"Polka" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... With a very small sprinkling of sentiment, if any, And a very large diamond imported by Tiffany. On her virginal lips, while I printed a kiss, She exclaimed, as a sort of parenthesis, And by way of putting me quite at my ease, "You know I'm to polka as much as I please, And flirt when I like—now, stop, don't you speak— And you must not come here more than twice in the week, Or talk to me either at party or ball, But always be ready to come when I call; So don't prose to me about duty ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... back at the fireplace, fiddling away. Now there was a snap and a go to his performance. He beat time with his foot and set the dancers whirling. "This is young Ingmar's polka," he called out. "Hoop-la! Now the whole house must ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... are the Polka, suitable for Ballet work. The "Pizzicato Polka" is a very good example of this type. The Gallop and Can Can are in a very ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... afterwards. The powers of music are nowhere better illustrated than among these people. Their ready ear quickly catches a new tune, and it is not uncommon to hear, in a Mexican town, a senorita giving vent to a negro melody or a favorite polka which she has heard some American sing or whistle. At Santa Fe there are several noted players on the violin and harp who cannot read a word of music, yet they can play on their respective instruments with taste and skill. A New Mexican female, in preparing herself for these ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... different scene they presented to my view a while since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburgh. To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violin's sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Country led the van of as sorry a band of patriots as not often comes within one's experience to see. General Marion was playing a dummy game of poker with General Lafayette; Governor Morris was having a set-to with Nathan Lane, and James Madison was executing a Dutch polka with Madam Roland on one arm and Luicretia Borgia on the other. The next moment the advancing ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... long, woollen cap. Beside him, hunched up on a window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz, now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La Fasola." No sooner had they entered the room than Gaspare gently but firmly placed his arm round his ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... The only young men in the place were silent, gaping youths, at whom lunacy commissioners looked sharply and suspiciously when they met. The tango was unknown, and the one-step. The only form of dance extant—and that only at the rarest intervals—was a sort of polka not unlike the movements of a slightly inebriated boxing kangaroo. Mr Meggs's secretaries and typists gave the town one startled, horrified glance, and stampeded for London ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... composition, should endeavor to recognize which one of these two rhythmic species underlies the movement to which he is listening. It is fairly certain to be one or the other continuously. Of duple measure, the march and polka are familiar examples; of triple measure, the waltz and mazurka. The "regularity" of the former rhythm imparts a certain stability and squareness to the entire piece, while triple rhythm is more graceful ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... Constitution; his own threats and warnings; his own exhortations, and his own prophecies, of which one cannot say all have come true. But he poured them forth from the mighty heart of one who loved his country, and sat down with a sense of duty fulfilled and wiped his pale forehead while the band played a polka. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... be missed, they at last returned to the parlor, where they found Ella seated at the piano, and playing a very spirited polka. Henry, who boasted that he "could wind her around his little finger," had succeeded in coaxing her into good humor, but not at all desiring her company for the rest of the evening, he asked her to play, as the easiest way ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... month, and the Doctor was goin' to see Luella steady and folks were beginnin' to talk; then one evenin', when I knew the Doctor had been called out of town and wouldn't be round, I went over to Luella's. I found her all dressed up in a blue muslin with white polka dots on it, and her hair curled jest as pretty, and there wa'n't a young girl in the place could compare with her. There was somethin' about Luella Miller seemed to draw the heart right out of you, but she didn't draw it out of ME. She was settin' ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Von Baumser, at the other end, was floundering about with a broad smile upon his face and an elderly lady tucked under his right arm, while he held her disengaged hand straight out at right angles, as if she had been a banjo. In short, the fun was fast and furious, and waltz followed polka and mazurka followed waltz with a rapidity which weeded out the weaker vessels among the dancers and tested the stamina ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unusually fortunate this evening. She has only had to sit out thirteen dances, and has already been given half a polka by Mr. LAYSIBOHNS, who, however, seemed too tired to finish it. Her view is, that "half a loafer is better than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... more especially for the dance on Twelfth Night, the anniversary of my brother Charlie's birthday. Just before one of these celebrations my father insisted that my sister Katie and I should teach the polka step to Mr. Leech and himself. My father was as much in earnest about learning to take that wonderful step correctly, as though there were nothing of greater importance in the world. Often he would practice gravely in a corner, without either partner ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... entered, several hours later, the rooms were filled with warmth and laughter and the vague perfume of women's dresses mingled with the odour of American Beauty roses. An old-fashioned polka was in the air, and beyond the furthest doorway he saw young people dancing. The red candles were burning down, and drops of wax lay like flecks of blood upon the floor. Near the entrance, a small, dark woman was leaning upon a marble table, and as she ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... medium for much dramatic expression. A little motif with which the orchestra introduces it develops into a song, with which Hansel greets his sister's announcement that a neighbor has sent in some milk, and when Gretel, as soon as she does, attempts to teach Hansel how to dance, the delightful little polka tune which the two sing is almost a twin brother to ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Miss Forsyth and went and asked Miss Satterly for the next waltz; but she opened her big eyes at him and assured him politely that she was engaged. He tried for a quadrille, a two-step, a schottische—even for a polka, which she knew he hated; but the schoolma'am was, apparently, the most engaged young woman ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... examined me and the portrait critically. Then whistling a polka, he answered recklessly: "The ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... incline made and provided by the town boys for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves with coats of mud, adorned—one with stripes made with the point of a stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted arms like the barbarian warriors which they fancied ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... costume balls ever given in New York—the crinoline ball at the old Astor House—spoke of how our unromantic Wall Street men fell to the spell of stocks, ruffled shirts and knickerbockers, and as the evening advanced, were quite themselves in the minuette and polka, bowing low in solemn rigidity, leading their lady with high arched arm, grasping her pinched-in waist, and swinging her beruffled, crinolined form in quite the ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... gathered in the dining room at five o'clock to drink tea and to dance round the Christmas-tree, Liljekrona was silent and out of spirits. He did not seat himself on the bench; he touched neither tea nor punch; he could not remember any polka; the violin was out of order. Those who could play and dance had to ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... up there, and played The Spring Chicken through three times during dinner, with Miss Cobb glaring at the gallery until the back of her neck ached, and the dining-room girls waltzing in with the dishes and polka-ing out. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... exclaimed his sister, looking almost shocked at his evident desire to hurry away her guest. "You surely don't think of going yet. Miss Dawson?" said she, in her most persuasive manner. "You will dance this polka." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the floor behind a bed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making a doll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbed in her play, that she laughed quite heartily. "Hold yourself up, mademoiselle," said she. "Dance the polka, that I may see how you can do it! One! two! dance, turn, kiss the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... ballroom the band was striking up a polka, and presently Mr Bunker, with his accustomed grace, was tearing round the room with Lady Muriel, while the Baron—the delight of all eyes in his red waistcoat—led out her sister. In a very short time the other dancers found the Baron and his friend's onslaught so vigorous that prudence ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... silk wad. His flaxen hair was ice-smooth, pasted back without parting. When he went to school he would add a cap with a long vizor like a shovel-blade. Proudest of all was his waistcoat, saved for, begged for, plotted for; a real Fancy Vest of fawn with polka dots of a decayed red, the points astoundingly long. On the lower edge of it he wore a high-school button, a class button, and a ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... habit of lecturing the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and other foreign powers, in true Little Pedlington style. Emboldened by the impunity which attended these assaults, he undertook to try his hand on matters nearer home, and boldly essayed one season to write down the polka and redowa as indecent and immoral. But here he found, as Alexander, Napoleon, and other great men, had done before him, that there is a limit to all human power. He might better have tried to write off the roof of the Bath ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... hoarse voice, looking down from the oven] That's the Polka-Mazurka. You fools don't understand what dancing ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... recovered himself and his dignity by drawing forth a huge wine-colored silk handkerchief, set with white polka-dots, and ostentatiously and vigorously using it. This ear-splitting operation having once more set him up in his own esteem, he resumed his attentions ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the Badger. "Have you come to school to dance the polka? Attend to this little problem immediately, and mind it is correctly answered. If 10,000 Bears and a Pole-cat, ran round a tree 1,500 times and a half, in an hour and ten minutes; each knocking off one leaf and three-quarters every time he ran round—how many leaves ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... one served?" she asked, and without waiting for any reply she sat down to the piano and struck the first notes of a polka. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... dazzled lawyers crowded Simaise's studio. To the sounds of a hired piano, all this little world danced the polka, waltzed, schottisched,—they still schottische in Normandy. "I shall end by marrying off one," thought old Simaise; and the fact is if one had gone off, all the others would have followed suit. Unluckily the first never went off, but it was a near touch. Amongst the numerous partners ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... familiarity with the disreputable works of the Metropolis. We trust that the debut of the Prodigal Son at Vauxhall and the Casinos is that crisis of a disease which precedes a return to health, and that henceforth we shall hear less about Haroun Alraschid's views of the polka, and Julius Caeesar's estimate of cider cellars and cigars. As for the Olympic burlesque itself, it is by no means void of humor; nor is it unsuccessful. We only stigmatize it as the perfection of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Blanket Punch The Dilly and the D's Punch A Book in a Bustle Punch Stanzas for the Sentimental. Punch 1. On a Tear which Angelina observed trickling down my nose at Dinner-time 2. On my refusing Angelina a kiss under the Mistletoe 3. On my finding Angelina stop suddenly in a rapid after-supper-polka at Mrs. Tompkins' Ball Soliloquy on a Cab-stand Punch The Song of Hiawatha Punch Comfort in Affliction Aytoun The Husband's Petition Aytoun The Biter Bit Aytoun A Midnight Meditation Aytoun The Dirge of the Drinker Aytoun Francesca da Rimini Aytoun Louis Napoleon's ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... another nationality, who had chosen to thrust an inexpert finger into the workings of an alien life. The machinery was dragging him up and down the sunlit platform. The two men seemed to be learning polka-mazurkas together, and the burden of their song, borne by one deep voice, was: "What did you give me ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... some of them very handsome. The music is of the modest kind that might be expected from a clarionet and a guitar. The majority of the participants come to the house with their chairs on their heads. The dances are the polka, the waltz, quadrilles, including the Lancers, and two or three native dances called La Polomila, the Dondon Karape and La Santa Fe, which are accompanied with graceful poses, while the women, as they dance, snap their fingers in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... She was ever thus," said the lean dancer; and all the company roared with delight at his wit. Then the hurdy-gurdy started up a brisk polka. Judy was claimed by the grinning groom, and once more her endurance was put to the test. For the honor of her country, she was glad of her athletic training and record at Wellington. The bride was dancing with her new father-in-law, Judy's former ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... rocking floor The raving polka spins, So long as Kitchen Lancers spur The maddened violins, So long as through the whirling smoke We hear the oft-told tale— "Twelve hundred in the Lotteries," And Whatshername for sale? If you love me as I love you We'll play the game ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... commonplace than on supreme occasions. I knew of an old gentleman who insisted on having the original polka played to him as he lay upon his death-bed. In the only well-authenticated words I have ever met with as spoken by a man who knew he was going to be murdered, there is a commonness which may almost be called Shakespearean. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... commenced playing a polka, and the ladies went into the ballroom; the old butler and two footmen brought wax candles and basins of water, and the old ladies began to tell fortunes. A troupe of mummers tumbled in, a bear performed tricks, a ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... brilliant, being seen distinctly through the curtained windows, the storm appeared to be at some distance, and, except for one peal, the thunder was not loud. After supper dancing was resumed, and I was taking part in a polka (called, I remember, the "King Pippin"), when my partner pointed out that one of the footmen wished to speak with me. I begged him to lead me to one side, and the servant then informed me that my brother was ill. Sir John, he said, had been seized with a fainting fit, but had been got to bed, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... the decennial class, with some samples of their male children marching with them, and a banner inscribed "515 Others. No Race Suicide"; 1898, carefully arranged in an H-shaped formation, dancing along to their music with a slow polka-step, each with his hands on the shoulders of the man in front, and at the head of all their leader, dancing backwards in perfect time, marshalling them; 1888, middle-aged men, again with some children, and a Highland regiment playing ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... with just a hair-line of black defining their edges; and the border was one broad, soft, velvety band of black, and a narrower one following it above and below, easing the contrast and blending the colors. The jacket, or rather shirt, finished at the waist with a bit of a polka frill, was a soft flannel, of the bright brown shade, braided with the darker hue and with black; and two pairs of bright brown raw-silk stockings, marked transversely with mere thread-lines of black, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... says, 'I must have a dance; blest if I don't! First chop music—good room this—three gals and the missus—course we must. I'm regular shook on the polka. You play us a good 'un, Polly, or whatever yer name is. Dan Moran's goin' to enjoy himself this night if he never sees another. Come on, Burke. Patsey, stand up, yer blamed fool. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... know how we have settled that," said Caroline, beginning to be hopeful now that she had something tangible to attack. "The dresses for the morning will be nothing,—only a white skirt and green polka, which will do to wear for ever after, and a little ruff, very pretty, and no expense at all; and a little alteration will make our court dresses perfectly suitable for Queen Elizabeth's ladies. You need not be at all afraid ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... men swung round in merry dance beneath flaming lanterns suspended from the roof. Two hundred Christmas boxes were found packed on board, parting gifts of friends and acquaintances. For these lots were drawn, and many amusing surprises excited general hilarity. So the polka was danced on the deck, while cold reigned outside and snow whizzed through the frozen rigging. For supper there was ham and Christmas ale, just as at home in Sweden. Old well-known songs echoed through the saloon, and toasts were ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... work. Geraldine is so used to polka-dotted dinosaurs and Little Green Men from Mars that she wouldn't mind an ordinary ghost, and Nelda'd probably try to drag it into bed with her." She laid down the pistol and slid off the desk. "Well, pleasant dreams; I'll ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... was at its height. Gwendolen, who had been in to supper eight times, placed her hand timidly on the arm of Lord Beltravers, who had just begged a polka of her. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... tree, together with about two hundred Christmas boxes purchased or presented to us before our departure. At six o'clock in the afternoon all the officers and crew assembled in the 'tweendecks, and the drawing of lots began, now and then interrupted by a thundering polka round the peculiar Christmas tree. At supper neither Christmas ale nor ham was wanting. And later in the evening there made their appearance in the 'tweendecks five punchbowls, which were emptied with songs and toasts for King and Fatherland, for the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... only dollars that will ever come my way," he said aloud. And, humming the opening bars of a lively polka from the manuscript, he took up his pen and added a few notes. Then he paused; the polka would not come—the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... here directly. And now, play a polka—and play like the devil himself, as if you were kissing your girl for the last time. The ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... Que faites-vous ici? Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici? Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis! Je danse le polka avec ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... cried, running in, and instantly the babbling of voices ceased, and four girls hastened to the pianos placed on either side of the stage, two left-hands struck a series of chords in the bass, the treble notes replied, and, to the gallant measure of a French polka, a stately prelate entered, smiling benediction as he advanced, the soft clapping of feminine palms drowning, for a moment, the slangy strains ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... house of any person who, at any time, whether officers were present or not, had allowed any of these new dances to be danced. This effectually extinguished the turkey trot, the bunny hug and the tango, and maintained the waltz and the polka in their old estate. It may seem ridiculous that such a decree should be so solemnly issued, but I believe that the higher authorities in Germany earnestly desired that the people, and, especially, ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... tall dark man, dressed in the usual costume of the ricos of Mexico: dark cloth polka-jacket, blue military trousers, with scarlet sash around his waist, and low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat upon his head. He appeared about thirty years of age, whiskered, moustached, and, after a fashion, handsome. It was not ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... more like a schottische perhaps than anything else; and really it was extraordinary to see how well these peasants danced, and how they beat time. Thoroughly they entered into the spirit of the thing, the polka, waltz, and jenka being all danced in ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... pretence of sipping their Byrrh until a passing "Eh, bebe" assails their tympani with its suggested tintinnabulation of needed francs: for him—"models." And the Bullier, ghost now of the old Bullier where once little Luzanne, the inspiration of a hundred palettes, tripped the polka, the new Bullier with its coloured electricity and ragtime band and professional treaders of the Avenue de l'Observatoire, is eke romance to his nostril. And so, too, he finds it atop the Rue Lepic in the now sham Mill of Galette, ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... Honorable Freddie began to move across the hall—Freddie hopping, Ashe advancing with a sort of polka step. As they reached the stairs there was a sound of wheels outside and the vanguard of the house party, returned from church, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... came forward very graciously with outstretched hands to meet us. The Czarina is the most beautiful woman I ever saw, aristocratic, simple, extremely sensitive. She was dressed in a black silk gown with white polka dots. Slightly taller than the Czar, the Empress was most affable, girlish in her manner. As she talked the colour came and went on her pale, fair cheeks, and she gave me the impression of being a very sensitive, ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... and ridden over several times to teach her the steps, and they had practised them on the hard-trodden ground in front of the cook tent, where the dust could be kept down by frequent sprinkling. If the waltz and the polka and schottische sent her blood racing under such adverse conditions, what must it be like on a real floor with real music, she asked herself ecstatically. These dancing lessons were provocative of much merriment and ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... now. But for this, I should have been on the Union Coach this day. The children here are most delightful; the best company in all the world, to my mind. If you could see the little girl dance the Polka with her sisters! Not set up like an Infant Terpsichore, but seriously inclined, with perfect ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... lead. pluma feather, pen. poblacion f. population, small town. pobre poor. poco little, few; a — soon, in a little while. poder to be able; vr. to be possible; m. power. podrir to decay, rot. poema m. poem. polaco Polish, Pole. polca polka. policia police, policing; cleaning. politico political. polizonte police officer. polo pole. polones -a Polish. polvo dust. ponderacion f. laudation. ponedora (f. adj.)laying eggs. poner to put, set, place; vr. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... moderns. It will have to be removed in pieces from the foundry where it is cast to its place of destination, and each piece will require sixteen horses to draw it. The great toes are each half a metre in length. In the head two persons could dance a polka very conveniently, while the nose might lodge the musician. The thickness of the robe, which forms a rich drapery descending to the ankles, is about six inches, and its circumference at the bottom about two hundred metres. The Crown of Victory which the figure holds ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress, had not been asked for the first dance, but had stood against the wall in her tight, high-heeled shoes, nervously fingering ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... languid looking woman who seemed to be pining for admiration. At the conclusion of the waltz that was going on when Helen entered, Vavasour brought his partner a whisky and soda and a cigarette. He passed Helen twice, but ignored her, and whirled one of the Wragg girls off into a polka. Again he failed to see her when parties were being formed for a quadrille. Even to herself she did not attempt to deny a feeling of annoyance, though she extracted a bitter amusement from the knowledge that she had been slighted by ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... come back on a stretcher. She was awaiting it. It would be her good luck they were bringing back to her. What use was he—that drunkard? To make her weep, to devour all she possessed, to drive her to sin. Well! Men so useless as he should be thrown as quickly as possible into the hole and the polka of deliverance be danced over them. And when the mother said "Kill him!" the daughter responded "Knock him on the head!" Nana read all of the reports of accidents in the newspapers, and made reflections that were unnatural for a girl. Her father had such good luck an omnibus ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... They were that of M. de Nonancourt, an old beau with the air of a mummy preserved in cold cream, and that of Madame de Larsillois, the wife of a prefect of Louis Philippe. She was terribly frightened, for she had just heard an organ playing a polka which was a signal amongst the insurgents. Many of the wealthy class of citizens had similar apprehensions; they thought that men in the catacombs were going to blow up the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Some noises escaped from cellars, and things that excited ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... since heard of a tame elephant exhibited in England having been taught to stand on his head, and, I fancy, dance the polka; and from the extraordinary positions into which I saw the animals throw themselves on this occasion, I fully believe in their power to do anything of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, 'your thon may be aboard-a- thip by thith time. Childerth took him off, an hour and a half after we left there latht night. The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat (he would have walthed if he hadn't been in harneth), and then I gave him the word and he went to thleep comfortable. When that prethiouth young Rathcal thed he'd go for'ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith neck-hankercher with all four legth in the air and pulled him down ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... to see what's waitin' for one of our plutiest directors outside the brass rail. In fact, I almost gasps. Lady! More like one of the help from the laundry. The navy blue print dress with the red polka dots was enough for one quick breath, just by itself. How was that for an afternoon street costume to blow into the Corrugated general offices with on a winter's day? True, she's wearin' a gray ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... look as if he were enjoying himself. He should be careful about guiding and not running into people. Swinging the hands is vulgar and unsightly. The waltz seems to survive all other forms of dancing, but there is every now and then a revival of the polka. Two steps and fancy dances are the vogue at summer hotels, but not ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... the number which are packed to suit all English tastes and may be taken for a rough sample of the jumble of them, where a danceless quadrille-tune succeeds a suicidal Operatic melody and is followed by the weariful hymn, whose last drawl pert polka kicks aside. Thus does the poor Savoyard compel a rich people to pay for their wealth. Not without pathos in the abstract perhaps do the wretched machines pursue their revolutions of their factory life, as incapable of conceiving as of bestowing pleasure: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... In rented bathing suits, unfastidious, if you will, but, pshaw! with the ocean for wash day, who minded! Hers a little blue wrinkly one that hit her far too far, below the knees, but her head flowered up in a polka-dotted turban, that well enough she knew bound her up prettily, and her arms were so round with that indescribable softiness of youth! Getaway, whose eyes could focus a bit when he looked at them, set up a leggy dance at ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Hebrew read out; "Lady Baughton at obe, dadsig! By eyes! what a tip-top swell you're a gettid to be, Newcome! I guess this is a different sort of business to the hops at old Levison's, where you first learned the polka; and where we had to pay a shilling a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me. I had supper with him, and Lord Valmond was near with Lady Doraine, and she was being so nice to him, Mamma, leaning over and looking into his eyes, and I don't think it good form, do you? Two or three dances afterwards, when we went back to the ballroom, there was a polka; I danced it with some idiot who almost at once let yards and yards of my gauze frills get torn, so I was obliged to go to the cloak-room to have it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... hotel, about twenty, I think. The next morning we were astonished to find that she remembered all of them, and recognized every one she had met the night before. She taught the young people the alphabet, and several of them learned to talk with her. One of the girls taught her to dance the polka, and a little boy showed her his rabbits and spelled their names for her. She was delighted, and showed her pleasure by hugging and kissing the little fellow, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... some other small items. I take one at random. While the Duke of Wellington danced the polka in Brussels the Prince of Orange with a small Dutch army stopped Napoleon's progress at Quatre Bras, and by disobeying the orders of the British commander saved the army of the allies and made the victory of Waterloo possible. Our ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Che faro, merely remarking after hearing it that it was more like the slow tunes her niece played than the quick ones. The player said with unmoved gravity this was andante. Mrs. Bailey said that her niece, on the contrary, had been christened Selina. She could play the Polka. So could Mr. Torrens, rather to the good woman's surprise and, indeed, delight. He was so good-humoured that he played it again, and also the Schottische; and would have stood Gluck over to meet her taste indefinitely, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... shoulders; and Annie's mother was to take a seat on the top of it; and then the old man would swim to New York with her. Not a bit of it! The Hunchback was only an ugly old steamboat, which was all hunched up in the middle; and scratched through the water like a great crab trying to dance the polka. ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... ring-master of a travelling circus (I had stipulated on this disposal of her), and was about to set out on her travels. She did not disappoint my glowing anticipations, but became quite a celebrity in her way—by dancing the polka to slow music on a pine-board ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... thought the Leopard's spots Were pasted on for polka-dots, He asked her how much it would cost New ones to buy ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... the Colonel of the Grenadiers and order it. Anyhow, you can play the Goblin polka if ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... a long time. At last, the piper having struck up a polka, the black men, in a transport of mirth, quitted the table and danced and waltzed with an ardor and frenzy which ill accorded with their icy faces. One of the dancers gathered up all the gold that was heaped on the table, and, pouring it into Swanda's hat, "Here," said he, "take ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... the new and modern square dances and tabulated forms for the guidance of the leader or others in calling them. Full and complete directions for performing every known square dance, such as Plain Quadrilles, Polka Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl I Left Behind Me, Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland Minuet, Waltz ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... you take me for a cangling cadger, to haggle ... Forgimety! I cannot ... God's truth, I dare not! You've got me on the hop; and I must hirple; But if I go, I will not go alone: I've a mind to have a partner for this polka. ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... times I cared little for Polka or Varsovienne, and still less for the old-fashioned "Money Musk" or "Virginia Reel," and wondered what people could find to admire in those "slow dances." But in the soft floating of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to intelligibly ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... much less pauperized, much more civilized, and much happier than our own peasantry." * * * "The dancing itself, even in those tents frequented by the poorest peasants, is quite as good, and is conducted with quite as much decorum, as that of the first ballrooms of London. The polka, the waltz, and several dances not known in England, are danced by the German peasants with great elegance. They dance quicker than we do; and, from the training in music which they receive from their childhood, ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Such a handsome young woman! Like one of Uwins's pictures. Very dark, with a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale. The children were already dancing, as well as the maids. After we came to an end of our dance, which was what they called a Polka-Mazourka, I saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of her fiance to ask me to dance, which after a little hesitation he did. And admirably he danced, as indeed they all did—in excellent time, and with a little more spirit than one sees in a ball-room. In fact, they were very like ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... before, which they managed to admiration, never allowing it to lose its position, or to touch the floor at any other part but the toe, to which it adhered with singular tenacity, through the most difficult steps of the whirling waltz or puzzling polka. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... polka struck up, a tune remembered at children's parties. Then a waltz, a very old one too. The T.B.'s were playing ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... her vanity was flattered at having in her train at least one devoted dangler, whom she could play off, whenever opportunity required, against some more valuable admirer. Besides, Strachan was a man of family, tall, good-looking, and unquestionably clever in his way: he also danced the polka well, and was useful in the ball-room or the pic-nic. So Mary Rivers kept him on in a kind of blissful dream, just sunning him sufficiently with her smiles to make him believe that he was beloved, but never allowing matters ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... seem very anxious to claim our acquaintance, after all, and I think better of him on that account. Has he spoken to you tonight, Dora?" asked Mrs. Carroll, as Debby dropped down beside her after a "splendid polka." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... is to follow her example. What would you think of some light refreshment? Let's go to the dining-room and drown our sorrows in strawberry ice. Then we can have a waltz, and try a vanilla—and a polka, and some lemonade! That's, my idea of enjoying myself. Come along, while you get ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... do, and stepped out of his berth fully appareled—in a natty business sack-suit of Scots-gray, a high turn-down collar, fine enamel shoes and a rather noticeable tie. Florian Amidon had always worn a decent buttoned-up frock and a polka-dot cravat of modest blue, which his haberdasher kept in stock especially for him. He felt as if, in getting lost, he had got into the clothes of some other man—and that other one of much less quiet and old-fashioned ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... habitable solitude than Ocean Park in early June? Once previously he had gone there before the season opened, and he knew. Later on the popular big seashore resort would seethe with vacationists. They would crowd the hotels, over-flow the board walk, cover the sands, and polka-dot the ocean. But in June the sands would be deserted, the board walk ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... polka differ from a schottisch?"—"A schottisch is a lazy polka. A polka is the worst thing in the world: the next worst is a schottisch. A schottisch is so lazy, so slow, that a fire would hardly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... and jolly. The fiddler swept his bow across the strings until they sang their gayest polka. The accordion puffed and wheezed in its attempt to follow the merry tune. The platform was crowded with dancers, whirling and stamping, turning and ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... polka and schottische, don't you?" Her eyes, as she looked up at him, reminded Billy achingly of that time in the line-camp when she asked him for a horse to ride home. They had the same wistful, pleading ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... town and all the country round; and he gave me very pleasant account of it. "There were various booths for eating and drinking, and the selling of trinkets and sweetmeats; and in one place there was a great circle cleared, in which the common people waltzed and polka'd, without cessation, to the music of a band. There was a great roundabout for children (oh my stars what a family were proprietors of it! A sunburnt father and mother, a humpbacked boy, a great poodle-dog possessed of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... one evening he was introduced to Wilson Jennings, Alex treated him with but little more than necessary courtesy. For the newcomer, an operator but little older than himself, was distinctly a "dude"—from his patent-leather shoes and polka-dotted stockings to his red-and-yellow banded white straw hat. His carefully-pressed suit was the very latest thing in light checked gray, he wore a collar which threatened to envelope his ears, and his white tie was of huge dimensions. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... color began to fade from her cheeks as the notes before her ran together, and the keys assumed the form of one huge key which Maddy could not manage. There was a blur before her eyes, a buzzing in her ears, and just as the dancers were entering heart and soul into the merits of a popular polka, there was a sudden pause in the music, a crash among the keys, and a faint cry, which to those nearest to her sounded very much like "Mr. Guy," as Maddy fell forward with her face upon the piano. It was hard telling which carried her from the room, the doctor or Guy, or which face of ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... its uniform step and more graceful style, had been already introduced by instructors, who had found short engagements under the severe reprobation of the Orthodox churches; but the waltz was unknown, except in name, and the polka, schottische, etc., had then never been ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... decorous. In those days people did not think it necessary to the pleasures of dancing that any stranger should have liberty to snatch a shy, innocent girl round the waist, and whirl her about in mad waltz or awkward polka, till she stops, giddy and breathless, with burning cheek and tossed hair, looking,—as I would not have liked to see our pretty ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... tangoed in Koran, Danced quadrilles in Ispahan (Though I haven't done the polka in Shiraz yet); But I've followed in the train Of Terpsichore in vain, For I haven't mastered one step of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... the Louvre, or the classic chambers of the Palais des Beaux Arts. I have passed a Whitsunday morning at Versailles among the paintings; the afternoon at Sevres among glass and porcelain; have won a game at dominoes after dinner in Paris; and have heard the last polka at the Salle Vivienne in the evening. Paris is a city of extremes; the young Theophile who works by my side, and is an ingenious fellow and a clever workman, you will meet next Sunday in the Louvre discoursing energetically on the comparative merits ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... and like people "cut out for each other," Triangle and his wife sat and planned the details of the tour to Jingo Hill Farm. Frederic Antonio Gustavus was to be rigged out in new boots, hat, and breeches. Maria Evangeline Roxana Matilda was to be fitted out in Polka boots, gipsey bonnet, and Bloomer pantalettes, with an entire invoice of handkerchiefs, scarfs, ribbons, gloves, and hosiery for "mother," little Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, and the baby, Henry Rinaldo Mercutio. After three days' onslaught upon poor Triangle's pockets, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Polka. Three excellent polkas, with music enough in them to draw the proper steps from every heel ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... next struck up a lively polka, and Monsieur Tournevau started off with the handsome Jewess, whom he held without letting her feet touch the ground. Monsieur Pinipesse and Monsieur Vasse had started off with renewed vigor, and from time to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... as quickly as possible. You are to dance the polka quadrille with her, are you not? After the polka quadrille, then. And now let us part, or they will begin to think we are hatching another ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... father, like the one in which your worship took part. These charges are not, as one might say, greatly to the taste of the Moors, who, when they hear the call to the charge, to which we have given the name of General Prim's Polka, tremble and turn pale and fall back. [Note: It may properly be related here that this same division, with its leader, General Prim, reconnoitring at a few leagues distance from Tetuan, came upon a poor old Moorish woman, sick and abandoned by her people; and that putting her on a stretcher, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... round dances, polka, schottische, waltz, etc., there are many who strongly object, but, danced in private homes and in most cases under the eye of the young girl's mother, there can be found nothing dangerously objectionable in this favorite ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... nothing careless or slapdash from the first bar to the last. She would play the same piece a hundred times without varying the performance by a hair's-breadth. Nor did she affect anything but classical music. She was one of those young ladies who, when asked for a waltz or a polka, freeze the impudent demander by replying that they play no dance ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and exceedingly banal interview with Helen, and another with Andrew. And an interval having elapsed, Andrew was observed to approach Helen and ask her for a polka. Helen punctiliously accepted. And he led her out. The outraged gods of social decorum were appeased, and the reputations of Mrs. Prockter and her parties stood as high as ever. It was ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... assent; she simply let him put his arm round her waist—as she did so it occurred to her more vividly than it had ever done before, that this was a singular place for a gentleman's arm to be—and in a moment he was guiding her round the room in the harmonious rotation of the polka. When they paused she felt that she was red; and then, for some moments, she stopped looking at him. She fanned herself, and looked at the flowers that were painted on her fan. He asked her if she would begin again, and she hesitated to answer, ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... to his feet and they staggered off together, Jellicoe hopping, Dunster advancing with a sort of polka step. Mike watched them start and then ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the air. As far as we are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted it. We have at length removed the gene of our presence from the company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... man. I used to think that stock-brokers were mere sordid calculating machines. Now that I have seen whole firms of them busy at the hoe, wearing old trousers that reached to their armpits and were tied about the waist with a polka dot necktie, I know that they are men. I know that there are warm hearts ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... ball whenever he saw it within reach; but after a few experiments he accepted the fact that every game required a certain talent, quite as distinct as that needed to sell green neckties (old stock) when the prevailing fashion was polka-dot blue. How he loathed Thomas Webb. How he loathed the impulse which had catapulted him into this mad whirligig! Why had not fate left him in peace; if not satisfied with his lot, at least resigned? ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... all the finery of embroidered velvet, stamped leather, and shining "castletops." The women looked not less picturesque in their bright naguas, snowy chemisettes, and small satin slippers. Some of them flounced it in polka jackets; for even to that remote region the famous ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... polka. The man Si McGinty had called French Charlie came up behind the girl and said something. She shook her head, turned on her heel, and began circling about in the narrow space till she found another partner, French Charlie scowling after them, as they whirled away between the faro-tables ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... looking at her eagerly and with curiosity, and because every one was in good spirits—she suddenly felt joyful, and when the train started and the officers of her acquaintance saluted her, she was humming the polka the strains of which reached her from the military band playing beyond the trees; and she returned to her compartment feeling as though it had been proved to her at the station that she would certainly be happy in ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... good boy! He never teazes us, or the cat, or anybody. Mary O'Reilly (that's our kitten) always rubs her coat against his legs when he comes home; so you see that is a sign that he is never cruel to animals. He once tried to teach a crab at Long Branch to dance the polka, but he ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... this time in full swing. The orchestra was playing a polka. Young Vacca, now at his fiftieth wax candle, had brought the floor to the slippery surface of glass. The druggist was dancing with one of the Spanish-Mexican girls with the solemnity of an automaton, turning about and about, always ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... sat in a corner playing their rapid tunes, while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, as the Italians love to do. They love even better to dance with men, with a dear ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... or the "bunny-hug," "turkey-trot," and other ungraceful and unworthy dances. It was decided that the Castles should, through Bok's magazine and their own public exhibitions, revive the gavotte, the polka, and finally the waltz. They would evolve these into new forms and Bok would present them pictorially. A series of three double-page presentations was decided upon, allowing for large photographs so that the steps could be easily seen and learned from ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... purplish-chestnut on the breast, which is marked with chains of white spots like polka-dots; belly white; a white band on each side of the breast in front of the wing; the sides further back tan color with fine wavy black lines, and still further back distinctly banded crosswise with ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... street parade. It was the annual turnout of Good Hope Lodge, No. 72, of the Patriotic Order of American Rosicrucians. The cured patient, marching as Supreme Worthy Archon, wore a lavender baldric, a pea-green sash, an aluminum helmet and scarlet gauntlets, and carried an ormolu sword and the blue polka-dot flag of a rear-admiral.... ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... the twenty-seventh, it was fairly well occupied, but not to any great extent. One couple attracted my attention by reason of the gentleman's erratic steering. Had he been my partner I should have suggested a polka, the tango not being the sort of dance that can be picked up in an evening. What I mean to say is, that he struck me as being more willing than experienced. Some of the bumps she got would have made me ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the room, young Martinez, with a beaming face, was just dancing a polka with a strikingly beautiful girl dressed in white, with a fluttering blue ribbon round her waist. She had thick beautiful hair of a shade nearly golden, with a large silver pin like a dart run through it, and a light wreath. The lady was taller and fuller in figure than Susanna, ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... says. "Never such conjuring as his." There was dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight rehearsal. Then, as the children grew older still, there were private theatricals. "He never," she says again, "was too busy to interest himself in his children's occupations, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... different race. Any long continued infiltration, whether peaceful or aggressive, results in race islands or archipelagoes distributed through a sea of aborigines. Semitic immigration from southern Arabia has in this way striped and polka-dotted the surface of Hamitic Abyssinia.[268] Groups of pure German stock are to-day scattered through the Baltic and Polish provinces of Russia.[269] [See map page 223.] In ancient times the advance guard of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... to play a soft, dreamy waltz. It was full of bewitching invitation. No one could resist it. It passed into a wild, stirring polka, into a maddening galop, back again to a dreamy waltz. Now it was dizzying, whirling; now it was languishing, full of repose. Now it was the burst and clangor of a full orchestra; now it was the bewitching ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hated them!—whether they were shy, or whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of their class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her white dress; ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... confused tableaux are offered to the bystanders; while the Quadrille is only a kind of pass at arms made with foils, where attack and defence proceed with equal indifference, where the most nonchalant display of grace is answered with the same nonchalance; while the vivacity of the Polka, charming, we confess, may easily become equivocal; while Fandangos, Tarantulas and Minuets, are merely little love-dramas, only interesting to those who execute them, in which the cavalier has nothing to do but to display his partner, and the spectators have no share but to follow, tediously ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... these, so demure and still as to seem oldest of all, waited Lucy Hapgood. Camille could scarcely keep back a smile at sight of her incongruous attire. Her gown was a cotton one of a washed out indigo-blue, with large polka spots that had once been white, before the other color had beclouded them. Over this, as if apologizing and condoning, streamed the sombre veil, more suitable for a widow than for that round-faced child. ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... you are very kind, but that she cannot. I said everything I could; I told her she should wear Sophy's muslin mantle, or my second best polka.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge |
