before she fell into flesh. She wears massy filigree ear-rings, two strings of precious stones as necklaces, ponderous bracelets, edgings of pearls on her bodice, and rings on all her fingers. Her shoulders are covered with costly lace, and the front of her skirt is like an altar-cloth heavy with embroidery. I dare say, if one might peep under it, she has gold bangles on her ankles. It would surprise me if she had an idea in her ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... moved about the patio engaged with her women in assorting a huge basket of freshly laundered household linen. Not a strand of silver was visible in her jet black hair, adorned with a large tortoise-shell comb and a single Castilian rose. Her gay, low-necked, short sleeved bodice, exposing her shapely neck and arms, harmonized well with her short, black silken saya which rustled with every movement she made and from beneath which protruded a small pair of high instepped feet encased in black slippers ornamented ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... bare-headed (her hat and cloak lay beside her on a stool). She had fair, fluffy hair, cut short behind her neck; large, round eyes, heightened by a fringe of dark lashes; rough, ruddy cheeks, and a rosy, full-lipped, unstable mouth. She was dressed quite simply, in a black, close-fitting bodice, a little frayed at the sleeves. Her hands and neck were coarsely fashioned: her comeliness was brawny, literal, unfinished, as ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... meat, and stock-fish: item, of clothes, seeing that I provided what was needful for us three throughout the winter from the cloth-merchant. Moreover, for my daughter I bought a hair-net and a scarlet silk bodice, with a black apron and white petticoat, item, a fine pair of earrings, as she begged hard for them; and as soon as I had ordered the needful from the cordwainer we set out on our way homewards, as it began to grow very dark; but we could not carry nearly all we had ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... and there stepped into the sunshine the magnificent figure of a woman in Mexican dress—short skirt, low cut bodice, with a veil over her wonderfully dressed hair. She looked down upon the approaching ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... said that her gown was dark, black laces draping over a close fitted under bodice; and there was no relief to this somberness excepting that in the front of the bodice were many folds of lacy lawn, falling in many sheer pleats, edge to edge, gathered at the waist by a girdle confined by a simple ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... three ropes of Baja California pearls; one strand being the common possession. The matrons, young and old, wore heavy satins or brocades, either red or yellow, but the maids were in flowered silks, sometimes with coquettish little jacket, generally with long pointed bodice and full flowing skirt. Concha's frock was made in this fashion, but quite different otherwise; an aunt in the City of Mexico being mindful at whiles of the cravings of relatives in exile. It was of a soft shimmering white stuff covered with gold spangles and cut to reveal her young ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... of yellow satin falling over a skirt of white silk crepe, a green satin calyx girdle about her waist, and golden petals drooped again from the neck of her low bodice and over ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn

... chill her; a loose white downy wrap that she had thrown over her shoulders hung negligently to one side, leaving one round white arm bare, her head rested languidly back on the crimson cushions of her chair, the little fringes of pearls that nestled at her bosom on her low bodice, shivered and trembled as she breathed. The gas burned very low within, and with its subdued light only helped to make Honor still more like a spectre than she was. Guy, standing quite close to the panes, could see the gray pallor that had come over her agitated face, her eyes wore that ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... to cling about her beautiful form. In a brighter light you might see that her lips are crimson with the glow of youth, though her face is pale. Her hair, parted in the middle and dressed straight back, and her white gown give her the appearance of a Madonna. In her bodice, she wears a white rose which from time to time she caresses in ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... looked very fresh and bright in her neat tailor gown, kilted kirtle, and tight-fitting bodice, with neat little brass buttons. It was a gown of Maulevrier's ordering, made at his own tailor's. Her splendid chestnut hair was uncovered, the short crisp curls about her forehead dancing in the morning air. Her large, bright; brown eyes were dancing, too, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... a study of bygone fashions, and is painted with exquisite care for detail. The pointed bodice is as stiff as a coat of mail, like that so long in vogue at the court of Spain. Perhaps the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands may have brought the corset with it. Certainly it is not conducive to an easy carriage; only ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... expression of this latter phase, and I was already somehow aware of a deeper note in the crumbled castle than any note of the solid one—little experience as I had had either of solidity. At a point in the interval, at any rate, below the slope on which this memento stood, was a woman in a black bodice, a white shirt and a red petticoat, engaged in some sort of field labour, the effect of whose intervention just then is almost beyond my notation. I knew her for a peasant in sabots—the first peasant I had ever beheld, or beheld at least to such advantage. She had in the whole aspect an ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... drawing-room and was ready to receive her visitor. There was a very large mirror in the room, and pending her entrance Elizabeth stood before it noticing the set and flow of her black lace dress, its heliotrope ribbons, and the sparkle of the hidden jets upon the bodice. Some heliotrope blossoms were in her breast, and her hands were covered with gloves of the same delicate colour. Denas saw her thus; saw her reflection in the glass before she turned ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... is used in trench fighting!" The Frenchwoman took from the bodice of her black gown a crumpled telegram singed at the edges. "Henry received this but an hour ago. I watched, oh, so carefully. I saw him turn pale, and such was his haste to leave the house that he did not wait to see that the paper burned when he threw it in the grate. Can you translate ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... concealed by the drapery on her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding—an ecclesiastical sort of affair—more like a surplice than any of those blessed creations which our souls love under the names of "dress," and "frock," and "bodice," and "collar," and ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... the lady is loose and flowing. A jacket or bodice of purple tissue covers the right arm, and one side of the body to the waist, leaving the left arm, shoulder and ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)



Words linked to "Bodice" :   bodice ripper, top, plastron, frock, dress



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