"Parlour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried, "in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... moment a happy diversion was made by the lemon-crested cockatoo, who, by reason of his highly respectable deportment and polished manners, had been made free of our parlour, and could hop in and out from the shop when the mood seized him, through a small trapdoor or porthole, originally constructed for a window, and which served 'Ally Sloper' as a means of intercommunication between the two apartments, the wily bird being easily able to unlatch at pleasure ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... Entering a parlour, with a clean, sanded floor, (prettily herring-boned, as the housemaids technically phrase it,) furnished with red curtains, half a dozen beech chairs, three cast-iron spittoons, and a beer-bleached ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... of beautiful Lough Neagh, remaining there barely a year. Then they moved again—this time to Hillsborough, where he attended his first school. It came about in this way. One afternoon he was called into the parlour by his father. Two visitors—not by any means an everyday occurrence in Miltown—were within. One was a stoutish man with sandy hair, the other a very long person like a knitting-needle. The stout man called the boy to him, passed his hand carefully ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... inside and see my invaluable Brigida. She is, as usual, fatiguing herself with our accounts." The old lady led the way into the darkened parlour. It was small and rather stiff. As one's eyes became accustomed to the dim green light one noticed the incongruity of the furniture: the horsehair chairs and sofa, and large accountant's desk with ledgers; the large Pleyel grand piano; a bookcase, in which all the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... single file, but she did not photograph them for her album. The photograph was not taken because Mark, when they presented themselves, expressed surprise that the aged pair were led off by the parlour maid to have tea in the kitchen. Why on earth didn't they have tea with them, with himself and Mabel, in ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the parlour, hid myself in a corner, and heard everything the men talked about. Herr Hertz Hertzenhertz laughed aloud, and smoked thick black cigars that had a very strong smell. Suddenly my father came over to me, and gave me ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... of nasturtiums over to Troop's eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in the front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of oversea plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyes of those who look long to sea for the return of their beloved. Cheyne addressed himself to her, and she gave ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... his family. A fresh dinner was prepared for me and mine; and the present was prolonged to keep me company." "At nine," he elsewhere writes, "supper was served, and when the hour of bed-time came, I found that the chamber, to which the General conducted me was the very parlour I speak of, wherein he had made them place a camp-bed." Of his hospitality Washington ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... most interesting. There was a box of aerial bombs, which Godfrey turned over to Simmonds with the injunction to go and amuse himself. For Sylvester's contemplation and further confusion were the gloves with which Silva had managed his parlour mystification scheme, six pairs of them; and there was also the very simple apparatus with which the finger-print reproductions had been made—an apparatus, as Godfrey had suggested, similar in every way to that used for making rubber ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... are sitting in our "parlour," which is bespattered with whitewash and its furniture covered with sheets and paper, and must resign ourselves to a day or two of this mode of living, as parts of the room will most likely have to ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... like to travel with you, outside the last of the coaches down to Bracebridge Hall. It would make my heart glad to compare notes with you about that shabby gentleman in the oilcloth hat and red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back-parlour of the Masons' Arms; and about Robert Preston and the tallow-chandler's widow, whose sitting-room is second nature to me; and about all those delightful places and people that I used to walk about and dream of in the daytime, when a very small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... found alone for a moment. When Adrian presented himself at the window of her little bar, he found that Peter was with her, and she managed to keep Peter with her till Adrian was gone. And again, when he hoped to find her alone for a few moments after the work of the day was over in the small parlour where she was accustomed to sit for some half hour before she would go up to her room, he was again disappointed. She was already up-stairs with her aunt and the children, and all Michel Voss's good nature in keeping out of the way ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... thought I, "if I could but go to Somersetshire now, I might boldly walk up to old Smith's door" (he was her grandfather, and a half-pay lieutenant of the navy), "I might knock at the knocker and see my beloved Mary in the parlour, and not be obliged to sneak behind hayricks on the look-out for her, or pelt stones at midnight at ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the door and ushered them into a parlour where Mr. Elmer Skidder, sprawling over the debris of breakfast, laid aside newspaper and coffee cup and got up to receive them in bath ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... limited allowance of coals and candles, and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man; always wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his surtout; and eyes you, as you pass his parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant: morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... time, and sixteen miles space only, carries you from Europe, from civilization, from Christianity. A gentleman's description of his feelings on that occasion rushes now on my mind, and makes me half ashamed to sit here, in Dessein's parlour, writing remarks, in good time!—upon places as well known as Westminster-bridge to almost all those who cross it at this moment; while the custom-house officers intrusion puts me the less out of humour, from the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... persons in the neighbourhood, who knew the family well, describes the dwelling in which they lived as a poor cottage of only one room, in which the father, mother, four sons, and two daughters, lived and slept. It was crowded with three low-poled beds. The one apartment served for parlour, kitchen, sleeping-room, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... living in the house, the cook, the parlour-maid, and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse. Besides these women there was a groom or a gardener (whichever you choose to call him), who was a single man and so lived out, lodging with a labouring family about half ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... guarded by colonies of plaster saints and Virgins that cover the whole slab; and over the handsomest Virgins and the most gaily coloured saints the soldiers have placed the glass bells that once protected the parlour clocks and wedding-wreaths ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... when I was called to the parlour one day to see Mrs. Sandford. All winter I had not seen her; she had not been in New York. I think she was unaffectedly glad to see me; somehow my presence was pleasant ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the way in which the rich man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is not to be corrupted by the coarse language ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... by entering the parlour with a breathless "Oh, I've got such news!" checking herself on encountering Mrs. Mills. Mrs. Mills asked, with reserve, concerning the health of Miss Radford's mother, and mentioned (not apparently for the first time) that the lady, in her opinion, ought to be living ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... inheritance of the family. But yet they bore with him, and endeavoured to win him back to pleasantness. Soon after the cloth was taken away he took his leave. He had work to do at home, he said, and must go. His uncle went out with him into the hall, leaving Ralph alone in the parlour. "It will be for the best in the long run," said the Squire, with his ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... over. The young people went into the parlour. A lawyer was telling some people around him about a murder case that had been decided that day. The nature of the subject was such that he expressed himself very cautiously, as though confiding a secret. A man had injured and then murdered a little ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... profile of a thickly mantled bosom, on which a camellia rose and fell. All the remainder part of the lady's person was hidden; but he remembered that flower of convenient season as one which had figured in the bank parlour half-an-hour earlier to-day. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... bulb one-third of the way up, less rather than more; let the water be soft, change it once a week, and put in a pinch of salt every time you change it. Keep the glasses in a place moderately warm, and near to the light. A parlour window is a very common place for them, but is often too warm, and brings on the plants too early, and causes them to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... more slovenly the better; it will shew your attention to business, and a due sense of the honour they do you. It would be proper also that your wife hold the door open; your ushers be all ready to bow as they pass; and that your best looking boys be called into the parlour. ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... very good correspondence and neighbourhood, but chargeable. All the afternoon at home looking over my carpenters. At night I called Thos. Hater out of the office to my house to sit and talk with me. After he was gone I caused the girl to wash the wainscot of our parlour, which she did very well, which caused my wife and I good sport. Up to my chamber to read a little, and wrote my Diary for three or four days past. The Duke of York did go to-day by break of day to the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the parlour, eating bread and honey. But at the second mouthful, she burst out crying, and could not swallow it. The king heard her sobbing. Glad of anybody, but especially of his queen, to quarrel with, he clashed his gold sovereigns into his money-box, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... gone, I will take my reader into the PARLOUR, as they called in English their one sitting-room. Shall I first tell him what the room was like, or first describe the two persons in it? Led up to a picture, I certainly should not look first at the frame; but a description is a process ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... have anything particular to tell you; they seemed to me like those of a good old-fashioned farmhouse, the walls wainscoted with deal, and the doors and staircase of the same material. A few prints, a photograph, some book-shelves, one or two little pictures, decorated the parlour, and a neat iron stove, and massive chests of drawers, served to furnish it very completely. But you must not, I fear, take the drawing-room of Bessestad as an average specimen of the comfort of an Icelandic interieur. The greater proportion of the inhabitants of the island live much ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... cold, a pleasantly fresh yet comfortably warm atmosphere pervaded the place, meals were always punctual and her admirable Scotch cook never served up a dish which, whether plain or ornate, was not, in its way, perfectly prepared. A couple of deft and noiseless parlour-maids attended to and anticipated the wants of her guests, from the moment they entered her hospitable doors till when, on their leaving them, their coats were held for them in the most convenient possible manner for the easy insertion ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... window-frames in one continuous stream. A thick mist hung upon the panes of glass like a gauze veil, intersected by innumerable channels of water, which looked like a pattern of open work left in the dingy material. The shutters of our once populous parlour were half-closed; and admitted into the large, deserted apartment only a portion of this obscure light. The hearse destined to convey the remains of my dear mother to their last, long resting-place, was drawn up at the door. I saw it looming through the fog, with its tall, ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... this affair, which involved me, before I was aware of it, in as much villainy and wickedness as ever man heard of, was, of course, that spring evening, now ten years ago, whereon I looked out of my mother's front parlour window in the main street of Berwick-upon-Tweed and saw, standing right before the house, a man who had a black patch over his left eye, an old plaid thrown loosely round his shoulders, and in his right hand a stout stick and an old-fashioned ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... making up for her former rudeness, or how it was, I don't know; but she became so unreasonably fond of me, that if a door or window were opened she would pop in to look for her friend, running up and down stairs, into the parlour, the drawing-room, the bed-rooms, and making no little work for the servants. At first, every body was amused at it; but, after a time, the poor hen became so troublesome that we were obliged to give her away. Jack, the dumb ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... when Baptista, all in amaze, exclaimed: 'Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharine!' and she entered, saying meekly to Petruchio: 'What is your will, sir, that you send for me?' 'Where is your sister and Hortensio's wife?' said he. Katharine replied: 'They sit conferring by the parlour fire.' 'Go, fetch them hither!' said Petruchio. Away went Katharine without reply to perform her husband's command. 'Here is a wonder,' said Lucentio, 'if you talk of a wonder.' 'And so it is,' said Hortensio; 'I marvel what it bodes.' 'Marry, peace it ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... four rooms and a lantern in Rudyerd's lighthouse. The second room was that which was used most by John Potter and his mate Isaac Dorkin: it was the kitchen, dining room, and parlour, all in one. Immediately below it was the store-room, and just above ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... all met together at table in the small parlour, which was room of all work in the cottage. They had not the whole house, limited as were its resources; for it was also the habitation of a gardener, who took his vegetables to the Oxford market, and whose wife (what is ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... memory. 'Ah, Mrs. Stubbs,' says he, looking at another picture, 'that is not the old picture, is it?' (Somebody had put him up to this.) No, sir,' cries Mrs. Stubbs, delighted with his recollection—'no, sir; but please to walk this way into my parlour,' And there, sure enough, was the picture he had ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... our studies, and do what she called keeping up her accomplishments. My couch and appurtenances abode there, and it was to be my retreat from company,—or on occasion could be made a supplementary drawing- room, as its fittings showed it had been the parlour. It communicated with another chamber, which became my own—sparing the difficulties that stairs always presented; and beyond lay, niched under the grand staircase, a tiny light closet, a passage-room, where my mother put a bed for a man-servant, not liking to leave me entirely alone on the ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and decayed leather. The girl, after shutting the bolts behind her, led the way cautiously, and, crossing a passage at the rear of the shop, opened a door upon a far more cheerful scene. Here, in a neat parlour hung with old prints and mezzotints and water-colours, a hanging lamp shed its rays on a China bowl heaped with Warwickshire roses, and on a white cloth and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of brick, with wooden beams, musters nine rooms—though a question arises whether some of them ought not rather to be described as closets; the porch in which Milton may have breathed the summer air is gone, but the parlour retains the latticed casement at which he sat, though through it he could not see. His infirmity rendered the confined situation less of a drawback, and there are abundance of pleasant lanes, along which he could be conducted in ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... perfectly divine nighty, with low neck and short sleeves (no girl would be allowed to wear such a thing in any but a French school, I'm sure, even if she were a "parlour boarder") and her hair was in curly waves over her shoulders. Altogether she looked adorable, and about fourteen years old, instead of nearly nineteen, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... following Mr. Bryany into a small parlour on the first floor of the Turk's Head—a room with which he had no previous acquaintance, though, like most industrious men of affairs in metropolitan Hanbridge, he reckoned to know something about the Turk's Head. Mr. Bryany turned ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... precious plant was rare, but it might be found. A certain favoured district in the West Riding of Yorkshire could boast three rods of Aaron blossoming within a circuit of twenty miles. You shall see them, reader. Step into this neat garden-house on the skirts of Whinbury, walk forward into the little parlour. There they are at dinner. Allow me to introduce them to you: Mr. Donne, curate of Whinbury; Mr. Malone, curate of Briarfield; Mr. Sweeting, curate of Nunnely. These are Mr. Donne's lodgings, being the habitation of one John Gale, a small clothier. Mr. Donne ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... back to the parlour and to the two shivering women and the crowd of maids, who had crept from the dairy to the farm parlour, having greater faith in ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... which admitted them through an archway into a square court, surrounded by buildings. Opposite to the arch was another door, which the serving-man in like manner unlocked, and thus introduced them into a stone-paved parlour, where there was but little furniture, and that of the rudest and most ancient fashion. The windows were tall and ample, reaching almost to the roof of the room, which was composed of black oak; those opening to the quadrangle were obscured by the height of the surrounding ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... message from Sir Thomas Hanmer, to dine with him; the famous Dr. Smalridge(9) was of the company, and we sat till six; and I came home to my new lodgings in St. Albans Street,(10) where I pay the same rent (eight shillings a week) for an apartment two pair of stairs; but I have the use of the parlour to receive persons of quality, and I am got into ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... the ancient inhabitants—chapters on domestic architecture, paintings and mosaics, streets and fountains, private houses, villas, and tombs; and, moreover, on the art of baking, and the forms of domestic utensils. We are, therefore, led through hall, parlour, bath, kitchen, and shop, with amusing minuteness; and, in the account of furniture and domestic implements, it is curious to observe, how far we are indebted to the ancients for the forms of similar contrivances now in use. One of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... morning he was again more surprised. On coming down to the breakfast-parlour, he found his uncle there before him, walking up and down the room with his hands behind his back. As soon as George had entered, his uncle stopped his walk, and ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... sleeping apartment for himself and his pupil, Mr Richard Maitland, the third being sacred to Polly Nevis, a sturdy and willing, but somewhat untidy person, who discharged the united functions of parlour maid, housemaid, chamber maid, cook, and scullery maid to ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... nest, quietly sleeping, while their father and mother are both away, getting them food. At other times they feel wide awake. Then they stretch their wings, stand upon their feet, and peep over the side of the nest. From the parlour-window, the children can look up directly at their secluded home, and can see them amusing themselves and practising their lessons. The honeysuckle grows almost as fast as the birds, and the tender, overhanging branches make a roof which keeps off ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... evening when Mrs. Simmons betook herself with a basket to do some small shopping, and Simmons was left at home. He washed and put away the tea-things, and then he fell to meditating on a new pair of trousers, finished that day, and hanging behind the parlour door. There they hung, in all their decent innocence of shape in the seat, and they were shorter of leg, longer of waist, and wilder of pattern than he had ever worn before. And as he looked on them the small devil of Original Sin awoke and clamoured in his breast. He was ashamed ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... medallion portrait of Oberlin bears the touching inscription that for fifty-nine years he was "the father of this parish." Then we drove back as we had come, stopping at Foudai to rest the horse and drink tea. We were served in a cool little parlour opening on to a garden, and, so tempting looked the tiny inn that we regretted we could not stay there a week. A pleasant pastoral country rather than romantic or picturesque is the Ban de la Roche, but close at hand is the lofty Donon, which may be climbed from Rothau or Foudai, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... home to my wife," he remarked, as he flung the limp body into his cart. "His coat will make a very nice rug for our parlour, and she can use his ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... of the time their brother Branwell was either at Bradford or at Haworth, dreaming of greatness, and drinking at the "Black Bull". The "Black Bull" stands disastrously near to the Parsonage, at the corner of the churchyard, with its parlour windows looking on the graves. Branwell was the life and soul of every party of commercial travellers that gathered there. Conviviality took strange forms at Haworth. It had a Masonic Lodge of the Three Graces, with ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... talked of the success she was to achieve. She liked to go into a corner of the parlour and rehearse the entrance that she would make to acknowledge the applause. "It will be the great moment," she would say, "when I ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... much, and we lost no time in hastening to the house where out countryman had resided. We were kindly received by an old man, who conducted us over the mansion. It consisted of four apartments on the ground-floor—an entrance hall, a drawing-room, a sitting parlour, and a bed-room, with a spacious closet annexed. They were all simply decorated: plain green-stained walls, marble tables on either side, a large myrtle in the centre, and a small fountain beneath, which could be made to play through the branches by moving a spring fixed in the side of a small ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... a noise in the shop, as if something had been pushed in at the door. They came out of the back parlour. There was an envelope lying on the counter, and a policeman writing ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... there invited him upstairs. He adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... glad of the excuse, and slunk out of the studio; not into the shop, but into his parlour; where he drank off a great glass of maraschino, and sat blushing and exceedingly agitated, until Mossrose came to tell him that Mrs. W. was gone, and wouldn't trouble him any more. But although he drank several more glasses of maraschino, and went to the play that night, and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cannot conceive that she will have a dozen to vote for putting her on the same footing as the late Queen, agreeable to the notice which has been given. As far as I can judge, I believe the reaction now going on in the public mind to be very strong against her, and that the parlour, and even the shop, are becoming nearly as unanimous that way, as the servants'-hall ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... How pleasant the parlour looked on the evening of "Flaxy's" birthday. To be sure it was November, and the wind was setting the poor dying leaves in a miserable shiver with some dreadful story of an iceberg he had just been visiting. ...
— The Old Castle and Other Stories • Anonymous
... the third day from the arrival of Mr. Mivers, he, the Parson, and Sir Peter were seated in the host's parlour, the Parson in an armchair by the ingle, smoking a short cutty-pipe; Mivers at length on the couch, slowly inhaling the perfumes of one of his own choice trabucos. Sir Peter never smoked. There were spirits and hot water and lemons on the table. The Parson was famed for skill ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not crying—or if I am, I'm crying because I love my country. It's a disgrace to America—cast-off husbands and wives getting together in a parlour and playing tag under a palm-tree. [JOHN, with intention and determined to stab CYNTHIA, kisses ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... parlour. Come and see her." So he followed Mrs Dale through the hall, and found himself in the presence ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... brought into the parlour, which contained the news of my brother's death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of Nevers.—By your leave, Mons. Sanson, cried my father, striking ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... elegance, but he thieved, as none ever thieved before or since, with no other accomplice than a singing-bird. Thus he would play outside a house, wherein he espied a sideboard of plate, and at last, bidding his playmate flutter through an open window into the parlour, he would follow upon the excuse of recovery, and, once admitted, would carry off as much silver as he could conceal. None other ever attempted so graceful an artifice, and yet Audrey's journey to Tyburn is even more memorable than the story of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... morning) the maidservant came up to tell me that my brother was ready, and that breakfast also waited for me in the parlour. I went down with a heart as heavy as my eyes, and received great acknowledgements and compliments from him on being so soon dressed, and ready (as he interpreted it) to continue on ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... complained to the queen that the monks had hidden his well-beloved from his sight, she found the deed detestable and horrible; and in consequence of her commands to the lord abbot it was permitted to the Touranian to go every day into the parlour of the abbey, where came Tiennette, but under the control of an old monk, and she always came attired in great splendour like a lady. The two lovers had no other license than to see each other, and to speak to each other, without being able to snatch the smallest atom of pleasure, and always ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... were sitting alone together in the parlour of the inn at Pipriac, drinking a very excellent bottle of Volnay. It was on the night after the fourth and last performance there of "Les Feurberies." The business in Pipriac had been as excellent as in Maure and Guichen. You ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... windows. Now and then a garden gate opened and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting hansom, drove off into the darkness whither my speculative fancy followed them. Now and then silhouettes appeared upon the window-blinds, especially on the upper floors, for it was the dressing ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the detective's official card procured him speedy entrance to a parlour in which sat two old gentlemen, who were evidently greatly surprised to see him. They were so much surprised indeed, as to be almost childishly interested, and Starmidge had never had such attentive listeners in his life as these two elderly city men, to whom crime and ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the house under Mr. Raften, a real investigation was headed by Sam. "This yer's the paaar-le-r," said he, unlocking a sort of dark cellar aboveground and groping to open what afterward proved to be a dead, buried and almost forgotten window. In Sanger settlement the farmhouse parlour is not a room; it is an institution. It is kept closed all the week except when the minister calls, and the one at Raften's was the pure type. Its furniture consisted of six painted chairs (fifty cents each), two rockers ($1.49), ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... withdrawn, chambers converted into drawing-rooms, and every inch of available space thrown into one continuous whole. For previous to an action, every bulk-head in a man-of-war is knocked down; great guns are run out of the Commodore's parlour windows; nothing separates the ward-room officers' quarters from those of the men, but an en-sign used for a curtain. The sailors' mess-chests are tumbled down into the hold; and the hospital cots—of which all men-of-war carry ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the combined strength of all the men of our party was required to get them out. Often the ladies of our company, with shoes and stockings off, would be seen bravely wading across wide streams, where now in luxurious comfort, in parlour cars, travellers are whirled along at the rate of forty miles an hour. They were a cheerful, ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... that it was to be the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; which was indeed very much what she said to her hostess as they sat together later on. The brown fog was in this hostess's little parlour, where it acted as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, anything else than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little fire and a paraffin lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign of a flower; it was not ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... were spoken that evening. Ethne went into her farm-house and sat down in the parlour. She felt cold that summer evening and had the fire lighted. She sat gazing into the bright coals with that stillness of attitude which was a sure sign with her of tense emotion. The moment so eagerly looked for had come, and ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Hertford, Lord Villiers, Offley, Messieurs de Fleury, D'Eon,(288) et Duclos. The latter is author of the Life of Louis Onze;(289) dresses like a dissenting minister, which I suppose is the livery of le bel esprit, and is much more impetuous than agreeable. We breakfasted in the great parlour, and I had filled the hall and large cloister by turns with French horns and clarionettes. As the French ladies had never seen a printing-house, I carried them into mine; they found something ready set, and desiring to see what it ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... that period of my residence in London. The front parlour was my sitting-room. Very small, very low in the ceiling, very poorly furnished—but, oh, so neat! I looked into the passage to see which of Lady Verinder's servants had asked for me. It was the young footman, Samuel—a civil fresh-coloured ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... of thirty-five tip-toed about the big house like a frightened child. The dead rabbit that lay on the table in the parlour had become cold and stiff. Its blood had dried on the white table cover. She went upstairs but did not go to her own room. A spirit of adventure had hold of her. In the upper part of the house there were many rooms and in some of them no glass had been put into the windows. The windows ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... a particularly dreary and greasy beershop, into which Gregory rapidly conducted his companion. They seated themselves in a close and dim sort of bar-parlour, at a stained wooden table with one wooden leg. The room was so small and dark, that very little could be seen of the attendant who was summoned, beyond a vague and dark impression of something ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... a plaisance of unprecedented beauty, concerning which a poet of the time wrote that "every breeze coming thence wafted the perfume of tea." The pastimes of "listening to incense," of floral arrangement, of the dramatic mime, and of the parlour farce were all practised with a zest which provoked the astonishment even ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... happened, my dear? Tell me all about it," she inquired as she went back into the parlour, with just the least colour on her cheek, and perceptibly a little happier than she was five minutes before. She did nothing more than put her hand on his shoulder, but he brightened immediately. ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... at breakfast in the parlour of Westfield Hall, in the county of Essex. They were ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... Margaret, run thee to the parlour; There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her; say, that thou ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... we sat at breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the Cross-Pipes public house, our bedroom being overhead, my dear friend complained to me that he was tired of fishing so long up and down one valley, and asked me to come with him further up, into wilder and rockier districts, where the water ran deeper (as he had been ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... the long walk to Hammersmith, the small house in a square there—all was classically in order. The poet was at home. The visitor as shown in.... 'I had,' he was destined to tell Mr. Gosse, 'waited in the little parlour at least two hours, when the door was opened and a most picturesque gentleman, with hair flowing nearly or quite to his shoulders, a beautiful velvet coat and a Vandyck collar of lace about a foot deep, appeared, rubbing his hands and smiling ethereally, and saying, without a word of preface ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Parlour in Janet's house in Putney. A perfectly ordinary suburban interior of a small house; but comfortable. Table in centre. Door, R., up stage, leading to hall. Door, L., down stage, hading to kitchen ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... gout because he did no appear before twelve o'clock. It wasna a'thegether for sake of the money, Dougal thought, but because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and brought him into the great oak parlour; and there sat the laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape that was a special pet of his. A cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played; ill to please it was, and easily ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... worth. Coleridge himself professed to consider it "rather as a psychological curiosity" than as a thing "of any supposed poetic merits"; to Lamb he repeated it "so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian bowers into any parlour when he sings or says it," and it has been a sort of touchstone of romantic taste ever since. It supremely illustrates that "sense of musical delight, with the power of producing it," which the poet declared to be a gift of the imagination that can ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... I not still call him so, bound to reverence him as I am, in every light he can shine in to the most obliging and sensible heart?) still proposes to fit up the large parlour, and three apartments in the commodious dwelling he calls yours, for his entertainment and mine, when I pay my duty to you both, for a few happy days; and he has actually given orders to that effect; and that the three apartments be so fitted up, as to be rather ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Sir, he was brought in a Chair for your Advice; but how he rambled from the Parlour to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... greeted Brown, on his appearance in the cosy, homelike parlour of the Fairbanks' that evening, with the question, "How did 'The ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... anywhere in all the world than in that generous and hearty home. Thus mistaking this private house and family mansion for an inn, the youth approached the place, and the wag went on his way. Oliver gave the bell a good ring, told the man to take his horse, and sauntered into the commodious parlour of the Squire as if it had been the public room in some well-supplied hotel. The Squire soon detected the mistake that had been made, and knowing the father of the boy, seized upon the diverting situation, entering with all his heart into ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... Fifteen-pence a week for the above term will thus provide a family with one of the most elegant drawing-room libraries that can be desired. They will about occupy three cheffonier shelves;—or what delightful volumes for fire-side shelves, or a "little book-room," or a breakfast parlour opening on a carpet of lawn—or to read by the hour, with a golden-haired lady-friend, and chat awhile, and then turn to the most attractive scenes in the novel, while we ourselves are perhaps enacting the hero in a romance of real life. Few novels admit of a second reading; but the Waverley ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... brown wood, bearing on his shoulder the shield of England and under it that of Brown with, many quarterings: ten other bucks, in various attitudes and of the size of life, were planted at intervals. There was a parlour more elegantly adorned with the works of Holbein and his scholars;—a chapel richly furnished;—a long gallery painted with the twelve apostles;—and a corresponding one hung with family pictures and with various old paintings on subjects religious and military, brought from Battle Abbey, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... air of comfort than Owen expected to find. In the oak panelled parlour into which Mr Fluke led him a cheerful fire burned brightly, although the spring was well advanced, while a white cloth was ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... able to say off a whole psalm in perfect Lutheran German, I found several high yellow carriages, like the one I was fetched in on Saturday, in front of the paling, with nosebags and rugs on the horses, and indoors in the parlour a number of other foresters and their wives, besides Frau Bornsted's father and mother and younger sister, and the local doctor and his wife, and the Herr Lehrer, a tall young man in spectacles who teaches in the village school two ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... here than if he were a downright bankrupt. He was so fond of dear London, that he began to fret only inwardly; but being unable to laugh and be laughed at, I took a place in the northern coach for him and his family; and hope he is got to-night safe from all sneerers in his own parlour. ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... author, never printed his works, but contracted his talent, and by the help of a very fine diamond which he wore on his little finger, was a considerable poet on glass." He had a very good epigrammatic wit; and there was not a parlour or tavern window where he visited or dined for some years, which did not receive some sketches or memorials of it. It was his misfortune at last to lose his genius and his ring to a sharper at play, and he has not attempted ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... saints of Utah, who have made an oasis and a garden where was a desert. After labouring from morning till night they like the sound of a feminine voice and the warmth of a feminine welcome in the back parlour of rest. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell a-dreaming of the room and the box—the room and the box ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... of a pleasant evening was to sit in the bar-parlour of the Sun Inn and drink interminable hot rums. He had fixed up a room for himself at the inn and offered Boundary a share, but the colonel preferred to sleep alone. He secured lodgings in the town, and making an excuse to the captain returned to his room early. He ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... a son, a small proprietor, and he got married. The mother-in-law lived with the daughter-in-law, who had rather grand ideas, and set up as parlour-maid in the house a raw lass just taken ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... fell on a Summer morning, I being then but newly come home from the Farmers' College, in the ancient town of Cambridge, that our whole household was gathered together in our parlour. Mother sat by the head of the great table, ladling out a savoury mess of porridge, not rashly, as the custom of some is, but carefully, like a prudent housewife, guarding her own. And by her side sat MOLLY and BETTY, her daughters, and next to them the maids, and they ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... gilding. He was not a publisher by nature. He had drifted into the trade and success, but beneath a polish of acquaintance retained a fine awe for a book as such. In early life he had had such shining things on a shiny table in a parlour. He had a similar awe for his daughter, who had been born after his entry into the trade, and who had the literary flavour—a flavour so pronounced that he dragged her by the heels into any conversation with us who hewed his raw material, expecting, I suppose, to cow us. For the greater good of this ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... Cophagus? Did a fat grazier eat himself into an apoplexy, how very convenient was the ready lancet of Mr Cophagus. Did a bull gore a man, Mr Cophagus appeared with his diachylon and lint. Did an ox frighten a lady, it was in the back parlour of Mr Cophagus that she was recovered from her syncope. Market days were a sure market to my master; and if an overdriven beast knocked down others, it only helped to set him on his legs. Our windows suffered occasionally; but whether it were broken heads, or broken ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... of what a home should be, as that farmhouse in Corcabascinn—so full of order and good governance, yet so free of constraint, so full of welcome, yet so lacking in expense or display. For, understand, we who were strangers were brought (much against my will) into the state-room or parlour beyond the party wall, and drink was pressed upon us hospitably. But the neighbours who had come there (and came daily, I fancy) came neither to eat nor drink (unless maybe tea might be brewing) but simply to sit and smoke ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... was well contented to cook; and when they—as they often, from the effect of their potations, were perforce obliged to do—stayed the night at Dunmore House, Anty never showed herself in the breakfast parlour, but boiled the eggs, made the tea, and took her own breakfast ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... vacantly as before. Exhaustion had almost become stupor, and it was in a sort of dream that I watched the stout figure moving softly to and fro, lighting the fire, and bringing an air of comfort over the dreary little parlour. Then she was gone for a little bit, and I felt a little more lonely and weary; and then I heard that cheerful clatter, commonly so grateful to feminine exhaustion, and the good woman entered with a toasted glow upon her ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... it, for it must require management to catch such a boy," said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlour, and bring from my bedroom that great ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... expensive, and yet in the course of the day his whole temper on the subject of certain fitnesses had changed. At Jersey Villas (it was near midnight, and Mrs. Ryves, scratching a light for her glimmering taper, had said: "Oh, yes, come in for a minute if you like!"), in her precarious parlour, which was indeed, after the brilliances of the evening, a return to ugliness and truth, she let him stand while he explained that he had certainly everything in the way of fame and fortune still to gain, but that youth and love and faith and energy—to say nothing of her supreme ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... occurrence was a fact—I carried the box to the darkened window, and there, plain in my sight, was the device scratched upon the leather: the revolutionary symbol of a heart with a dagger through it. I had found the Premier's despatch-box in the parlour of the ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... philosopher in him. The harshness of the parlour is revenged at night in the servants' hall. The coarse rich man rates his domestic, but there is a thought in the domestic's brain, docile and respectful as he looks, which makes the matter equal, which would madden the rich man if he knew it—make him wince as with a ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... made, I daily carried on my business; eighteen days I allowed for enlarging my cave, that it might serve me, not only for a warehouse, but kitchen, parlour, and cellar. I commonly lay in the tent, unless the weather was rainy that I could not lie dry. So wet would it be at certain seasons, that I was obliged to cover all within the pale with long poles, in the form of rafters, leaning against the ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... facings at every corner, and door, and window, such as you see at Hampton Court. At the back are the gables, and arched doorways, and stone mullions, which show (so Lady Ludlow used to tell us) that it was once a priory. There was a prior's parlour, I know—only we called it Mrs. Medlicott's room; and there was a tithe-barn as big as a church, and rows of fish-ponds, all got ready for the monks' fasting-days in old time. But all this I did not ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... usage of mariners, he had first to dissipate his wages. "Guess I'll have to paint this town red," was his hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little parlour behind Black Tom's public house, with a select corps of old particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a long yarn, a short ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... 237) says that 'the fore-top of all his wigs were (sic) burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with which he met him at the parlour door when the bell had called him down to dinner.' Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 357) says that he wore 'a brown coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a flowing bob-wig; they were in perfectly good trim, and with the ladies he had nothing ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... partaken freely of these comestibles, we made the adjournment to a luxuriously upholstered parlour, circled with plush-seated chairs and adorned with countless mirrors, and there we began to beg the question at issue, to-whit, "To what extent has Ibsen (if any) contributed towards the cause of Female Emancipation?" which was opened by a weedy, tall ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... place which oxen and wain-ropes could not drag you to behold. You, who do not even know its situation on the map, probably denounce sensational descriptions, stretching your limbs the while in your pleasant parlour on Beretania Street. When I was pulled ashore there one early morning, there sat with me in the boat two sisters, bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. One of these wept silently; ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... parlour favours Ij sombre labourer realisation odour honour fulness commonweal bo Amyntas Becke Blackstable Castilian D'you d'you de Dona Farrowham Howlett lol Losas Lucido Monnickendam one's Ously Sodina Tercanbury ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... upon an elder of the Protestant Church, and one of the wealthier peasants of the community. The farmhouse was on the usual Pyrenean plan, stables and neat-houses occupying the ground floor, an outer wooden staircase leading to kitchen, parlour, and bedrooms; on the other side a balcony overlooking ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... dinner must observe certain rules, however. Certain dishes—a little out of season, perhaps, or classed as luxuries—were borne triumphantly past her by a glad parlour-maid acting upon a frown and a glance that Mrs. Chater signalled. Certain occasions, again, when private matters were to be discussed, were heralded by "Miss Humfray," in an inflexion of voice that set Mary to fold her napkin ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... so happened that as Prosper le Gai entered the purlieus of Morgraunt, the Countess Isabel sat in the Abbey parlour of Saint Thorn, knitting her fine brows over a business of the Abbot's, no less than the granting of a new charter of pit and gallows, pillory and tumbril to him and his house over the villeins of Malbank, and the whole fee and soke. The death of these unfortunates, or the manner ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... fine house you'll live in. Think on the grand parlour that you'll sit in all the day with a servant to wait on you and naught but ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... five men were seated in a parlour of the Mayor's house in Angers, but the poor Mayor himself was not allowed, nor probably did he wish, to be one of the party. Glasses were on the table before them, and the empty bottles, which were ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... came a clattering double-knock at the door. "They know I shall be at home to nobody else now," said Lady Eustace. But Frank Greystock had hardly regained his self-possession when Miss Macnulty hurried into the room, and, with a look almost of horror, declared that Lady Linlithgow was in the parlour. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Scar, and glad I'll be when it's over, for there'll be some wet eyes in the Hall, both parlour and kitchen, ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... abroad. It was to keep them away that the Rector had chosen a date in the very middle of the hay-harvest, and they knew it and enjoyed his discomfiture. He, on his part, when the morning broke with black and low-lying clouds, had been tempted to read the service in the parlour at home; but his old obstinacy had asserted itself. Hetty's feelings he did ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and flew to hand her from the chaise before Mr Harrel could alight. He observed the melancholy of her countenance, and was much pleased to find that her London journey had so little power to charm her. He conducted her to the breakfast parlour, where Lady Margaret ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... I must have a corner, must we not? So when my brother's friends are in the parlour he allows us to sit in his room. 'Tis a great favour, I can tell you; ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... for the fine arts; never read a work of imagination; scarcely knew one tune from another; and had never looked with pleasure at any picture, but one, a portrait of her own respected father, which still occupied the place of honour in their little parlour, nearly covering one side of the wall. This painting, to speak frankly, was anything but a valuable work of art, or a good likeness of the worthy minister. The face was flat and unmeaning, entirely devoid of expression or relief; the body was ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... rooms, which were next to mine, were evidently held in great esteem, and my hostess displayed them with the reverent pride of a good New England woman showing her parlour. There were three of them, opening one into the other. In each there was the invariable platform covered by rugs, and big Chinese vases stood about ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... desire of seeing him. Doubtless, the sieur de Lenide, stimulated by similar suggestions, had conceived a great wish to meet the marquise; for, having got M. de Nocheres who no doubt regretted her prolonged retreat—to entrust him with a commission for his granddaughter, he came to the convent parlour and asked for the fair recluse. She, although she had never seen him, recognised him at the first glance; for having never seen so handsome a cavalier as he who now presented himself before her, she thought this could be no other than the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of good taste why He could not be crucified in a private room. It would declare that the act of a martyr in being torn in pieces by lions was vulgar and sensational, though, of course, it would have no objection to being torn in pieces by a lion in one's own parlour before a circle ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... the pleasure of it, I can tell 'ee. There's no such pleasure at sea, Joanna, as I can find in my back parlour here. To speak honest, I have no love for the brine. I never had much. But if it comes to a question of a fortune for you and the lads, it is another thing. That's the only way to it for one born and bred ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... said, as I entered the parlour, where she sat darning the vicar's socks by the light of a moderator lamp, which stood on a little table close beside her. "My dear boy, what is the matter with you? You look quite haggard, and like a wild man from the woods! Have you had your tea yet? I can ring for ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... all Stevensons are of the clan Alpin; but it does follow that some may be. And I cannot conceal from myself the possibility that James Stevenson in Glasgow, my first authentic ancestor, may have had a Highland alias upon his conscience and a claymore in his back parlour. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you tell me if this is a new parlour game, or are these actual troopers who are a little ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Riding-Hall? But so it is; and truly as strange things may happen when a whole People goes mumming and miming. Hast not thou thyself perchance seen diademed Cleopatra, daughter of the Ptolemies, pleading, almost with bended knee, in unheroic tea-parlour, or dimlit retail-shop, to inflexible gross Burghal Dignitary, for leave to reign and die; being dressed for it, and moneyless, with small children;—while suddenly Constables have shut the Thespian barn, and her Antony pleaded in vain? Such visual spectra flit across this Earth, if the Thespian ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... morning, Neale, happening to catch sight of his reflection in the mirror which stood on his parlour mantelpiece, propounded the usual question with added force. There were reasons. It was a beautiful morning. It was early spring. There was a blue sky, and the rooks and jackdaws were circling in a clear air about the church tower and over the old Market-Cross. He could ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... First-rate-Frigots, as he used to call 'em; I had no more mistrust of him; and therefore taking him to be a Friend of his: Nay, now, said I to him, you begin to speak Sense. Be pleased to go along with me; and so lead him into a Room which joyn'd to my Parlour that was hung round with Pictures; representing all the Amours of Ovid's Heathen Gods; and amongst them were intermix'd several of those Ladies of Pleasure I kept in my House, drawn in very amorous and inviting Postures; One with her Golden Tresses dishelv'd upon her Shoulders & ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... a neat little cottage near the chapel belonging to one of the members, who week by week opened his doors for the accommodation of Abe and his flock. Their meeting was held in a comfortable room which served the family as kitchen and parlour; here every Monday night the quaint old shepherd came to meet his sheep. The big family table was pushed back against the window, the elbow-chair was placed at the end for the leader, all the chairs and seats in the house were brought into this room and ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... of the remainder of the village revealed, on every side, the same condition of ruin and decay; and it was with a sad and indignant heart that "Cobbler" Horn at length sat down, in Mrs. Gray's front parlour, to a late but ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... wandered all over the house, suggesting improvements in their practicable, sensible way; and full of admiration for the fine oak staircase and some really beautiful cabinets, and benches, on the landing-place and in the best parlours. Roger Strickland had always called them parlours—the oak parlour and the cedar parlour—the latter a charming room with a fine ceiling, cedar-lined panels, and a cosy nook by the fireplace covered with quaint tapestry. Elizabeth fell in love with this room directly. She insisted that a certain cabinet ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Mother Philippa came into the parlour Evelyn guessed there must be serious trouble ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... was disappointing. No marble halls, no divans and richly carved tables, no hookahs and languid odours of rich perfumes, but a room with cheap modern furniture, china ornaments, and a round table in the middle of the floor, for all the world like the best parlour of the working classes. Two women lived there with their husbands and families, and they came in and looked G. and me all over, fingered our dresses, examined our hats, and then asked why we weren't married! I could see they didn't ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... am riding I can't give my mind to them. It would be doing me knight service if you keep your eyes fixed upon them, and remember them every minute of the day, and tell me directly I drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, haven't they, Unity?' she continued to the parlour-maid who was ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... could I say, what could I do? I should not be a man without some weakness."— "Be assured they will reward you for this."—"They ought, Collot they ought; for it has cost me a hard struggle." After this dialogue Bonaparte and M. Collot entered the breakfast-parlour, where I was then sitting. Eugene breakfasted with us, but neither Josephine nor Hortense. I have already related how I acted the part of mediator in this affair. Next day nothing was wanting to complete the reconciliation ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... loved something of him. For there was nothing at all about him not to be beloved. Ah! I think how interested he would have been with all this Persian: and how we should have disputed over parts and expressions over a glass of his Shiraz wine (for he had some) in his snug Parlour, or in his Cornfields when the Sun fell upon the latest Gleaners! He is dead, and you will go where he lived, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... bought my tinned meat (a form of preserve quite odious to me) and strolled back disconsolately to the Parade. Occasionally, flitting past the lantern window, I would steal a side glance into the cool luminosity of my own inaccessible parlour; and there always, reclining at her ease upon my sofa, was the ineradicable presentment ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... washerwoman!" said a flashy-looking servant who answered the bell; "set the basket right in here. Mrs. Keithe can't look them over to-night, there's company in the parlour—Miss Carry's Christmas party." ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... that I am become a gentleman and weigh sixteen stone, though some people would say that my present manner of travelling is much the most preferable, riding as I now do, instead of leading my horse; receiving the homage of ostlers instead of their familiar nods; sitting down to dinner in the parlour of the best inn I can find, instead of passing the brightest part of the day in the kitchen of a village ale-house; carrying on my argument after dinner on the subject of the corn-laws, with the best commercial gentlemen on ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... society." "My dear Sir," answered Yue-ts'un, as he got up, also in a conceding way, "suit your own convenience. I've often had the honour of being your guest, and what will it matter if I wait a little?" While these apologies were yet being spoken, Shih-yin had already walked out into the front parlour. During his absence, Yue-ts'un occupied himself in turning over the pages of some poetical work to dispel ennui, when suddenly he heard, outside the window, a woman's cough. Yue-ts'un hurriedly got up and looked ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... noble friends gave her bed or board. They sometimes gave her tea, such as it was, and once or twice in the month they gave the old lady a second-rate dinner. On these occasions she hired a little parlour and bedroom behind it in King Street, Saint James's, and lived a hot, uncomfortable life, going about at nights to gatherings of fashionable people of which she in her heart disapproved, seeking for smiles which seldom came to her, and which she excused herself for desiring because they were the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... old bachelor and spinster were resting after dinner in the back-parlour of their house near the top of Church Street. In that abode they had watched generations pass and manners change, as one list hearthrug succeeded another in the back-parlour. Meshach had been born in the front bedroom, and he meant to die there; Hannah had also been born ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which, after He had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... we are all in the back parlour for awhile, papa, and Donald, and Marjorie, and everybody, and we have fun then, I tell you, if there isn't any company. We play games, or papa plays with us. Then if I haven't gotten through my lessons in the afternoon, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow |
