Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Housekeeping   Listen
noun
Housekeeping  n.  
1.
The state of occupying a dwelling house as a householder.
2.
Care of domestic concerns; management of a house and home affairs.
3.
Hospitality; a liberal and hospitable table; a supply of provisions. (Obs.) "Tell me, softly and hastily, what's in the pantry? Small housekeeping enough, said Phoebe."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Housekeeping" Quotes from Famous Books



... housekeeper, Mrs. Bernaner, is even more important than I am, to tell you the truth. She was nurse to our present young master, and she's been in the house ever since. When his parents died, it's some years ago now, she took entire charge of the housekeeping. She was a fine active woman then, and now the young master and mistress couldn't get along without her. They treat her as if she ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... "But how about their housekeeping? I've often heard father tell what a splendid housekeeper mother was, and how he would rather have his wife a good ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... already said, furnished a full proportion of the daily supplies, and the General was the farmer. But the daily task of distribution and arrangement fell to the young ladies, each of whom took her week of housekeeping in turn. The very first morning I was admitted behind the scenes. "If you want anything before breakfast," said one of the young ladies, as the evening circle was breaking up, "come down into the butler's room and get it." And to the butler's room I went; and there, in a calico fitted as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... asking too much of the child, and I do not see how you can do it," was the sharp reply. "I will send for them as soon as I get enough ahead to set up housekeeping," promised Mr. Hill. ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... Coristine has left us never to return." The kindest-hearted woman in the world, having thrown this drop of bitterness into her niece's cup, left her to drink it to the dregs. Meanwhile Orther Lom was dreaming that he could not do better than marry the Marjorie of his youth and begin housekeeping, in spite ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... placidly, and turned a deaf ear to these aspersions of the schoolmistress. Her girls looked well fed and healthy. Bread and scrape evidently agreed with them much better than that reckless consumption of butter and marmalade which swelled the housekeeping bills during the holidays. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... say Miriam recovered my guitar from the Asylum, our large trunk and father's papers (untouched) from Dr. Enders's, and with her piano, the two portraits, a few mattresses (all that is left of housekeeping affairs), and father's law books, carried them out of town. For which I say in all humility, Blessed be God who has spared ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... and delicate references to herself, that he might be led to speak of himself. At last she hit upon domestic affairs as a safe, natural ground of approach, and gave a humorous account of some of her recent efforts to learn the mysteries of housekeeping, and she did not fail to observe his ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... page contained some entries, relating to domestic expenses, in her own handwriting. They recalled one of her efforts to occupy her idle time, by relieving her mother of the cares of housekeeping. For a day or two, she had persevered—and then she had ceased to feel any interest in her new employment. The remainder of the book was completely filled up, in a beautifully clear handwriting, beginning on the second ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... young and newly married, though of this sort there were those who had tried it in flats, and had reverted to their natural condition of boarding. They advised Lemuel not to take a flat, whatever he did, unless he wanted to perish at once. Other lady boarders had broken up housekeeping during the first years of the war, and had been boarding round ever since, going from hotels in the city to hotels in the country, and back again with the change of the seasons; these mostly had husbands who had horses, and they ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... their first meal together in that room would be like. This morning when she insisted upon pouring the coffee and scorched her hand in the attempt and chided him for careless housekeeping, pain showed in his smile. But she did not immediately understand. She only realized how sombre he was; how thin he looked and tired. Again her eyes went to the bandage around his head. It had a fascination for her, even though ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... place, & am therefore determined to do all in my power to prevent such an extremity, which wou'd be essentially detrimental to all parties, but wou'd be more sensibly felt by our dear friend than by us. Provided that our expences in housekeeping do not encrease beyond measure (of which I must own I see some danger), I am willing to go on upon our present footing; but as I cannot expect to live many years, every moment to me is precious, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... fortune being thus happily deposited, and the agent gratified with a present of fifty pieces, he began to put his retrenching scheme in execution; all his servants, Pipes excepted, were discharged, his chariot and running horses disposed of, his housekeeping broken up, and his furniture sold by auction: nay, the heat of his disposition was as remarkable in this as any other transaction in his life; for every step of his saving project was taken with such eagerness, and even precipitation, that most of his companions thought he ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... and its own numbered blanket for use out of doors on damp or chilly days. The doctor visits the school twice a week, and the weight of each child is carefully watched. The busy sister who superintends the housekeeping and the hygienic arrangements seemed to know how much each child had increased already; and she told us what quantities of food were consumed every day. The kitchen and larder were as bright and clean as such places always are in Germany. When ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... was reasonable. In theory, perhaps, the women should have been refined by their housekeeping work; in practice that work necessitated their being very tough. Cook, scullery-maid, bed-maker, charwoman, laundress, children's nurse—it fell to every mother of a family to play all the parts in turn every day, and if that were all, there was opportunity enough ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... they turn into a lounge in the daytime. I thought perhaps you and Miss Cordelia could sleep there. Then I have staterooms for the rest of us—I engaged them all a week ago, of course. Now if you'll come with me I reckon we can set up housekeeping right away," he finished ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... dear, it was the most awful experience. You never can imagine such a life, and such women. They were dressed for a walk at six o'clock; they had breakfast at half-past seven. They went to the village and inspected cottages, and gave lessons in housekeeping or dressmaking or some other drudgery till noon. They walked back to the Castle for lunch. They attended to their own improvement from half-past one until four, had lessons in drawing and chemistry, and, I believe, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... you would like that. The place was not exactly pleasant; and the house accommodations did very well for me, but would not have been comfortable for you. So I have set up housekeeping in another locality. Do you know where a woman named ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... of literary people with whom I was acquainted had rented No. 3 Fifth Avenue, and were operating a cooeperative housekeeping scheme. I became part of the plan and it was there that I first met the Rector of the Church of the Ascension, the Rev. Percy ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... feast. Strange preference of toil and risk of loss to abundance, repose, and joy! Savages barter gold for glass beads. We choose lives of weary work and hunting after uncertain riches, rather than listen to His call, despising the open-handed housekeeping of our Father's house, and trying to fill our hunger with the swine's husks. The suicidal madness of refusing the kingdom is set in a vivid light in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... the freedom of a certain small but desirable Club and who wanted to show Mr. Drury one place where he could have a quiet time of an evening, he went to have dinner. As neither of the gentlemen was known to the housekeeping department a member of the Club—a well-known newspaperman—was asked to inquire their identity. The result was that the Premier of Ontario and his friend left the Club, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... was the spring of '86. Ever since her mother's death, two years before, the family had done "light housekeeping" in three rooms in St. Louis. This 212 West Laurence Avenue, Chicago, was to be her first home—this slab of a ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... were getting to cover the greater part of the time—in the style of a man who camps out. And after a few days' absence in "busting," he would suddenly reappear and turn loose his oxen and start up housekeeping with all the new pleasure of a man who is glad to get back ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... never thinks. They knew that he was furnishing with great splendor, for something had been said about ordering a dinner-service from Limoges, and the two women had striven to make Eve's contributions to the housekeeping worthy of David's. This little emulation in love and generosity could but bring the husband and wife into difficulties at the very outset of their married life, with every sign of homely comfort about them, comfort that might be regarded as positive luxury ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... baked, and just right, and smelled so good, too! I wrapped them in nice white paper that had been wet with brandy, and put them carefully away—one in a stone jar, the other in a tin box—and felt that I had done a remarkably fine bit of housekeeping. The bachelors have been exceedingly kind to me, and I rejoiced at having a nice cake to send them Christmas morning. But alas! I forgot that the little house was fragrant with the odor of spice and fruit, and that there was a ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... he left in New Zealand, invested on mortgage at 10 per cent, the then current rate in the colony; it produced more than enough for him to live upon in the very simple way that suited him best, and life in the Inns of Court resembles life at Cambridge in that it reduces the cares of housekeeping to a minimum; it suited him so well that he never changed his rooms, remaining there thirty-eight years till ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... the plural was merely a bit of verbal embroidery on the caretaking butler's part, and that there was but one kitchen, situated in the basement. However, it was of good size and well furnished with closets, the contents of which stirred Serena's housekeeping curiosity. The inspection of the kitchen and laundry ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the Harpers' pleasant though plain old house at Southcliff, for Hedge End was let, and the three girls were living in Mrs Newing's tiny rooms in Harbour Street—the rooms where Camilla had declared they would be so cosy and comfortable, enjoying a rest from all housekeeping cares. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... the aspects of public life," said I, "which make me feel that we never shall have a perfect state till women vote and bear rule equally with men. State housekeeping has been, hitherto, like what any housekeeping would be, conducted by the voice and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... like a very sick man; he was frightfully thin and pale and very nervous; so was his wife, a delicate lady of good French family. She did the hard work of a planter's wife with admirable courage, and, while she had never taken an active part in housekeeping in France, here she was standing all day long behind a smoky kitchen fire, cooking or washing dishes, assisted only by a very incapable ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... observe that such a scrap was only fit for a mousetrap, and she would reply warmly that men knew nothing about housekeeping, and that it was just the same to the servants if you were to send down a hundredweight of savouries to the kitchen. He would agree, and embrace her enthusiastically. Everything that was just in what she said seemed ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... thank you, dear, all is well," she replied in answer to the girl's question; for she held it to be vulgarity to allude, in her drawing-room, to the trials of housekeeping. She was not touched by such questions because she ignored that she was in any way concerned in them. She spent six hours a day with her servants, but had she spent twenty-four she would have remained secure in her conviction ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... its portraits and tapestries, cases of books, and stands of antique arms, to be a barrack for the mice. This household consisted of his brother-in-law, Gervase (a bachelor of punctual habits but a rambling head); a butler, Billy Priske; a cook, Mrs. Nance, who also looked after the housekeeping; two serving-maids; and, during his holidays, the present writer. My mother (an Arundell of Trerice) had died within a year after giving me birth; and after a childhood which lacked playmates, indeed, but was by no means neglected or unhappy, my father ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... little triangles of toast—made in a particularly fascinating way peculiar to Grannie's housekeeping—without enjoying the scrunch, scrunch between her teeth so much as usual. Even the early strawberries and cream ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... share in the profits of the expedition amounts to quite a handsome sum, which will start us in housekeeping. Messrs. Help Bros., the owners of the ship, have been informed that the 'Viking' will probably return by the 15th or 20th of May; so you may expect to see me at that time; that is to say, in a few ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne

... were massive and even rich, while one might see his face in the dark mahogany of the tables. There were cellarets—the captain being a connoisseur in wines— bureaus, secretaries, beaufets, and other similar articles, that had been collected in the course of twenty years' housekeeping, and scattered at different posts, were collected, and brought hither by means of sledges, and the facilities of the water-courses. Fashion had little to do with furniture, in that simple age, when the son did not hesitate ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... blossoms, set all the doors and windows open, make the hens cackle and the turtles peep,—filling a solemn Puritan dwelling with as much bustle and chatter as if a box of martins were setting up housekeeping ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... the marriage ceremony occurs immediately upon occupation of the dwelling. The ceremony is in two parts. The first is called "in-pa-ke'," and at that time a hog or carabao is killed, and the two young people start housekeeping. The kap'-i-ya ceremony follows — among the rich this marriage ceremony occupies two days, but with the poor only one day. The kap'-i-ya is performed by an old man of the ato in which the couple is to live. He suggestively places a hen's egg, some ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... it was plain that the tenants had done little or nothing to make or keep it a "house beautiful." The walls had never been papered, and the wood-work showed no recent traces of the brush. "He spent more money on horse-racing than on housekeeping," said a shrewd old man who was in the house. In fact, Mr. Dunne, I am told, entered a horse for the races at the Curragh after he had undergone what Mr. Gladstone calls "the sentence of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... Both Stephen and his wife hailed from Lancashire; they had spent many years in service together in a Catholic household about fifty miles distant from Lanedon before they had married and set up housekeeping at the "British Lion." Nor were they so utterly deprived of the consolations of religion as at first sight might appear; four miles away were the military barracks of Melliford, and a Catholic chapel which had been built there—principally ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... old chap! I told them, and they're delighted. We can share housekeeping expenses, and it will be as cheap ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... critically from head to foot, absent-mindedly brushing from his own immaculate person the dust which bore witness to his sister's housekeeping. In his eyes this girl was more than a queen, she was a sort of deity, and she could do no wrong. He was by no means an admirable man himself, but he saw in her all the virtues which he lacked, and his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... unnecessary delicacies, such as fish, only when they were cheap; to be well informed as to the price current of groceries and provisions, so as to buy when prices are low in anticipation of a rise,—all this housekeeping skill is in Paris essential to domestic economy. As Mathurine got good wages and many presents, she liked the house well enough to be glad to drive good bargains. And by this time Lisbeth had made her quite a match for herself, sufficiently experienced and trustworthy to be sent ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... effective help by suggestions that led to the establishment of the first Home for the Friendless, of which there are now seven in charge of the society. In 1854, Industrial schools were added. Cooking, housekeeping, kindergarten, and fresh-air work developed rapidly. There are now twelve industrial schools, where six thousand children are taught. The report of the first semi-annual meeting, held in Utica, N. Y., is in quaint contrast to the reports of the first Suffrage meetings. They say: "The utmost harmony ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... young couple began their housekeeping in a very simple way. Mr. Mitchell used to describe it as being very delightful; it was noticed that Mrs. Mitchell never expressed herself on the subject,—it was she, probably, who had the planning to do, to make a little money ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... him, when it occurred to her that she was too important, and valuable, to be easily spared; and a tenderness thrilled through her, as she looked at the sleeping Margaret's pale face, and thought of surrendering her and little Daisy to Ethel's keeping. And what would become of the housekeeping? She decided, however, that feelings must not sway her—out of six sisters some must marry, for the good of the rest. Blanche and Daisy should come and stay with her, to be formed by the best society; and, as to poor dear Ethel, Mrs. Rivers ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... been sitting upon some eggs in a nest near where the cat had set up housekeeping, and when the cat went out, the hen came over and took the cat's little family under her wings, just as if they had been so many chick-a-biddies. And when the cat went home again, the hen wouldn't let her come near the kittens. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... and talking in a most earnest and excited manner. It was easy to see that she was using all her powers of persuasion to coax Tufty not to go back to his old home, but to help her build a little house out-of-doors, where they could set up housekeeping together. ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... we have lived in Siena we have not once seen the cobwebs removed from the battlements of the Mangia. Can you conceive of such housekeeping? My wife has never yet dared to write it home to ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... picturesque. There used to be a particular type of typhoid known as Roman fever, but now quite unknown, thanks to the Tiber Embankments and to the light and air let into the purlieus of that mediaeval Rome for which the injudicious grieve so loudly. The perfect municipal housekeeping of our time leaves no darkest and narrowest lane or alley unswept; every morning the shovel and broom go over the surfaces formerly almost impassable to the foot and quite ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... the time of each pupil be given to industrial work, which includes most of the labor involved in running the kitchen, dining-room, laundry, sewing-room, and school farm or garden, as well as systematic training in housekeeping, agriculture, and the mechanical trades. The age of graduation is usually from seventeen to twenty-five or even more. This retardation is to be attributed partly to the half-day system; partly to frequent transfers ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... was a charge of two shillings a week for the use of the kitchen-fire, and three shillings a week for service; and these were the only charges in addition to the rent. Thus for $9.75 a week one had all the comforts that can be had in housekeeping, so far as room and service are concerned. There were four good servants,—cook, scullery maid, and two housemaids. Oh, the pleasant voices and gentle fashions of behavior of those housemaids! They were slow, it ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... "It's a queer place to live in; but we're only here for the summer"; and she went on to explain, with a pretty naivete, how her husband's business brought him to Sillery from Quebec in that season. They were descending the stairs, Kitty foremost, as she added, "This is my first housekeeping, you know, and of course it would be strange anywhere; but you can't think how funny it is here. I suppose," she said, shyly, but as if her confidences merited some return, while Kitty stepped from the stairway face to face with Mr. Arbuton, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... properly impressed. Then Steinvor talked of her daughters, of Imperia and Lindamira and Christine: of Imperia's beauty, and of Lindamira's bravery under the mishaps of an unlucky marriage, and of Christine's superlative housekeeping. "Fine women, sir, every one of them, with children of their own! and to me they still seem such babies, bless them!" And the decent little bent gray woman laughed. "I have been very lucky in my children, sir, and in my grandchildren, too," she told Koshchei. "There is ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... of turf sloping to the rocks Estein sat with Osla, drinking in the freshness of the air. She had milked their solitary cow, baked cakes enough for the day's fare, and now, her simple housekeeping over, she was free to ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... believe she'll go," said Lulu, beginning again on the toffy. She was a heavily made girl of twenty, with sleepy eyes and a dull complexion. She took little exercise, was inordinately fond of sweet things, helped her mother a little in the housekeeping, and was intimately acquainted with all the gossip of the village. So was Sarah; but her tongue was sharper than Lulu's, and her brain quicker. She was therefore the unpopular sister; while for Lulu her acquaintances felt rather a contemptuous indulgence. Sarah had had various love ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Frank Farley, who had been a pioneer in the West, a man of singular experiences and of an original turn, who was subject to mental derangement at times. The latter visited him at the Old Manse, afterward, when Hawthorne was alone there, and entered actively into his makeshift housekeeping. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... perfectly. You have the kind of talent, if I may say so, that makes an admirable ruler. When it has a large political field we call it 'administrative ability'; when it has a small domestic one, we speak of it as 'good housekeeping.' It is a precious quality, wherever it appears. You have no scope ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... hear about the cook. The money you spend in housekeeping is enormous. Since your poor mother died I haven't had a day's peace. If it isn't one thing it is another. You are fit for nothing but pleasure and flirtation; there isn't a young man in the place or within ten miles you haven't flirted with. I am often ashamed to look them in the face ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... many of them bearing witness to the fact that their consignment originated from Mitchell's very rivals in the railroad trade. Judging from the quantity of stuff that ricocheted from the Santa Fe it was Miss Dunlap's evident desire to present him with a whole housekeeping equipment as quickly as possible. Louis's desk became loaded with ornaments, his room at Mrs. Green's became filled with nearly Wedgwood vases, candlesticks, and other bric-a-brac. He acquired six mission hall-clocks, a row of taborets stood outside of his door like Turkish sentinels, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... reply, locating the lost craft at Bayonne. Average Jones went thither and identified it. Within its single room was uttermost confusion, testifying to the simplest kind of housekeeping sharply terminated. Attempt had been made to burn the boat before it was given to wind and current, but certain evidences of charred wood, and the fact of a succession of furious thunder-showers in the week past, suggested the reason for failure. In a heap of rubbish, where ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... shelter and fountains. And I am much mistaken if you do not find yourself in a very short time passionately attached to the place. Then the people are simple, courteous, unaffected, full of personal interest. Housekeeping has few ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the ways of life and the style housekeeping habitual to great officers of the Spanish crown were very different from the thrifty manners and customs of Dutch republicans. It was so long since anything like royal pomp and circumstance had been seen in their borders that the exhibition, now made, excited astonishment. It was a land where ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... revealed the fact that in ninety minutes the MacDowell Club would be called to order, and she had promised a poem for the programme. Shades of Sappho! What was to be done? There had been no time in the two weeks since the last meeting, between housekeeping, mending, grinding out of pot-boilers and countless interruptions, to give the matter a thought, and she had never been known to forget such ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... I attend to the housekeeping, and try my best to make home pleasant to you. Then I embroider, I sew, I study. In the afternoon my music-teacher comes, and my English ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... their complaints, but not angrily, and she listened till she grew sick. There were many and formidable claims; promissory notes and I O Us, overdue bills and underdue bills; heavy outstanding debts of all sorts, and trifles, comparatively speaking, for housekeeping, servants' liveries, out-door servants' wages, bread ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... door which he noiselessly turned in the lock. He then began to investigate the premises. Three other rooms communicated with the one of which we had taken possession, forming, evidently, a suite which had been let for housekeeping. Everything was in ill-repair, as is the case with most of the cheap tenements in this locality. The previous tenant had not thought it necessary to clean the apartments when quitting them,—for altruism does not flourish at the North End,—but had been content to leave all the dirt ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... stepped into his father's place, making a home for the children, which sharp Janey rules over, not so softly or steadily as Ursula, with a love of theories and experiments not quite consistent with the higher graces of housekeeping, yet with an honest meaning through it all. As the times are so unsettled, and no one can tell what may become within a year of any old foundation, the trustees have requested Reginald to retain his ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... was attended by a fit of peevish devotion that lasted three or four weeks; during which period she had the additional chagrin of seeing the young lady gain an absolute ascendency over the mind of her brother, who was persuaded to set up a gay equipage, and improve his housekeeping, by an augmentation in his expense, to the amount of a thousand a year at least: though his alteration in the economy of his household effected no change in his own disposition, or manner of life; for as soon as the painful ceremony of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... the birds that the male has a rival after the nuptials have been celebrated and the work of housekeeping fairly begun. Every season a pair of phœbe-birds have built their nest on an elbow in the spouting beneath the eaves of my house. The past spring a belated male made desperate efforts to supplant the lawful mate and gain possession of the unfinished nest. There was a battle ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... was then, and poor, I suppose, he is still in all but love and the favour of God; but in those days the love was but an old servant's (to wit, my own), and the favour of God not evident, but the poverty, on the other hand, bitterly apparent in all our housekeeping. We lived alone, with a handful of servants—sometimes as few as three—in the castle which stands between the sandhills and the woods, as you sail into Veile Fiord. All these woods, as far away as to Rosenvold, had been the good knight his father's, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... small brick dwelling, set midway of an expressionless row and wearing on its front a look of desiccated gentility, stood in one of those forgotten streets where needy gentlewomen do "light housekeeping" in an obscure hinterland of respectability. Hill Street, which had once known fashion, and that only yesterday, as old ladies count, had sunk at last into a humble state of decay. Here and there the edges of porches had crumbled; grass was beginning to ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... feed on the potatoes left in the field, and other roots. Having had to wait for my washing for over a week, as Judy went first to Beaufort to see "him niece," a man grown, who was sick and died, and then was too sick herself, I hunted up some one else and had our washing done. Housekeeping with such young things to look after as Robert and Rose[99] only is not an easy or thoroughly satisfactory proceeding, with so much else to see ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... Lake Superior. I don't care to go abroad again now, and I did not like any plan that was proposed to me. Aunt Anna was here all the afternoon, and she is going to take the house at Newport, which is very pleasant and unexpected, for she hates housekeeping. Mamma thought of course that I would go with her, but I did not wish to do that, and it would only result in my keeping house for her visitors, whom I know very little; and she will be much more free ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... carry on. But I'm getting pretty close to the bone again now, I'm afraid. A bit closer and I shall have to settle down and give music lessons. That's all I'm fit for in future! And Dierdre wouldn't want me to set up housekeeping alone. While I'm on this Red Cross job it's all ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... our family. But now I think she thought it better to go over to her nephew than to start a new life as servant in a strange house. Be that as it may, she advised me to have my own household soon, or get married, so she would come and help me in housekeeping. I believe she liked me more than she did ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... All who have acquired the means of living through labor that is productive and useful to society, and also persons engaged in housekeeping which enables the former to do productive work—i.e., laborers and employees of all classes who are employed in industry, trade, agriculture, etc.; and peasants and Cossack agricultural laborers who employ no help for the ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... trade in his own house. One day he met a friend, a Fuller, and entreated him to come and live with him, saying that they should be far better neighbors and that their housekeeping expenses would be lessened. The Fuller replied, "The arrangement is impossible as far as I am concerned, for whatever I should whiten, you would immediately blacken ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... and in which Gen. Jackson and Mr. Randolph lodged at various times. And adjoining this room was the parlor, a single room of twenty by twenty, containing probably the same furniture he purchased when he first went to housekeeping, all plain now, though elegant in its day, and thoroughly kept; and suspended from the walls of the room were the portraits of his father, Judge Tazewell, a handsome youth of one-and-twenty though a married man at that age, and his bride, a sweet face almost perfectly reflected in the features ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... his death, such active years until toward the end, that you never knew where she was unless you took hold of her, and though she was frail henceforth and ever growing frailer, her housekeeping again became famous, so that brides called as a matter of course to watch her ca'ming and sanding and stitching: there are old people still, one or two, to tell with wonder in their eyes how she could bake ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... than she needs, so they may pay. You must decide how much; only—for the women's sake, and I mean it seriously—be liberal. You know what I need Mammon for; and it would be well for Joanna if she had less need to turn over every silver piece before she spends it in the housekeeping. Besides, the lady herself will be more comfortable if she contributes to pay for the food and drink. It would ill beseem the daughter of Thomas to be down every evening under the roof of such birds of passage as we are ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... prevent it. Curses on him! He knocked me senseless while he was yet a mere boy. And now he has given me a harder blow. He has stolen Rose from under my spectacles, married her, pauper that he is, and gone to housekeeping." ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... do housekeeping like singing at sight; she can read it all off from the page, like the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... what time she had from her housekeeping and her children in doing different pieces of work which Valentine, as her agent, sold for her. The money that she thus received she used partly—she herself would rather go hungry even though she could not see her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... at night, this experience has been mine in civil society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest-fires of Maine and the Adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of Kansas. But a stationary tent-life, deliberately going to housekeeping under canvas, I have never had before, though in our barrack-life at "Camp Wool" I often wished ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... my high horse before I break my neck,—here we are, at honest housekeeping; for we hope to pay the bills. Hope to pay, did I say? We pay as we go; that is the only way here; no stores, no larder, no bins, no garners,—the shops of [170] Paris are all this to every family. ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... delight of showing his prints and engravings; and Torwood, standing by the fire, watching them with the look of a conqueror, and Jaquetta—like the absurd child she loved to be—teasing them with ridiculous questions about their housekeeping. ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... best place to come to for him. And now, Freddy, there's nothing for us to do but to wait, and if we can make ourselves useful here I'm sure we will be glad to do it. We both hate being lazy, and a little housekeeping and farm managing will be good practice ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... his wife had the least qualms of conscience about her removal from the Lodge to Avonside, they would have been dispelled by the sight of the dear little fat woman trotting about, the picture of content, full of housekeeping plans, and schemes for her poultry-yard, her pigeon- house, and her green-house. As for her garden, it was a source of perpetual pride, wonder, and delight. The three years which she had spent at the Lodge—which, in her secret ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... tongues protruded and hands clasped comfortably over bellies containing other people's ancestors—grotesque and ugly devils, every one, but lovingly carved, and ably; and the stuffed natives were present, in their proper places, and looking as natural as life; and the housekeeping utensils were there, too, and close at hand the carved ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... roof, I had two added years of pleasure, walking, driving, and riding on horseback with my sisters. Madge and Kate were dearer to me than ever, as I saw the inevitable separation awaiting us in the near future. In due time they were married and commenced housekeeping—Madge in her husband's house near by, and Kate in Buffalo. All my sisters were peculiarly fortunate in their marriages; their husbands being men of fine presence, liberal education, high moral character, and marked ability. These were pleasant and profitable years. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... in the shop. I'm finding Will a job. You can come back to your old bench in the cellar, Will, and I'll pay you the old wage of eighteen shillings a week and you and me 'ull go equal whacks in the cost of the housekeeping, and if that's not handsome, I dunno what is. I'm finding you a house rent free and paying half the keep of ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse

... the shapes which it assumes foreshadow the fate of the person concerned. Again, seven saucers are placed in a row, filled respectively with water, earth, ashes, keys, a thimble, money, and grass, which things signify travel, death, widowhood, housekeeping, spinsterhood, riches, and farming. A blindfolded person touches one or other of the saucers with a wand and so discovers his or her fate. Again, three broad beans are taken; one is left in its skin, one is half ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... erratic ambitions, or, if his son's word may be trusted, a man of a richly gifted and truly poetic mind. His wife was a few years older and a good deal more ignorant than himself; and when they set up housekeeping together, in a little back room, they rejoiced in being able to nail together a bridal bed out of the scaffolding which had recently supported a dead nobleman's coffin. The black mourning drapery which yet clung to the wood gave them quite a sense of magnificence. Their first child, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... things fall out! In Rome he was engaged to make tarts for Agostine Tassi, a landscape painter. His work was not simply to furnish his master with desserts, but to do general housekeeping, and it fell to his lot to clean Tassi's paint brushes. So far as we know, this was the first introduction of Claude Lorrain to ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... and should walk around on the arm of a strange young man: is that also one of the good old customs? Where can we find anything of the good old manners and customs of our fathers, in the living or eating or housekeeping, or in the clothing, or in balls and society? What! was it so in old times? Do you still talk about old manners and customs? If once we begin to live after the new fashion, let us follow it in all things. Why do we still need to have bedclothes for twenty-four ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous

... course they could. She had seen really possible places, in inaccessible neighbourhoods, which rented far more reasonably. She had seen quite sunny and clean flats for as little as fourteen and sixteen dollars a month. Her housekeeping abilities awakened to the demand. What did she and Bert care about neighbourhoods and the casual dictates of fashion? They were a world in themselves, and they needed no ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... enough for women to do if they are housekeeping, and with sewing, knitting and what recreation we take out of doors, we fill in the time very well. It is much better and pleasanter to be employed, and the time passes much more rapidly than when one is idle, and ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... regular correspondence with Alice and Uncle Richard, and of late they had both pressed me to return home. "You have enough," wrote my uncle, "to give you a start in Toronto, and I see no reason why Alice and you should keep apart any longer. You will have no housekeeping expenses, for I intend you to live with me. I am getting old, and shall be glad of your companionship in my declining years. You will have a comfortable home while I live, and when I die you will get all I have between you. Write as soon as you receive this, and let us know how soon you ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... allow us to accept, anything from them. They never came to see us and we never went to see them. Eileen knows no more about them than I do. We will work upon the supposition that everything that is here belonged to Father. Set aside to Eileen's credit the usual amount for housekeeping expenses. Turn the private account in with the remainder. Start two new bank books, one for Eileen and one for me. Divide the surplus each month exactly in halves. And I believe this is the proper time for the bank ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Matilda to the women. Indoors, Miss Johnson admired everything: the new parrots and marmosets, the black beams of the ceiling, the double-corner cupboard with the glass doors, through which gleamed the remainders of sundry china sets acquired by Bob's mother in her housekeeping—two-handled sugar-basins, no-handled tea-cups, a tea-pot like a pagoda, and a cream-jug in the form of a spotted cow. This sociability in their visitor was returned by Mrs. Garland and Anne; and Miss Johnson's pleasing habit of partly dying whenever she heard any unusual bark ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... kindly little Warren took to his book. The daily sight of the lands which his ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into the hands of strangers, filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valor. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. There, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... care of the house very nice, and what few clothes and things we had were arranged most tidy in three chests with bell locks. I never hear a little bell ting-a-ling to-day but what it brings those days back to me, with her so busy at our funny housekeeping. When I coasted around the island, trading, she 'ud stay behind and guard the place like a bulldog, and never took a thing except a little soap or tobacco or maybe a tin of meat for her Pa, a nosing old gentleman dressed ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... was married to a lovely young lady who once worked an entire piano cover with worsted. They had commenced housekeeping but a few months, when one morning the husband informed his wife that he should invite a friend to dine ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... very guns of this fortress, where all your housekeeping, all your little management, will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... certain about society folk—they will always come where they can be lodged and boarded free! They call it country visiting, but it really means shutting up their houses, dismissing their servants, and generally economising on their housekeeping bills. I've seen SUCH a ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... at this time, to recover with complete certainty the antiquity of the bed. We may presume that the Neanderthal man had a wife (as wives were then understood) and maintained a kind of housekeeping that may have gone no further than pawing some leaves together to sleep on; but this probably was a late development. Earlier we may imagine the wind blowing the autumn leaves together and a Neanderthal man lying down by chance on the pile. He found ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... another's housekeeping better than we English do; and may be the colonel has been explaining ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... A reporter sets up housekeeping close to Beatrice's Ranch much to her chagrin. There is "another man" who complicates matters, but all turns out as it should in this tale of romance ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... Fourier undertakes to construct it for what the building of four hundred miserable cottages would cost, which would not accommodate a much greater number of individuals, and which would fall to pieces after a few years. And as to housekeeping, would not one enormous kitchen replace to advantage four hundred small and ill-appointed kitchens? one vast cellar four hundred little cellars? one gigantic washhouse four hundred damp, wretched outhouses, not worthy of the name? Add to which, that much may be done in these gigantic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... succeed. The landlord told me that he held it at the present time for a very low rent, and that he could just manage to keep it open without loss. The war which hindered people from traveling, and in that way injured the innkeepers, also hindered people from housekeeping, and reduced them to the necessity of boarding out, by which the innkeepers were of course benefited. At St. Paul I found that the majority of the guests were inhabitants of the town, boarding at the hotel, and thus dispensing with the cares of a separate establishment. I do not know ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... what I was trying to do, none of them what it would mean were I to succeed. Being so afraid of failure and the inevitable ridicule in a community where I was already severly criticised on account of my ideas of housekeeping, dress, and social customs, I purposely kept everything I did as quiet as possible. It had to be known that I was interested in everything afield, and making pictures; also that I was writing field sketches for nature publications, but little was thought of it, save as one more, peculiarity, ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... and a sense of disappointment made her heart sink. Remembering her mother's dislike of housekeeping, and her incapacity, Esther had all this time been picturing herself as housekeeper and real mistress of this dear little home, presiding over the kitchen and the neat little maid and generally distinguishing ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... not be difficult to persuade your mother to believe, Louise, that you and I are interested in our camp housekeeping? Miss Mason said the other day you probably would earn a merit badge before the summer was past for cooking over a camp fire. Is this because you are preparing to spend your entire life ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook



Words linked to "Housekeeping" :   housework



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com