"Back stairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... among rivers of mud and mazes of shifting sand. With difficulty I recovered my steps, and finding my way back to the building was forced to content myself by an exit among the crowd of Senators and Representatives who were thronging down the back stairs. ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... back stairs, as if the house was falling, Mrs. Hardway went to see what the trouble was, and opened the kitchen door just in time to receive a full glass of ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from the royal speech attributed to the Queen Mother in reply to the Kaiser: "The House of Savoy rules one at a time." He should have kept away from the back stairs. He should have known Italy well enough to realize that the elements of Roman society with which he was affiliated do not represent either power or public opinion in Italy any more than good society does in most modern states. Roman aristocracy, like all ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... internally; and they proceeded softly down the back stairs and out of the garden gate. Montraville and Belcour were ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... time he came Hazel saw him descending from the coach, and without a word to any one, although it was almost supper time, and the early winter twilight was upon them, she seized her fur cloak and slipped down the back stairs, out through the shadows, across the road, where she surprised good Amelia Ellen by flinging her arms about her neck and bursting into tears right in the dark front hall, for the gust of wintry wind from the open door blew the candle out, and Amelia Ellen stood astonished ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... a story in which children are tracked by an ogre through the perilous wood by the crumbs they dropped? Then let us hope there is no ogre lurking on these back stairs, for the trail is plain. It would be near the top, farthest from the friendly kitchen, that the attack might come, for there the stairs yielded to the darkness of the attic. There it was best to look sharp ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... (while he unstrapped his valise) to explain this apparent miracle. He could only guess with me that the woman had been warned of our arrival by the noise of footsteps in the court-yard, and had dispatched a servant by some back stairs to ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to think of her front door, which was open; but, of course, nobody could come while those creatures were in the parlor. But if she missed anything she'd have them brought up in court if it took every cent she had in the world and constables from some other town. She slipped to the back stairs, and softly called the servant, but there was no answer. She was afraid to go down, for the back door of the parlor commanded all the other rooms on that floor. Now she felt more terribly lonely and more nervous. If she had had a pistol she would have fired it through the floor. Then ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... in March, Rutherford and Imogene came down with a fever and a rash. Dr. Fiddler was summoned from the city. Just as he entered the broad portals at the front of the house, two of the nurse-maids, Stokes and Brown, walked swiftly down the back stairs with their suitcases and bandboxes in ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... been howling like some wretched girl! I must have been absurd and disgusting. I will go away by the back stairs . . . . But that would seem as though I took my hysterics too seriously. I ought to take it as a joke. . ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... away, and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on my journey when night came; my journey to—well, anywhere where they would not know me and betray me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a wolf!" cried Dotty; and down the attic stairs they flew pell-mell; through the kitchen chamber and the great unfinished chamber, and down the back stairs; through the kitchen and the dining-room, and burst into grandma's room all out ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... L6,787 odd from unsupplied secret service money. To this, Tobias Rustat, an under-keeper of the Royal Palace of Hampton Court, and yeoman of the robes to Charles II., described by Evelyn as "page of the back stairs, a very simple, ignorant, but honest and loyal creature," contributed L1,000. However simple this man was, his simplicity manifested itself in a commendable direction. He is said to have given away his ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... feverish at night. Her father made a short examination, pronounced her to be suffering from the epidemic of chicken pox which had infested the schools of late, and ordered her to bed. She obeyed him by going to her room, escaping by way of the back stairs and taking a long walk in the twilight with Isabel St. John, with whom lately it had been necessary for Phebe to hold many secret conferences. The next morning, the rash had entirely disappeared, and Phebe ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... Dick? Unnoticed by the audience while their attention was diverted toward Mr. Lindsley, he had slipped from the rear of the stage and had made his way by the back stairs to the street. A half hour later, some of the people, on their way home from the meeting, noticed a tall figure, dressed in a business suit of brown, standing in the shadow of the catalpa trees on the avenue, looking upward at a church spire, built in ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... I arrived at B——, and remained there until the 2nd September. During this period I slept in the room on the first floor, which is at the end of a short corridor running from the top of the back stairs to ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... effect, but to unite the whole, en suite, without disturbing the individuality of either. Also, the hall lamp and stove would light and warm, equally, every room, besides passage, vestibule, and stairs. The cloak closet is in the passage which contains the back stairs. ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and nothing but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him take the back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking on the principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer and a bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of descending the back stairs brought the schemes of the criminals to naught, and saved the safe from spoliation. I have told how the three criminals scattered to as many different points of the compass. They could not have come together again had not previous provision been made for such emergencies. ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... used to a government which had been forced upon them, and which they had wielded with success. Holland and Zeeland, paying the whole expense of the war, were not likely to endure again the absolute sovereignty of a foreigner, guided by a back stairs council of reckless politicians—most of whom were unprincipled, and some of whom had been proved to be felons—and established, at Utrecht, which contributed nothing to the general purse. If Leicester ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and, slipping on some clothes, I went out into the second-story hall. I carried no light. Before I had reached the bottom of the back stairs I heard David, my man, coming down. To be sure it was he and not a burglar I spoke to him in a low voice, my pistol raised in case of ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... cause, in my public speeches I made light of it, talking of it with contempt as a sickness of small account, much as a housemaid talks in the servants' hall of the ghost which is supposed to haunt the back stairs. ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... was out behind the barn feeding the turkies. Mr. Robinson came softly out of the side door in the orchard and looking everywheres around he stepped to the wire closet and took out a saucer of cold beans with a pickled beet on top, and a big piece of blueberry pie. Then he crept up the back stairs and we could see Alice open her door and ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gate and up the back stairs; Morten went into the shop and returned with five "Napoleons." "You see I know your taste," he said laughing. Morten's room was right up under the roof; it was a kind of turret-room with windows on both sides. One could look out over the endless mass ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... While this struggle was going on, a large party of Chinese, who walked from Seniawan, were ransacking the town. Enraged with the Bishop for trying to bring the Rajah back, they rushed into our house to find him; but he, having sent off all our belongings, English and native, ran down the back stairs while the Chinese rushed up into the porch in front, and escaped to the Chinese town, where shots were flying about in plenty, but did not hit him. He got into a little boat passing by, with two Malays in it, and they paddled him to the Rajah's ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... her upstairs windows and yelling at the top of her voice. Mrs. Lathrop paused for no conventionalities of civilization. She hoisted herself over the fence in a fashion worthy a man or a monkey, ran across the Clegg yard, entered the kitchen door, stumbled breathlessly up the dark back stairs, and gasped, grabbing Susan hard by ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... the Most Noble Order of the Garter, of the Golden Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint Nicholas of the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the Crescent, First Lord of the Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs, Colonel of the Gaunt or Regent's Own Regiment of Militia, a Trustee of the British Museum, an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, a Governor of the White Friars, and D.C.L.—died after a series of fits brought on, as the papers said, by the shock ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... over the parapet of which might have been seen the sarcophagus of John Paul Jones, in the crypt. One prefers to think that the architect had some such plan; for the crypt, as at present arranged, is hardly more than a dark cellar, approached by what seems to be a flight of humble back stairs. To descend into it, and find there the great marble coffin with its bronze dolphins, is not unlike going down into the cellar of a residence and there discovering the family silver reposing ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... that there was some laundry due her in the basement. That must be collected. She walked on, having taken a second look around, and darted under the front steps to make her inquiry. She promised to call for the articles in ten minutes by way of the back stairs; then slowly ascended the brownstone steps, glancing up the street as she climbed, ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... ill, very ill indeed. We have two nurses. Nora and Connie are shut away in the morning-room and to the back stairs and their own rooms with Miss Ellis, and have not seen us since the dear child was first taken ill. Tell your young friend that I am sending you a hamper from Buzzard's, with double of everything, and I am writing to Miss Ware to ask her to take you both to anything ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... could have snatched up a purse as she ran. Perhaps that was what she flew upstairs for. And then, maybe, she went down the back stairs—but no, the waiters must have seen her that way. And Luigi was in the front hall ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... the tenant of the fourth story, Papa Ravinet, the second-hand dealer, was going to his dinner. If he had gone down as usually, by the front staircase, no noise would have reached him. But Providence was awake. That evening he went down the back stairs, and heard the death-rattle of the poor dying girl. In our beautiful egotistical days, many a man, in the place of this old man, would not have gone out of his way. He, on the contrary, hurried down to inform the concierge. Many a man, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... stood undecided in her room, and pressed both hands against her wildly beating heart. Then she went resolutely to the door and hastened down the back stairs. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... needs go and take the three-cornered precaution of posting twelve men at the door of my house. I had to climb five flights of back stairs and go out through the servants' corridor and the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... He realized that the noise was not likely to be made by his brother or sister, and the servant slept in the rear of the house and always used the back stairs. He had often wondered whether he would be brave in a time of real danger as fellows in the books he read were. He did not feel by any means comfortable now. But ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... came into her head. The breakfast hour was always late; by being a little earlier than usual she could have plenty of time to go to Crum Elbow and return before the family were assembled. Splendid! Daisy went down the back stairs and gave her orders in such a way that they should not reach Ransom's ear. If not put on the alert he was sure to be down to breakfast last of anybody. So Daisy went to bed and to sleep with her mind ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... her brother through a door leading to the back stairs, and almost as soon as it was closed her visitor entered. Roger, however, did not retreat down the stairs; he stood and looked through the bobbin-hole. If the visitor turned out to be Sir John, he had determined to ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... But jest really a hole in the floor, with a cast-iron grating, to let the heat from the room below into the one above. She says she guesses two people that wasn't so very honourable might sneak into the house the back way, and up the back stairs, and into the spare bedroom, and lay down on their stummicks on the floor, being careful to make no noise, and both see and hear through that register. Which ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... dishes and these in the pantry, ready for the waitress, who is not expected to enter the kitchen during the service of a meal. She washes the dishes used in the kitchen and the meat dishes from the table; she must keep the kitchen and its adjuncts, including back stairs, refrigerator, back porch and closet in order. Her mistress plans the meals with her, and she is expected to make good and economical use of left-overs. She often does the ordering by telephone, and sees to the milk, ice, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... concealment]. — N. camouflage; mimicry; hiding place; secret place, secret drawer; recess, hold, holes and corners; closet, crypt, adytum^, abditory^, oubliette. ambush, ambuscade; stalking horse; lurking hole, lurking place; secret path, back stairs; retreat &c (refuge) 666. screen, cover, shade, blinker; veil, curtain, blind, cloak, cloud. mask, visor, vizor^, disguise, masquerade dress, domino. pitfall &c (source of danger) 667; trap &c (snare) 545. V. blend in, blend into the background. lie in ambush ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Spanish priest here under a strong guard; the Spanish Embassy claims his person! Gendarmes can bring up the self-styled Carlos by your back stairs so that he may see no one. Instruct the men each to hold him by one arm, and never let him go ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... neither priviledge of Parliament nor City is any thing; but that his will is all, and ought to be so: and their discourse, it seems, when they are alone, is so base and sordid, that it makes the eares of the very gentlemen of the back stairs (I think he called them) to tingle to hear it spoke in the King's hearing; and that must be very bad indeed. That my Lord Digby did send to Lisbon a couple of priests, to search out what they could against the Chancellor concerning the match, as to the point of his knowing ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... and leaving his companions for the purpose, disappeared behind some arras; but, instead of hiding, he hastened to his sister's chamber, where he locked up a favourite dog that was in the habit of following his footsteps wherever he went, and then noiselessly slipped down a back stairs which led to an inner garden. Having taken care to provide himself with a key fitting the garden door, he quickly slipped into the park. Here he found Colonel Bamfield waiting, who, giving him a cloak and a wig for his better disguise, hurried ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... Glory ran up the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set a high-backed rocking ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... continued to tumble down the Boer back stairs head over heels, yelling out excuses as he descended. He publicly denied on the 29th that Great Britain had promised to protect the Reformers, and added that they were not being unfairly treated. I will never make statesmen of my sons. I'd ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... Cousin Frank, you're quite too funny for words when you go in for being grand. Now would you like me to wheel you up to the hall-door and ring the bell, or would you rather we sneaked round through the shrubbery into the yard, and got in by the gunroom door and so up the back stairs?" ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... Assistant Master had been made to the dormitories, all became excitement; boots and caps had been carefully concealed under the beds. The elder boys were quickly re-clothed, booted and bonneted; and we crept down, by back stairs, to the kitchen, with the connivance of the cook and housekeeper; those good souls also providing some refreshment for us, to be taken either before we went out, or after we returned; and then, stealthily emerging by the back door, we separated into small companies of twos ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... his mouth full. Ma says,—this is all she said,—Ma says: 'Did you hit your finger, Lucius?' Pa let fly the hammer. It didn't miss her head a foot. Then he fired the flatiron at her feet. Ma screamed and started to run to'ards the back stairs. Pa knocked over the kitchen table trying to head her off. She stumbled and fell down on her hands and knees. Then while he was looking for something to beat her brains out with, she got up and run into the pantry and locked ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... cried Nan. "They mustn't see you, Freddie, looking like this. I'll take you up the back stairs and change your clothes myself, or get Dinah to. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... of plate, was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant came to shew Emily to hers. Having passed up a large stair-case, and through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which led into a short passage in a remote part of the chateau, and there the servant opened the door of a small chamber, which she said was Ma'amselle Emily's, who, once more alone, indulged the tears she had ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... door. He could hear voices, but not distinctly. Quietly he tiptoed toward the head of the back stairs. It was ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... her jacket and pinning on her hat, she took from her trunk the package which she had made up an hour before, stole softly from her room and down the back stairs ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... festival before the news of the Latham divorce was made definitely public by a paragraph under the heading of "Society News," in one of the New York papers, though of course the rumour had crept into every house on the Bluffs, by way of the back stairs. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... individual destruction, that the prayer of the petition should be instantly complied with. Canning's crocodile tears should not move me; the hoops of the maids of honour should not hide him. I would tear him from the banisters of the back stairs, and plunge him in the fishy fumes of the dirtiest ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... she forgot all about the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Just as she was going to think about them Mark and Dank put her in the dirty clothes-basket and rolled her down the back stairs to make her happy. They shut themselves up in the pantry till she had stopped laughing, and when Catty opened the door the clock struck and Mark said that ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... later, hearing wheels grating on the gravel at the front door, and Maurice's voice, subdued and apologetic, she pushed her chair away from the table, rushed through the pantry and up the back stairs. She didn't know why she fled. She only knew that she couldn't face Eleanor, who would sit with Maurice while he bolted a supper for which—though Edith didn't know it!—all appetite had gone. In her room in the ell, Edith shut the door, and, standing with her back against it, tried to answer ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... the same time, thee conventions of a prudish age make it undesirable that a second bath should be installed in one of the rooms already existing for that purpose. We think the fourth room on your right, as you leave the back stairs, going south. This is locally known as the Green Room and takes its name, not, as you may imagine, from the fact that the late Sir Henry Irving once slept there, but from the hue of the rodents, said there frequently to have been ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... the back stairs very softly, and opening the door of a dark closet, where there was some old furniture kept, and some cases of liquor, she drew me in after her, and fastened the door upon us, we had no light but what came through a long crevice in the partition between ours and the light closet, where the ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... cautious inquiries by way of the back stairs brought gratifying response—for did not all black Washington know well of the work in sculpture done by Mrs. Samuel Stillings, nee Wynn? Mrs. Vanderpool remembered Mrs. Stillings perfectly, and she walked, that evening, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... shows at four in the afternoon. In the woodshed beyond she gathered a great armful of wood, not to bother with the basket, which would not hold so much—and hurried back again, making toward the front stairs this time, because the back stairs were narrow and steep, and one could not rush up them at great speed with ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... window. But it is impossible to get over your point that if he had entered by the door he would have tried to escape by the same means, not knowing that the door had been locked in the meantime. To do that he must have traversed the corridor twice and gone down and up these back stairs while the guests were coming up the other stairs. He couldn't have done it in the time. He would have been caught—cut off before he could get back. Look at this steep flight of stairs and the length of the corridor! That disposes ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... house, and climb up that tree, and go to bed in your room. And I will have one of your gingham dresses to wear, and very early in the morning I will get up, and you get up, and we both of us can get down the back stairs without being ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that had been given over to the indulgence of a little feminine nervousness. Through the open doors Hosmer could hear her coming down the back stairs; could hear that she halted mid-way. Then she passed through the dining-room, and he arose and went to meet her, holding out his hand, which she was not at once ready to accept, being flustered and unprepared for his manner in whichever way it might ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... chair. The doctor thought he moight be aloive yit an' had his mother an' me run upstairs fer some medicine from the medicine closet. In the upper hall we kim on Mrs. Langmore's body, also dead, an' I got that scared Oi turned an' flew down the back stairs an' out av the house loike the divil ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... remember the little sitting room of Annie's, at the foot of the back stairs, with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... back stairs and joined the huge throng that filled the streets, waiting patiently and quietly, its eyes fixed on the closed doors of the hall. In a remarkably short time these doors were thrown open. Those nearest surged forward. Inside the passage were twelve men, later to be known as the Executive ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... Whipples must have come, and every one would be at the front of the house. He crept from his corner, climbed to the floor from where it had been opened for wood and coal, and went softly to the kitchen door. He listened a moment through the screen, then entered and went noiselessly up the back stairs. Coming to the head of the front stairway, he listened again. There were other voices in front, and he shrank to the wall. He gathered that only the Whipple stepmother and Patricia had come—no other Whipples, no preacher. It might not ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... yourself to your chamber, except now and then, in Betty Barnes's sight (as aforesaid) you take a morning or evening turn in the garden: and then you are to go directly, and without stopping at any apartment in the way, up or down the back stairs, that the sight of so perverse a young creature may not add to the pain ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... ice-man bring their offerings. The other entrance is by way of the lobby adjoining the main staircase hall. This lobby or 'garden entrance' is a sort of Mugby Junction, where we can take the cars for the cellar, for the second floor by the back stairs route, for the dining-room or for out of doors, and where we find refreshment in the way of a wash-basin and minor toilet conveniences. Under the main staircase there is also a large closet opening into this same lobby. My kitchen you see has windows at opposite sides, not only to admit plenty of ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... toothache, and ben down to de kitchen fire a smokin' pennyryal, and awful sick it made me. I was gwine up de back stairs, when I heard steps in de hall. I looked in and I seed a man and woman plain. I had de candle in my hand. I screeched right out, and shut my eyes, and let de candle fall. When I opened 'em again missus had come out of her room, wid a shawl over her and a lamp ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... minds of the girls and children, and the conversation fell off,—the little negroes wandering hither and thither, unable to sleep, yet unable to attract sufficient attention from any one, till Judge Custis, who had been waiting for hours for his creditor to go, slipped down the back stairs in his old slippers, and came to the kitchen among the colored ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... bank. Our advent caused a rare scurrying to and fro, for two commercial "drummers," who were to depart by the early morning boat, occupied the "reg'lar spar' room," the landlady informed us, and a bit of a cubby-hole off the back stairs had to be arranged for us. Guests are rarities, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... not be surprised if she did know; and it turned out afterward that it was so. Grandma Cobb had known all the time, and Harriet had gone through her room to get to the back stairs, down which ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... land of Nod to realize anything but that Peace was calling her, she stumbled out of bed once more and allowed herself to be bundled up in wraps of all sorts until she was as shapeless as a mummy. In this fashion they slipped down the back stairs and out to the barn without betraying their presence, though the steps creaked under their weight, and every door they opened squeaked so alarmingly that Peace held her breath more than once for fear someone ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... clinched hands, silent. Dan had flashed into the kitchen, and was about to leap from the window when he saw the gleam of a rifle-barrel, not ten feet away. He would be potted like a rat if he sprang out there, and he dashed noiselessly up the back stairs, as Chad started up the front stairway toward the garret, where he had passed many a happy hour playing with Margaret and Harry and the boy whom he was after as an enemy, now. The door was open ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... to surpass the picture of royal magnificence the spectre drew. I stood inthralled until, even as he was talking, the clock struck three, when he rose up, and moving slowly across the floor, barely visible, murmured regretfully that he must be off, with which he faded away down the back stairs. I pulled my nerves, which were getting rather strained, together again, and went ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... fear, through a door covered by a velvet curtain. Through a small passage she stumbled, and then, as hurrying feet sounded behind her, and the roaring and whirring grew momently, she wove her way among a network of back stairs and halls and fell upon a small door under some steps, thinking it must lead to a cellar and stupidly remembering the safety of such spots in explosions and earthquakes—for now the whole house ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and in due time, they heard the "Sweet Bye and Bye" going up the back stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain's shoes on ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... servant to put the horse into the stable immediately, and the basket into the brew-house. Then she hurried Mary up the back stairs to her room, and went with a beating heart to find Mr. Hope ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... he got his hat; he tiptoed across the room. Heavens! how thankful he was for access to the back stairs. Mrs. Black was sweeping the parlor, and the rear of the house was deserted. Down the precipitous back stairs crept the young minister, listening to the sound of the broom on Mrs. Black's parlor carpet. As long as that regular swish continued ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... courage. . . . The King amused himself by feeding his dogs, and remained with them more or less time, then asked for his wardrobe, changed before the very few distinguished people it pleased the first gentleman of the Chamber to admit there, and immediately went out by the back stairs into the court of marble to get the air. . . . He went out for three objects: stag-hunting, once or more each week; shooting in his parks (and no man handled a gun with more grace or skill), once or twice each week; and walking in his gardens, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... that the robbers were coming in a waggon, which would halt some distance to the left of the house, and that their plan was to set one man at the end of the hall to hinder communication with the servants' quarters, and two on the upper landing to command the front and back stairs, while the remaining burglars ransacked the office and any other rooms in which plunder might be found. The youth's appointed mission was to fire the house, when the search was completed. Hardly had this information been received when Maguffin's ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... you, Jock," Emma had said, just before he left her. "They'll try it. If they give you a broom and tell you to sweep down the back stairs, take it, and sweep, and don't forget the corners. And if, while you're sweeping, you notice that that kind of broom isn't suited to the stairs go in and suggest a ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... resolved to turn part of our entry into a room and to divide the back yard between Sir W. Pen and him, which though I do not see how it will annoy me much particularly, yet it do trouble me a little for fear it should, but I do not see how it can well unless in his desiring my coming to my back stairs, but for that I shall do as well as himself or Sir W. Pen, who is most concerned to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... said of him. I was struggling like a fish on the ice, and watching with all my might,—I remember that at that time I set myself the task of preventing Liza at least from falling into the snares of a seducer, and consequently began paying particular attention to the maidservants and the fateful 'back stairs'—though, on the other hand, I often spent whole nights in dreaming with what touching magnanimity I would one day hold out a hand to the betrayed victim and say to her, 'The traitor has deceived thee; but I am thy ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... hearing, miss. But I'll shut those doors at the foot of the back stairs, and I'll ask every one ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spoiled, outraged,—nay, peradventure murdered,—in his house, he resolved, at all events, to assist the escape of his guests. Seeing the ground thus clear of the tymbesteres, he therefore stole from the riotous scene, crept up the back stairs, gained the chamber to which he had so happily removed his persecuted lodgers, and making them, in a few words, sensible that he was no longer able to protect them, and that the tymbesteres were now returned with an armed force to back their malice, conducted them safely to a wide casement ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stared at the wall. Then she seized her pen and dashed off a note. It took but a few minutes after that to change her light gown for a dark one and to fling some things into a suit-case. Just as dinner was being announced, she slipped down the back stairs and out of the side door into the somber dusk ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... come up," he began. "I'm becoming accustomed to dodging chambermaids and scurrying up back stairs. But I'm looking better, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... I thought, why can't we make a furnished room of that? There is space enough to build a large room and a bathroom, for part of it is just above the bathroom downstairs. A large furnished room with a private bath would bring in ten dollars a month. It is just at the head of the back stairs and the side door where the back stairs connect with the cellar way could be used as a private entrance, so the tenants of the house would not be disturbed in the least. It would cost over a hundred dollars to do it, most likely, but we could borrow ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... but his first certainly was to escape himself, for I saw him set his foot on the seat to leap over, when the soldiers pulled him back. Wilson was immediately carried out to the Tolbooth, and Robertson, getting uninterrupted through the Parliament Square, down the back stairs, into the Cowgate, was heard of no more till he arrived in Holland. This was an interesting scene, and by filling the public mind with compassion for the unhappy person who did not escape, and who was the better character of the two, had probably some influence in producing what ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... influenced by the heads of it. Mr. Skratdj was a very kind master, and Mrs. Skratdj was a very kind mistress, and yet their servants lived in a perpetual fever of irritability that fell just short of discontent. They jostled each other on the back stairs, said sharp things in the pantry, and kept up a perennial warfare on the subject of the duty of the sexes with the general man-servant. They gave warning ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... door rattled a little in the draught of another door which opened and closed. She heard an unmistakable creaking of the back stairs that led to a hall behind her room and the girls' rooms, and which also led ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... come close to her, so close that his heart and hers might almost meet in their wild leaping, so close that in audacious search for the missing headgear his hands are reaching down behind the shrinking, slender little form, and his long, sinewy arms almost encircling her. The war of words at the back stairs "now trebly thundering swelled the gale," but it is not heard ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... out one lamp after another, and the twinkling candles on the mantelpiece, and the little lights in the hall and corridor. It was an office Joseph liked. He stood for a moment at the foot of the back stairs looking with complacency upon the darkness, his candle lighting up his little old wry face. But when his eye caught the line of light under the library door, Joseph shook his head. He had put the house to bed without disturbance ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... lordship knew that I crep' down a back stairs to the telephone I do believe he'd have set about me with a ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... housekeeper had set both maids to work in turning out several unused rooms, and a great amount of brisk work was going on. The trim housemaid, Fanny, who was the housekeeper's niece, had come down the back stairs with an armful of carpets, and had brushed into the flagged yard before she noticed a pedlar-like-looking man standing before the back door with a pack ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the hall to the other guests. The instant they were gone Georgina crawled out from under the bed with the big bonnet cocked over one eye. Then she scudded down the hall and up the back stairs. She knew the company would be going soon, and she would be expected to bid them good-bye if she were there. She didn't want Cousin Mehitable to kiss her again. She didn't like her any more since she had ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... three pairs of doors of its own, establishing several means of communication with the remaining portion of the apartment, or with certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is not unusual in such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet below. The whole situated on the first floor of so large an Hotel, that it did not absorb one entire row of windows upon one side of the square court-yard in the centre, upon which the whole four sides of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... from being at an end of your surprise, you have three or four rooms still upon the same floor, filled with wonders as before. Nothing can be finer than the pictures themselves, nothing more surprising than the number of them. At length you descend the back stairs, which are in themselves large, though not like the other. However, not a hand's-breadth is left to crowd a picture in of the smallest size; and even the upper rooms, which might be called garrets, are not naked, but have some very good ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... I was leaving the house, the fair Sara put her head out of the window, and begged me to come up by the back stairs ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to get in by the side door that opened on the back stairs; so he did not waste any time in ringing the bell. Now Hugh could hear heavy footsteps. They were coming, and the great test was about ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... her, and her trunk had come bumping up the back stairs and been deposited in the vast closet, she sat down on the black haircloth chair and looked hopelessly around the big dreary room. There rose before her a vision of her own room at the old home, the room that she and her sister Betty had shared. It had rose-bordered curtains and rose-festooned ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Andrew, my liberator! In his hand a tallow dip to light this Imperial Highness down back stairs to the new life ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... the front of the kitchen stove, poked up the fire, and put in fresh sticks of wood. When the water boiled she poured it into a blue-lacquered pail with yellow bands around the rim, carried it up the steep back stairs, and got out ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... schoolmaster's son; they are waiting until the weighty conference within is terminated. Peace-officers, superbly bedizened, are walking up and down to keep ladies to their seats and gentlemen to the ranks, so as to form a passage for the first consul to pass down. Pages of the back stairs, dressed in black, and with gold chains hanging around their necks, are standing by the door to guard it, or to open it when he on whom all thoughts ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... herded us down the stairs; The Seraph making only one step at a time, led the way. Far down the drab vista of the back stairs that ended in the scullery, Mary Ellen's red, round face was seen for a moment, like a second rising sun, but vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, at a shout from ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... and excitement has been too much for her, in the delicate state of her health. Every one noticed how ill she looked when she came up stairs. Margaret, there is a back door, you are aware, leading from your lady's bath-room down to the flower garden. Go around and go up the back stairs and see if that door is open—if so, enter the rooms by it and open this," said her ladyship, never ceasing, while she talked, to rap at and shake the door ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... room, followed by the bell boy. In a trice they pulled loose the strings that held the skulls and the skeleton, and restored the things to the doctor's room from which they had been taken. Then they went below by a back stairs. ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... the night preceding, the prisoners in the jail having broken out. A serious affray had been expected, and everything was prepared for putting the person of the president in safety. The back stairs and secret passages in these old convents lead to excellent hiding-places, and have been put to frequent use during the revolutions. In the old Monte Pio there is a communication with a convent of nuns, and in cases of pillage, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... discovering, at the same time, that one blanket would serve me till winter, could I persuade my sister, who slept with me, to keep my secret. She entering in the midst of the package, I gave her some new feathers, to silence her. We got the mattrass down the back stairs, unperceived, and I helped to carry it, taking with me all the money I had, and what I could borrow ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Mactavish James mildly, continuing to turn over the pages of the Law Journal. "We've not had our dinners yet. Though from the way the smell of victuals is roaring up the back stairs we ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... were carrying the linen down the back stairs, and she went across the hall to see ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... zigzagged it into the back chamber, Halicarnassus loomed up the back stairs. I stood hot and panting, with the inside of my fingers tortured into burning leather, the skin rasped off three knuckles, and a bruise on the back of my right hand, where the trunk had crushed it against a sharp ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... commanded. "Just get up and do as I say. Go down the back stairs, mind! I'll let you in again in time to ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... and, accompanied by the awestruck servant, he made his way by the back stairs to the door opening from the dressing-room, which, as we have said, intervened between the valet's chamber and Sir Wynston's. After a momentary hesitation, Charles turned the key ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... little tobacco shop, with a pipe in his mouth and a glass and bottle on the table at his elbow. Henri was at home, still scrubbing and cleaning. The front of the great house was in order, with even the fires laid on all the hearths ready for lighting. Now he was scrubbing the back stairs. His brush bumped noisily against the steps, and the sound of its scouring was nearly drowned by the jerky tune which the old fellow sung through his nose as ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... similar interviews every day. Get into the dressing-room, remain there until I leave my room and pass your door. After I have seen that no one is near, I will cough twice, wait a minute longer, then quietly leave and descend by the back stairs." ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... men were shouting advice of all sorts. Uncle Hannibal was already on his way to the singers' gallery, and Addison, hastily thrusting the smoker into my hands, got down from the ladder and ran to help our distinguished visitor. Others followed them up the back stairs to the gallery; but the old Squire, seeing what was likely to happen, came to my assistance on the ladder. Taking the smoker into his own hands, he worked it vigorously in order to send as much smoke as possible up into ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... the back stairs may not be burning, yet. They happen to be further along toward the safe side. There's ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... forward trench line ended the opening phase of the battle. It was achieved in good order, and position was taken up on the first floor landing, dominating the main staircase and the passage that led to the back stairs. At their back was a short corridor ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House above the verandah, and from which an active man might descend to the verandah roof. It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand by Dougal, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of St. Giles tolled nine" (the hour at which the Court of Session meets), "the dapper form of the hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the court hall, or, at farthest, at the head of the Back Stairs" (the most convenient access to the Parliament House from George's Square), "trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-colored brown, with stockings of silk or woollen, as suited the weather; a bob wig and a small cocked hat; shoes ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... chamber, to keep the ladies to their windows and the gentlemen to their ranks, so as to preserve the passage or lane through which the first Consul was to walk upon his entrance, clear and open; and several gentlemanlike looking persons, whom in former times I should have supposed pages of the back stairs, dressed in black, with gold chains hanging round their necks, and medallions pending from them, seemed to have the charge of the door itself, leading immediately to the audience chamber ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Judy descending the back stairs. She fixed her eyes upon her with the clear design of transfixing and paralyzing this brazen American. Judy folded her arms and turned her glance upon her foe. The nearest onlookers held their breaths. Overcome by the calm ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... But Rose ran half-way downstairs, received the cake, dimpled her thanks, and retreated to the darkness above, whence sounds proceeded which sent the amused Professor into the parlor convulsed with suppressed laughter. Pretty soon Clover stole up the back stairs ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... immediately through the rule against smoking. This rule was a thorn in his side. He was accustomed to his three or four cigarettes in a morning, and after three days without it he followed Charley Moore by a circuitous route up a flight of back stairs to a little balcony where they indulged in peace. But this was not for long. One day in his second week the detective met him in a nook of the stairs, on his descent, and told him sternly that next time he'd be reported to Mr. Macy. Dalyrimple ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... when Markham woke him. She dressed him hurriedly, and carried him and his crutch down the back stairs and into that very butler's pantry through whose window he had crept at the bidding of the red-haired man. No one else ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... He's halfway up the back stairs, and coming fast. He and the landlord will be here to-morrow. 'Mr. Landlord, allow me to present Mr. F. Wolf, of Hunger, N. ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... that Lydia followed him upstairs to explain and impress upon him that Nita had meant what she said. And it is quite likely that she was not through picking up after him when he descended by the back stairs and surprised Janet Raymond on the front porch. That accounts, of course, for Lydia's not hearing the kitchen bell the first ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... that week—it was about the middle of the afternoon—a score of men, gossiping in the lower hall of the court building, were hushed suddenly. A young man came hurrying down the back stairs ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... she was to make up and the prodigious total it came to were kept well before Maisie at her mother's. These things were the constant occupation of Mrs. Wix, who arrived there by the back stairs, but in tears of joy, the day after her own arrival. The process of making up, as to which the good lady had an immense deal to say, took, through its successive phases, so long that it heralded a term at least equal to the child's last stretch with her father. This, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... window, with the splinters of glass falling against the curtain, the crashing open of the door ... and the shots that "made his ears ring," and made him run for shelter to the rear of the hall, with the shoulder of his overcoat torn with a bullet. Then how he found himself on the back stairs covered with rifles and commanded to come down with his hands in the air. Finally how he was frisked to the city jail in an automobile with a business man standing over him armed with a piece ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... had slept but little. The words he had overheard at the end of the lot the night before were still ringing in his ears. Going down the back stairs, in his anxiety to avoid Amabel, he came upon ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... been yet able to represent him to the world. For there are good reasons to believe, from several circumstances, that he had intentions of a deeper dye, than those he happened to execute;[18] I mean such as every good subject must tremble to think on. He hath of late been frequently seen going up the back stairs at court, and walking alone in an outer room adjoining to her Ma[jest]y's bed-chamber. He has often and earnestly pressed for some time to have access to the Qu[een], even since his correspondence with France; and he has now given such a proof ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "Down the back stairs. The others were asleep, but I could not sleep, thinking of my little diamond in the cold river—" at that moment a wild shriek rang out again, and Dick ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... would not be caught nursing him in secret, so hastily saying she would send some one, she kissed the little blue-veined forehead, and rushing at full speed down the back stairs, she flew into the housekeeper's room; 'Jenkins, there's no one attending to the nursery bell. I wish you would see to it. Send up some one with some hot water to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... walked unnoticed down the back stairs of the house, and out into the street. She turned into ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he had never risen above third-rate parts. In every respect save declamation he had all the elegances and charm of manner that the stage can give, and he would receive and bow out a scrubwoman who had fallen down a flight of back stairs and wanted to make the landlord pay for her broken head with a grace truly Chesterfieldian. This was all very fine until he had taken a drop too much, when his vocabulary would swell to such dimensions that the confused and embarrassed client ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686, Gentleman Usher of the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset (on the decease of George, second Viscount Castlewood), accompanied his Majesty to St. Germain's, where he died without issue. No Groom of the Posset was appointed by the Prince of Orange, nor ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... this room as a dressing and retiring room for the speakers. After some discussion we decided to storm the hall and take possession. Within five minutes all the women had formed in line and were crowding up the back stairs and into the judge's room. There we unlocked the door, again formed in line, and marched into the hall, ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... Martha had gone to bed, the little boy got up quietly, took his shoes in his hand, and slipped softly down the back stairs. Silently he unlocked and opened the kitchen door, and went ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... then ... and down the back stairs, hearing Anthony's voice in the bedroom she had ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... climbing up back stairs to what had been the temporary lodgings of the English legation. But it was empty and deserted; Sir Ralph Paget had not ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... every word that passed between Jack and his brother. He was not far off when the sailor was admitted at the front door, and when he saw the reunited family go into the dining-room, he bounded up the back stairs into the store-room and placed his ear at the stovepipe hole—not because he wanted to repeat anything he heard, you will understand, but because he wanted to know what subjects to steer clear of in his interviews with the overseer. When he heard that Jack had passed himself ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... October dawn Miss Pillby stole stealthily down by back stairs and obscure passages to the boot-room, where she found Sam hard at work with brushes and blacking, by the light of a tallow candle, in an atmosphere ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... to her bed. Raven suspected her. He noted how she half closed the library door behind her; so he took the chair she had lately left, commanding the crack of it. In about the time he expected, he heard her in the hall. She had come down the back stairs, he judged, and was now putting on her hat and coat, with scarcely a ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... acrost the room. He was in his stockin' feet, so he didn't make a sound. He reached into the corner and took out his old duck gun. It was loaded, both barrels. Nate cocked the gun and crept down the back stairs. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Barbara. "There was a man coming from Schlemmer's to put on some glass knobs for me. Bubbles has brought him in by the back stairs." ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... the hall, his tread noiseless on the rich, heavy rug, passed into the rear of the house, descended the back stairs, and reached the cellar. It was below the level of the ground, of course; but a narrow window here, though quite large enough to permit of egress, gave on the driveway at the side of the house that led to the garage ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... spetty-curls," she added, hunting in the "uppest drawer" till she found the eyeless spectacles used for playing "old lady." With these on, Flyaway thought she could see the way a great deal better. Horace's boots would help her up hill; so she jumped into those, and clattered down the back stairs with Dinah ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... was roughly seized by the tallest royal attendant and carried down the back stairs, through the back gate, out into the royal poultry yard. She still clung to the little brown basket which she had brought with her on her long journey to the royal palace and through all the sad experiences she had ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells
... anywhere. Self-respect in such a matter would win the respect of the world by deserving it. But when Americans sell their daughters to European profligates for a title, and pay millions to boot; when republicans in profession become tuft-hunters in practice, and haunt the back stairs of palaces; when the United States government, the eldest born and guardian of democracy, decredits its own political creed and parades in royal processions,—is it not ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... they returned to the back stairs, which they descended, and having pursued the several windings of a long passage, found themselves again in the marble hall. 'Now,' said the marquis, 'what think ye? What evil spirits infest these walls? Henceforth be cautious how ye credit the phantasms ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... was watching them during the time, however, and a little later the man who had addressed the two strangers walked away. He passed to the rear of the block, and made his way by a back stairs to a room on the first floor. Here he found the one he was seeking— Mrs. Scarlet—who was engaged in discussing a supper of bread ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... wall or find himself feeling for the curb, hesitant of foot. The wayside shrine was a rift in the gloom, and he knew that he had only a few more steps to take. After all, who was the lady in black and why should he bother himself about her? She probably came from the back stairs of the palace. And yet, the chancellor himself had been in this place. What should he do? Should he wait across the street? Should he knock at the door and ask to be admitted? No; he must skulk in the dark, on the opposite side. He picked his way over the street and stood for a moment ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Professor. 'There's a boat on the canal, blue sails with gold letters "P.P."—Pupil of the Professor. It's waiting. You go down there at once. I'll take the Princess out down the back stairs.' ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... of maps and charts, let me take this pencil and make a little sketch for you. A is the chamber above. In that chamber is Nora. Nora coughs in parting. Then she parts. B is the back hall through which Nora walks. C is the back stairs which she treads. Watts being waiting, she treads—or is it kinder to say trips?—with good blithe speed. D is the side door and E the side porch. Now I ask you, oh master of engineering and weird mechanical and mathematical mysteries, what is to prevent Nora from ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... tales they was tellin'. He is worth the whole bunch of 'em tied in a knot; a gentleman inside and out, and his hand in his pocket ivery time you served him. Ain't that somebody a-callin' ye down the back stairs?" ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice |
