"Bodice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the admiring envy of the school-children, whose weekly excitement it was to count them up—nobody would have thought that under the plaited tresses of this young girl's shapely head was a brain seething in revolt, or that the silken laces of her bodice muffled the beatings of a heart suffocated by the luxurious dulness of a life which she now told herself had become insupportable. Cicely had thought a great deal since her visit to London and Muriel's wedding, and had arrived at this conclusion—that ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... in the morning, with a queer, doubtful feeling. Had she dreamed, or had it really happened? She put on her best petticoat and laced her blue bodice; for she thought the mother would perhaps take them across the wood to the little chapel for the Christmas service. Her long hair smoothed and tied, her shoes trimly fastened, downstairs she ran. The mother was stirring porridge over the fire. Toinette ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... she had got very cheap as a bargain at Shaw's when the summer sale was over. The dress was made simply, quite high to the throat, with long sleeves, but the plain skirt and rather severe-looking bodice, with its frill of lace round the throat and wrists, gave Alison that curiously refined, ladylike appearance which was so rare in her station of life. She had a sort of natural instinct which kept her from overdressing, and she always looked the picture ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... so you are really going, are you?" she said. She put her arms round his neck, and drew down his head against her bodice. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... cut-away blue coat, flowered waistcoat, black silk cravat secured by two gold pins chained together, and tightly strapped grey trouserings, had, aided and abetted by a fragile little lady in crinoline and much-flounced skirt, and bodice somewhat low, with corkscrew curls each movement of her head set ringing, planned and furnished it in accordance with the sober canons then in vogue, spending thereupon more than they should, as is to be expected from the young to whom the ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... the woods early and late, setting snares for birds and rabbits, and was ever on the alert for a sight of the Hulder's golden hair and scarlet bodice, the tricksy sprite persisted in ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... be said that the women undressed—they merely threw off the light scarf or bodice that covered their shoulders, but kept on the short skirts, which were no impediment to their graceful movements in the water. The jumpers, of course, were only too glad of the excuse to get out of their very meagre allowance ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Baron could not resist asking Esther to feel the stuff of which the window curtains were made, draped with magnificent fulness, lined with white watered silk, and bordered with a gimp fit to trim a Portuguese princess' bodice. The material was silk brought from Canton, on which Chinese patience had painted Oriental birds with a perfection only to be seen in mediaeval illuminations, or in the Missal of Charles V., the pride of ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... around behind her into the room, and with a rapid movement pulling the now faded rose out of her bodice, she ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... was transforming her husband, she did not forget her own person. She laid aside the silk saya or Filipino skirt and pina cloth bodice, for a dress of European style. She substituted false curls in front for the simple hair dress of the Filipinos. Her dresses, which fitted her "divinely bad," disturbed the peace and tranquillity of ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... is wet," he cried. The odium, the scandal of a flight which would make her name a byword from London to Budapest, that he could envisage; but that this blood upon his coat should stain the dress she wore—no! He saw indeed that the bodice ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... the whilom Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport, had a kind heart, nevertheless, under her old-fashioned bodice. She sincerely pitied this young creature who was passing her days in prayer and her nights in weeping, although she might rather blame her in secret for not appreciating better the honor of a residence at Beaumanoir and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... only covering (for country women at work in those days dispensed with the ornament of a gown) is a green bodice and red petticoat, neither of them over ample—brings out his fishing-rod and basket, and the man, having tied up his hose with some ends ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... usual, but I saw only the floppy red ruffle—and Marjie. Marjie looked sweet and cool in a fresh starched gingham, with her round white arms bare to the elbows, and her white shapely neck, with its dainty curves and dimples. The effect was heightened by the square-cut bodice, with its green and white gingham bands edged with a Hamburg something, narrow and spotless. How unlike she was to Lettie in her flimsy trimmings! Marjie's hair was coiled in a knot on the top ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... murmured the young man vaguely, sinking back in his chair with his arms folded. He looked at Mrs. Luna with intelligent incredulity. She was sufficiently pretty; her hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack with her vivacity; and from beneath the stiff little plaits of her petticoat a small fat foot protruded, resting upon a stilted heel. She was attractive and impertinent, especially the latter. He seemed to think it was a great pity, what she had told him; but he lost himself ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... brilliant in the billowy silken skirts, puffed sleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carried off well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effort to disguise the fact that she was deeply wounded ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... because others neglect them, and in time they will be scarce. When these collections shall be read in another century, how will numberless contradictions be reconciled? and how shall fame be possibly distributed among the tailors and bodice-makers of the present age? ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... such rumours, that, even in that relatively small community, it was the custom to put on low-necked frocks for dinner. It was the first time that Catia had worn a low-necked frock; but she did not find it disconcerting in the least. It did disconcert Brenton very much, however. Its abbreviated bodice did not fit in with his notions of what was seemly for a rector's wife; moreover, to the end of time, he never could find any great degree of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... to the style she had intended, and then she tried it on. As she looked at herself in the mirror the vision of her loveliness surprised and charmed her. She had drawn a blue ribband that she happened to possess, round the arms of the dress and round the bodice of it, and when she saw how this little thread of colour set off the full outlines of her bust and the white roundness of her arms, she could have kissed her image in the glass. She was lovely, prettier than any girl ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... saw and perceived something that I had never noticed before. A fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from sight beneath the edge of her bodice. But my sense of perception dug a modest diamond, and I could even dig the tiny initials engraved in ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... about her beautiful form. In a brighter light you might see that her lips are crimson with the glow of youth, though her face is pale. Her hair, parted in the middle and dressed straight back, and her white gown give her the appearance of a Madonna. In her bodice, she wears a white rose which from time to time she caresses ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... shoulder, completes the costume of most of them, stockings and shoes not being thought of. Some, however, we saw with trousers and long yellow boots, turned over at the tops. They were evidently the dandies of the population. The women appeared in coloured petticoats, with a well-fitting bodice and a red cape. Some wore handkerchiefs instead of the funnel cap, and others mantillas and black hoods, by which the whole face and figure can be concealed. In consequence of the steepness and hardness of the roads, wheeled vehicles cannot be used, and a sort of sledge, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... I'll never forget that first time. She was sitting in one of those palm-filled cafes where the sun sprinkles in across the floor. She was dressed in black, not a funeral black, but one of those fluffy things that make crepe look like royal purple. She had a rose, a long-stemmed rose, in her bodice, and one of those Spanish lace things over her hair. I can see her now,—almost reach out and touch her. I went in and took a table not far away and ordered a drink. Then I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was with an older woman, and, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... whiteness of that delicate setting. The Bourbon curve of the nose added to the ardent expression of an oval face; it was as if the royal temper of the House of Conde shone conspicuous in this feature. The careless cross-folds of the bodice left a white throat bare, and half revealed the outlines of a still youthful figure and shapely, well ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Philippa looked more lovely. She wore her favorite colors—amber and white—a dress of rich amber brocade, trimmed with white lace; the queenly head was circled with diamonds; jewels like fire gleamed on the white breast; there was a cluster of choice flowers in her bodice. He had seen her hitherto as a girl; now he was to see her as the high-bred hostess, the mistress of ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... smiling, her face featly fashioned, the nose high and fairly set, the lips more red than cherry or rose in time of summer, her teeth white and small; and her breasts so firm that they bore up the folds of her bodice as they had been two walnuts; so slim was she in the waist that your two hands might have clipt her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet and ankles, so white was the maiden. She came ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... mechanical doll sent from America (the latest invention) for the Exposition. I was dressed as a Tyrolienne with a red skirt, a black bodice, and a hat with a ridiculous feather sticking out from the back of it, which Prince ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... like a child dressing for her first party. Twice did her hair fall about her shoulders and twice must she gather it up, fingering carefully the long curl, patting it into place; hooking the bodice so that all its modesty would be preserved and yet the line of the throat show clear, shaking out the full, pannier-like skirt until it stood out quite to her liking. Then with a mock curtsey to herself in the glass, she dashed out of the room, up the narrow stairs and into the garret ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by muddy roads, and through the most shattered and tattered of villages, where there is not a whole window among all the houses, or a whole garment among all the peasants, or the least appearance of anything to eat, in any of the wretched hucksters' shops. The women wear a bright red bodice laced before and behind, a white skirt, and the Neapolitan head-dress of square folds of linen, primitively meant to carry loads on. The men and children wear anything they can get. The soldiers are as dirty and rapacious as the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... is not of their race; no! nor even of their time. She stands among them, just as Bergeron saw her, a delicate, timid figurine du dix-huitie'me sie'cle. With her powdered hair and her hooped skirt and her stiff bodice of rose silk, she seems more fit for the consolations of some old Monsignore than for the homage of these frenzied Pagans and the amorous regard of their master. At him, pressing her shut fan to her lips, she is gazing ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... Theatre-Francais, seated on a bench in the upper gallery, near to one of the pillars which, in those days, divided off the third row of boxes. On rising between the acts, he saw a young woman who had just come into the box next him. The sight of this lady, who was young, pretty, well dressed, in a low bodice no doubt, and escorted by a man for whom her face beamed with all the charms of love, produced such a terrible effect on Lambert's soul and senses, that he was obliged to leave the theatre. If he had not been controlled by some remaining glimmer ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... as is the sere and withered blossom of a dead white rose pressed within the leaves of a book of love poems. Just next it, incongruously enough, flaunt the wicked froufrou skirts and the low-cut bodice and the wasp waist of the abbreviated costume in which Cora Kassell used so generously to display her charms. A rich and portly society matron of Pittsburgh now—she whose name had been a synonym for pulchritude these thirty ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... impulse, she went back into the sitting-room, and taking a black-headed pin out of her bodice stuck it amid the leaves of the Bible. Then she opened the Book, and looked at the page the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... stop 'em, old man," said Van Reypen, gravely, "they've got to go through with that green velvet, now they've begun on it. Proceed, Mona. The tunic was trimmed with peplum, wasn't it? and the bodice was cut ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... "Ah-yess! I have recognized it, mooch. It es ze same. Of no change—not even of a leetle. No, she ess always—esso." She stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed her fan below a spray of roses on her full bodice as if to indicate some thrilling memory beneath it, shook her head again, suddenly caught sight of Demorest's serious face, said: "Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs himself at me," and then herself broke into ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing; Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, How the lonely, helpless daughter of ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... were conducting between them a woman dressed as if for the stage, in a short, white, satiny skirt reaching to the knees, pink stockings, and a sort of sleeveless bodice bright with relucent, armour-like scales. Upon her curly, light hair was perched, at a rollicking angle, a shining tin helmet. The costume was to be instantly recognized as one of those amazing conceptions to which competition has harried the inventors of the spectacular ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... with all preparation made, have followed her. But I did neither of these things at the time. I saw her next day leaning bare-elbowed on the ledge of her half-door, her hair in curl-papers, her face the pale unwholesome pinched oval of most London women of her class. Her bodice was pinned across her chest; she was coarse-aproned, new from the wash-tub or the grate. Not a sign upon her but told of her frowsy round. The stale air of foul lodgment was upon her. I found out indeed this much about her ostensible state, that she was the wife of a cab-driver whose name ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... necklace case. She dropped this again, open, on the floor, halfway between the safe and the window. With the case apparently burst open as it fell, and the necklace also on the floor, the stage would be set! She felt inside her bodice, drew out the necklace—and as she stood there holding it, and as it caught the light and flashed back its fire and life from a thousand facets, a numbness seemed to come stealing over her, and a horror, and a great fear, and a dismay that robbed her of power of movement until ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... merciful overmuch—that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she—the naughty baggage—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... herself, returned his kisses. All at once she ceased to struggle, and, vanquished, resigned, allowed him to undress her. One by one he neatly and rapidly stripped off the different articles of clothing with the light fingers of a lady's maid. She had snatched her bodice from his hands to hide her face in it, and remained standing amidst the garments fallen at her feet. He seized her in his arms and bore her towards the couch. Then she murmured in his ear in a broken voice, "I swear to you, I swear to you, that I have never ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Their straight, slender shoulders rebuked Connie's obesity, and Sarah's bent back, her bodice stretched hump-wise from the stuck-out ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... unpleasant-looking person, and evidently her remarks were not palatable to the majority of her auditors. There was a rush, and she was dragged from the base of one of Landseer's lions on which she stood. Her skirt was half rent off her and her bodice split down the back. Finally, she was conveyed away, kicking, biting, and scratching, by a number of police. It was a disgusting sight, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... A woman of about forty-three, with a basket on one arm and walking with a strong stick, came steadily towards the door. She would have been comely if it had not been for a fixed frown which seemed odd on her pleasant, good-tempered face. She wore a print bodice, with a point back and front, and a short bunchy stuff skirt. Though Sarah was well in sight she took no notice of her, but walked straight on towards her, until the latter said with ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... flayed off whole, dried and softened with grease, and rendered supple by wringing. The women wear straw hats in shape like those used by the Chinese. Their defensive armour consists of a helmet of double bulls hide shaped like a broad-brimmed hat; a tunic or bodice of hardened skin three or four fold, which is very heavy, but effectually resists the arrow and spear, and is even said to be musquet proof. When on foot, they have likewise a large unwieldy shield ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... hand—surely she had the prettiest hand in the world—on the ledge of the open window, and her little finger provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it wondered why Joe didn't squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one or two of the modest snowdrops would have become that delicate bodice, and how they were lying neglected outside the parlour window! To see how Miggs looked on with a face expressive of knowing how all this loveliness was got up, and of being in the secret of every string and pin and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... attentive to the attraction of personal odors; and that he experienced this attraction himself is shown by the fact that, as he confessed, when he once had to leave Weimar on an official journey for two days he took a bodice of Frau von Stein's away in order to carry the scent of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... new clothes, Patty, and get dressed," said Elise, who was on her knees before an open suitcase, shaking out Patty's skirt and bodice. "Get off those togs, and get ready to put these on. This is a sweet little Dresden silk; I didn't know you had it. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... way rhinestones may be decidedly decorative, but only a woman with an artist's instinct can use her diamonds at the same time. It can be done, by keeping the rhinestones off the bodice. An artist can conceive and work out a perfect adjustment of what in the mind and hand of the inexperienced is not to be attempted. Your French dressmaker combines real and imitation laces in a fascinating manner. That same artist's ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... have to look charming in any case, and I am already busy with my dress. It is a black silk gown with a tight-fitting bodice. The bodice has windbag sleeves, formed of shawl pieces of guipure lace, and some lilies of the valley on the breast, finished with a waistband of heliotrope velvet, and I am going to wear long black gloves all the ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... were to show you proof? Here is a letter in his own hand, telling all about you and what he meant to do." Angie pulled a crumpled wad of paper from her bodice and held it out, her whole body quivering in triumph. "Read it and then you'll know whether he cares for you or not! Read it, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... have that letter yet!" exclaimed Corona, hastily unbuttoning the front of her bodice and pulling up the little black silk bag which she wore next her heart, suspended from the silken cord around her neck, and taking from it the old, yellow, broken paper which contained the last lines ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... their grandmothers did. They wear a little round black felt hat with rolled rim and two long ribbons hanging down at the back. Their hair is carefully braided and coiled, and stuck through and through with great silver pins. A black bodice, fastened with silver clasps, is covered in front with the ends of a brilliant silk kerchief, laid in many folds around the shoulders. The white shirt-sleeves are very full and fastened up above the elbow with coloured ribbon. If the weather is cool, the women ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... in the expression of her delicate features that Dorothy thought she had never seen so sweet and adorable a creature in all her life. The maiden's gown was soft as satin and fell about her in ample folds, while dainty lace-like traceries trimmed the bodice and sleeves. Her flesh was fine and smooth as polished ivory, and her poise expressed both dignity ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... I did not reply. She wore a silken brocade with little broidered roses here and there, a bodice of the same, cut square over a girl-like neck, white, and not yet filled up. Her long gloves were held up to the sleeve by tightens of plaited white horsehair, which held a red rosebud in each tie; and her hair was braided ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... dazzling splendor—a fabric of the looms of India, a sort of gauze of gold, that seemed to be composed of woven sunbeams, and floated gracefully around her elegant figure and accorded well with her dark beauty. The bodice of this gorgeous dress was literally starred with diamonds. A coronet of diamonds flashed above her black ringlets, a necklace of diamonds rested upon her full bosom, and bracelets of the same encircled her rounded arms. Such a glowing, splendid, refulgent figure as she presented suggested the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of lace and flowers, fastened by a diamond-headed pin; the ringlets that half hid the contours of her face added to her look of youth, and suited her style of beauty. Her foulard gown, designed by the celebrated Victorine, with a pointed bodice, exquisitely fringed, set off her figure to advantage; and a silken lace scarf, adroitly thrown about a too long neck, partly concealed her shoulders. She played with the dainty scent-bottle, hung by a ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... reflected in the rippling waves of the ever-rolling waters. Youths in the gayest dresses strutted away their proud hour of triumph with that graceful vanity of pretension which youth so well becomes, or flirted with the tender maidens, who in silver-laced bodice and scarlet skirt, with their brows encircled with interwoven wild flowers, sat round the brink of the fountain, where the murmurs of the ever-falling waters could best conceal the murmurs of love. And ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... all the children gave amusing amateur theatricals, gotten up by Lorraine and Ted. The acting was upon Laura Roosevelt's tennis court. All the children were most cunning, especially Quentin as Cupid, in the scantiest of pink muslin tights and bodice. Ted and Lorraine, who were respectively George Washington and Cleopatra, really carried off the play. At the end all the cast joined hands in a song and dance, the final verse being devoted especially ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... and the half was—well, I was not quite sure what it was at first, though I could see that it was pretty. It was pale green and there were two parts of it. The bigger of the two (it was not very big) was of soft silk, and extremely fluffy. It had a low-necked and short-sleeved bodice, and attached to that was a skirt—or something that would have been a skirt if it had had more time to grow. The second part was silk, too, but more difficult to describe. Perhaps I'd do best to say that it was like long stockings, only it was in one piece and evidently ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... opened, and Mistress Jocelyn Percy came into the great room, like a sunbeam strayed back to earth. Her skirt was of flowered satin, her bodice of rich taffeta; between the gossamer walls of her French ruff rose the whitest neck to meet the fairest face. Upon her dark hair sat, as lightly as a kiss, a little pearl-bordered cap. A color was in her cheeks and a laugh on her lips. The rosy light of the burning pine caressed ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Josephine, in her large-heartedness, had a pair of scissors brought; she then cut her dress into several pieces sufficiently large for a vest, and divided them among the gentlemen present, so that only the bodice of the dress remained, with a small piece around the waist But this improvised spencer over the white richly-embroidered under-dress, was so exceedingly becoming to the empress, and brought out so exquisitely her beautiful ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... to predict some great event which would revive curiosity and increase faith. Pere Lactance therefore announced that on the 20th of May three of the seven devils dwelling in the superior would come out, leaving three wounds in her left side, with corresponding holes in her chemise, bodice, and dress. The three parting devils were Asmodeus, Gresil des Trones, and Aman des Puissances. He added that the superior's hands would be bound behind her back at the time ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... give you a little of this cheese?" said Maryanne. What a story such a question told of the heartlessness, audacity, and iron nerves of her who asked it! What power, and at the same time what cruelty, there must have been within that laced bodice, when she could bring herself to make ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... at the foot of the stairway, accompanied by three instruments, sang the Elsa's Dream Song. The wedding party came downstairs as the orchestra played Wagner's Wedding March. The bride was dressed in duchess satin of soft ivory tone, the bodice high and long sleeves, with trimming of jewelled point lace. The bridesmaids wore pale yellow cloth, with reveres and cuffs of daffodil yellow satin and white Venetian point. Mrs. Harris wore a gown ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... Fairtail relates a pretty story how their Maid was very curiously stitcht up by their Tailor; and how she was every foot running thither, then to have a hole finely drawn that she had torn in her Petti-coat, another while to have her Bodice made a little wider, and then again to have her ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... of his gentle, sweet-faced wife. She was painted seated, a little son on either side of her; and now in the dimness she looked out from the heavy gold frame, a half smile playing about her lips, on her lap an open book, and about the low-cut crimson velvet bodice rare old lace pinned at the bosom with a large brooch of wrought gold, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... creamy. Spread it all over a soft cloth as large as the back (having first warmed the cloth), and then place it gently on the back, lather side next the skin. Let this be done at bedtime. Fasten the cloth on the back with a bodice that will fasten closely, and let the patient sleep on it. Wash off in the morning with warm vinegar and water half-and-half. Rub with oil and dry off. Let the patient take twice a-day, for eight days, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... if a hundred years ago Those close-shut lips had answered "No!" When forth the tremulous question came That cost the maiden her Norman name, And under the folds that look so still The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill— Should (we) be (we), or could it be One-tenth ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... dressed in a silk petticoat of almost lemon yellow and an azure-colored silk bodice that left her arms and shoulders bare to the light that played on them from three small oil lamps above her. Her feet and ankles were also bare, except for the matting sandals into which her toes were thrust. On one thin arm glimmered an extraordinarily ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... looking at her for some moments, and waiting for her to speak, he went and seated himself at his papers again. His back was turned to her—she began to hear the scratching of his pen. She remained near the door, with her heart thumping beneath her bodice; and she was very glad that his back was turned, for it seemed to her that she could more easily address herself to this portion of his person than to his face. At last she began, watching ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... fastened his shirt front, and his necktie was tied in a butterfly bow. He displayed some of the nonchalant ease which wealth and position create, smiled a little on catching sight of the jersey worn by a lady who had neglected to fasten the back of her bodice, and strove to decipher the impression the faces conveyed to him. He grew aware of that flitting anxiety which is inseparable from the task of finding a daily living, and that pathos which tells of fidelity to idea and abstinence ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... waist and shoulders. There should be no steels or kindred impediments, which have to be considered in sitting down. A durable wool material, thicker in winter, thinner and lighter in colour and texture in summer, is always the most durable, and keeps its freshness longer. The bodice should fit well and comfortably at the neck and round the arm-holes, so that there ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... rambling tale of a hard-hearted dressmaker who, having had a new frock back for alteration, had taken upon herself to return the skirt, without the bodice, with an intimation that she was retaining the delayed portion until her long account was settled. Hence Mrs. Vivian found herself with what she called a most important engagement, without the equally important new ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... will take this dress away. It is not fit to put on." She held the bodice in her hand, and as she spoke she shook it in Olive's face. "The stitches are all awry; they are enormous; and half the embroidery is blue and the other half green. I shall make her pay for the material. The dress is ruined, and it is the last she shall make for ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... lady whose dress the papers described as "a costume of brown brocade and lace" played beautifully. Another "dressed in grey satin and chiffon" sang charmingly. A third who wore "a skirt of black and a primrose bodice trimmed with lace" recited with much talent, and a galaxy of the belles of New York, ladies of society, and professional stars of the pen, the platform and the stage combined to make feel at home. I had to acknowledge in ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... the Robin a doublet of red, And a new velvet cap for the Goldfinch's head; He added a plume to the Wren's golden crest,[3] And spangled with silver the Guinea-Fowl's breast; While the Halcyon[4] bent over the streamlet to view How pretty she looked in her bodice of blue! ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... soft tones of the velvet lost in the shadows of the floor, and melting into the walls behind her; the high lights on the bare shoulder and arms divided by the severe band of black; the subdued grays in the fall of lace uniting the flesh tones and the bodice; and, more than all, the ringing note of red sung by the japonica tucked in her hair and which found its only echo in the red of her lips—red as a slashed pomegranate with the white seed-teeth showing through. The other side of her beautiful self—the side ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... work, reached her ankles; a cloth skirt, almost without fulness, came a little below the knee, and was covered, to within three or four inches of its edge, by an equally scanty one of red and white cotton, with a kind of loose bodice and sleeves, attached to it; a blanket, fastened round her shoulders in such a manner that it could be drawn over her head like a monk's cowl, completed her dress. A little brown baby, tightly swathed in an old shawl, lay at her feet, exposed, seemingly without discomfort, to the hot glare of ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... my head, I dived in to rescue him. A real scene ensued. We were dragged out with such energy that the lady lost her skirt, and on reaching the pier fled for the boat-house clad only in a bonnet and bodice over a bathing-suit. Although the local press wrote up the affair as genuine, the secret somehow leaked out, and we had to make our bow at the prize distribution the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... room, she stripped off her dinner-dress and shoes, and re-dressed in morning things. Her hands trembled so violently that she could hardly fasten her bodice ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... woman. She had a slim perfect figure; quite simply she carried her head so high and her shoulders so square that her back seemed to be hollowed out, and no tightness on the part of a bodice could hide this charming concavity. Her face was handsome with its large regular features; one noticed the abundant black hair under the hat, the thick eyebrows, the brown and opaque skin, the teeth impeccably white, and the firm, unyielding mouth and chin. Underneath the ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... head-gear; the strings were rolled up till they looked like ropes which had been knotted under her chin. A veil, as large and black as a pirate's flag, floated down her back; her shawl was at sixes and sevens; one side of her dress had got torn from the bodice, and trailed on the ground leaving a broadly-marked line of dust on the carpet. She looked as if she had no petticoats on; and her boots—those were the days ere side-springs and buttons obtained—were one laced unevenly, and the other tied on ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... small picture inclosing a brownish landscape with a blue and white sky, and the broad black frame of the picture of Cupid tell strongly, yet fall into plane behind the figure in white satin—quite a different quality of white, and warmer and brighter than the wall. The bodice is a steely blue silk, which is repeated in the velvet seat of the chair; while the blue and white landscape upon the open lid of the spinet repeats the blue and white landscape on the wall, and the blue and white motive is subtly re-echoed in a subdued key in the ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... agreed that if people had to come all the way out in gondolas, certain existing enterprises might as well go out of business. The steamer was full of Venetians, and we saw that they were charming, though momma wishes it to be understood that the modern Portia wears her bodice cut rather too low in the neck and gazes much too softly at the modern Bassanio. Poppa and I thought it mere amiability that scorned to conceal itself, but momma referred to it otherwise, admitting, however, that she found it fascinating ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... feet four inches in her high-heeled shoes, and—in honour of her younger son's safe arrival home—was garbed, in the height of the prevailing mode, in a gown of brown velvet that exactly matched the colour of her hair, with long pointed bodice heavily embroidered with gold thread, voluminous farthingale, long puffed sleeves, ruffed lace collar, lace stomacher, and lace ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... in a black skirt, with a scarlet velvet bodice which did justice to her brilliant complexion and soft, dark hair, paused in the act of turning out a number of glittering glass balls ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... antimony. Her long-hair neatly smoothed down is tied into a knot at the back, and glistens with the pearl-like ornaments. The taper arm is loaded with armlets and bracelets. The very toes are bedecked with rings. The bodice hides the taper waist and budding bosom, the tiny ear is loaded with jewelled ear-rings, the very nose is not forgotten, but is ornamented with a golden circle, bearing on its circumference a pearl of great price. The art, the posturing, the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... hostess in conversation, but gathered in groups, or walked about the room gazing at the many beautiful pictures and ornaments. There were only three or four really vulgar-looking women present, and they were clothed in conspicuous raiment. One, and all but her waist was huge, wore a bodice of transparent gauze; another, also of middle years, had crowned her hard over-coloured face with a large gentian-blue hat turned up in front with a brass buckle. Another was in pink silk and heavily powdered. But although these women were offensively loud, they did ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... commendation—enjoyed an hour's rest, taken coffee, and were rising to depart, when the landlady appeared with a hop, skip and jump. She was a lively, voluble little woman, who, though she had attired herself for us in two enormous cloth petticoats, a stuff bodice and yards of Bohemian lace in frills and ruffles, by way of displaying the wealth of her wardrobe, bobbed and curtseyed as if set on wires. Great was the difficulty, between the amusing, friendly wife and the husband proud of her and his inn, either to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... not good enough," she said, twisting her lip, "and I shall make her give me some more embroidery than that on the bodice—for the money—I can tell her! However, it is pretty—much prettier, isn't it, Benson, than that gown of Lady Evelyn's I took it from? She'll be jealous!" The girl laughed triumphantly. "Well, now, look here, Benson, we're going on Saturday, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... By the heave of her bosom it was plain to see that either her fears still possessed her or that she had been running for dear life, and must catch breath. Her hand went up to her bodice. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... little gravel way to the Four Corners. Suddenly she appeared standing on the big grooved millstone which served as a horse-block. Her white dress had an under bodice of pink, that gave her more than ever the appearance of an ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... stockingless feet. She, too, is entirely at her ease and unconscious of her costume, except for a shy suspicion that it becomes her, and she, it. Her waist is of its natural size and in its proper place. Her shoulders are covered, and her arms have free play; and although her bodice is cut rather low, the rising chemise and the falling kerchief redeem it from all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... a deal of material. You wouldn't like them not to be full and 'andsome. Just another two yards!" There was nothing else for it, so I promised to go up to town next morning (I couldn't possibly go that day), and impressed upon the wretch to finish the bodice first,—as, if necessary, we could do with less trimming on the skirt. My dear, the worst is still to come! The shop was sold out of the shade of voile, and could not get it again, and when I went back to Miss Green, she had ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... wooden chalet. She, too, favours the national green; but, as relief, there is no lack of bonny red ribbons, to flutter in the wind, and, underneath the ornamented skirt, peeps out a bright-hued petticoat. Around her ample breast she wears a dark tight-fitting bodice, laced down the front. (I think this garment is called a stomacher, but I am not sure, as I have never liked to ask.) Her square shoulders are covered with the whitest of white linen. Her sleeves are also white; and being very full, and of some soft lawnlike material, suggest ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... come forth varied like nature, or oftener than she, and better by the help of art, her emulous servant. This do I affect: and how will you be able, lady, with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but necessary instructions, for that bodice, these sleeves, those skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that fanne, the t'other scarf, these gloves? Ha! ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... a salad-green bodice on her elder daughter. That young woman's efforts to see her own spine, where her mother was distributing pins with solemn intentness, had dyed her face a somewhat unnatural red, but the hands that lay ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... that power lies in a saltatorial ensemble of white lace skirts, pale blue hose, lustrous naked arms, undulating bodice, magnetic eyes, flying hair, and an unchanging smile, to focus the perceptions of a man, to absorb his consciousness, aided by a tune which seems to close out from him all ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... that remaining where I was, partly hidden behind a large easel, I watched it for awhile in silence. Above a heavily flounced blue skirt, which fell in creases on the floor and trailed a couple of yards or so behind, it wore a black low-cut sleeveless bodice—much too big for it—of the fashion early Victorian. A good deal of dark-brown hair, fastened up by hair-pins that stuck out in all directions like quills upon a porcupine, suggesting collapse with every movement, was ornamented ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... gateway of the White Hart, into the court, but before listening to them, the monk exchanged greetings with the hostess, who stood at the door in a broad hat and velvet bodice, and demanded what cheer there was ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... underskirts. Long skirt of dark blue, made very full around the bottom. This skirt is patched with squares of dark red and striped goods. Large blue gingham apron edged with stripes of dark red. White waist. Blue bodice of same material as skirt. Small white cap fitting close to head in back, but turned back in front with points over each ear. Face round and rosy. If the wooden shoes are not easily obtained, fair substitutes may be made by covering ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... goes to town every wretched female inhabitant, not to mention one's own wife, has the power and the right to give him a crowd of commissions. The wife orders you to run into the modiste's and curse her for making a bodice too wide across the chest and too narrow across the shoulders; little Sonya wants a new pair of shoes; your sister-in-law wants some scarlet silk like the pattern at twenty copecks and three arshins long.... Just wait; I'll ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... is rather put out," said Mrs. de Noel in her slow gentle way. "It is all my fault. I forgot to pack up the bodice of my best evening gown, and Parkins says it is the only one I look ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... looked like a family of small farmers on a visit to London town. Pa was greatly amused, enjoyed his daughter's aristocratic ways, admired her refined air. When they went out, in obedience to a look from Lily, he bought her a bunch of violets, which he pinned to her bodice himself: ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... female, dress with far greater taste and ascetic originality than the christian natives. The women are fond of gay colours, the predominant ones being scarlet and green. Their nether bifurcated garment is very baggy, the bodice is extremely tight, and, with equally close-fitting sleeves, exhibits every contour of the bust and arms. They use also a strip of stuff sewn together at the ends called the jabul, which serves to protect the head from the sun-rays. The end of the jabul ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the rainbow had a place in her costume for the occasion: The bodice was of light blue silk; the skirt orange; encircling her small waist was a green sash; while her jet-black hair was fastened with a crimson ribbon. Diamonds flashed from the earrings in her ears as well as from ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... it out, and all the yellow of age was revealed in the full gathers of the skirt, a shade passed over Loveday's spirit. How small and tight the bodice looked, how skimpy even the plaits of the skirt for the present modes ... yet it had been a good linen in its day, there was no doubt of that, this frock that had been stitched for ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... Adelgisa held her skirt, white gauntleted gloves, and riding whip daintily in one hand,—her hat, a three-cornered piece of coquetry, lay ready for wear, on a garden-seat hard by,—a blush rosebud was fastened carelessly in her close-fitting bodice, which was turned back with embroidered gold revers, and over her head, great forest trees, heavy with foliage, met in an arch of green. John Walden stood for a quiet three minutes, studying the picture intently and also the superscription: "Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, Born May ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... from the lane was the last shot of the battle. Eagle valiantly sleeked her disarrayed hair, the breast under her bodice still heaving and sobbing. The June sun illuminated a determined child of the gray eyed type between white and brown, flushed with fullness of blood, quivering with her intensity ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... This had sharpened the tip end of her tongue to so fine a point that when it became active—and once in a while it did—it could rip a sham reputation up the back as easily as a keen blade loosens the seams of a bodice. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Often, from not knowing enough of Italian and Italian ways, I get hot all over when an ordinary discussion is going on, thinking that blows are about to be exchanged. The Mother-Aunt had hung a wonderful satin skirt out of window for decoration; and when she leaned over it in a bodice of the same color, it looked as if she were sitting with her legs out as well! I suppose it was this peculiar effect that, when the King and Queen came by earlier in the morning, won for her a ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... notable occasion, when Hallie led me to the bedroom of her grown-up sister, and exhibited to me with awe-struck pride the dress her sister was to wear to the Sumner Light Guards' ball that night. It was a blue tulle with a fine frost of spangles over the bodice, and it seemed too dazzling to belong to a creature less wonderful than a fairy. But when Hallie went on, in a cautious whisper lest we be discovered, to confide to me that when she was grown up and out of school her mother had promised to give her a party, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... Arabella had been when they sported along the same track some months earlier. These pedestrians turned to stare at the extraordinary spectacle she now presented, bonnetless, her dishevelled hair blowing in the wind, her bodice apart, her sleeves rolled above her elbows for her work, and her hands reeking with melted fat. One of the passers said in mock terror: ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... sniffed derisively. "You men are all alike," she snapped. "What do you think Ann wears that pink bodice for?" ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... journey was still perfectly dressed, no doubt by the maid without whom these fine ladies never venture themselves abroad; the rings which sparkled on the thin fingers; the single string of pearls, which alone relieved the severity of the black bodice. She noticed the light, distinguished figure, the beauty of the small head; and her hostility waxed within her. John's smart friend belonged to the pampered ones of the earth, and Miss Anna did not intend to be taken in by her, not ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the same scent of decayed cabbage leaves in the air. Denis Donohoe took a sack of hay from the top of the creel of turf, and spread some of it on the side of the road for the donkey. While he did so a woman who wore a white cap, a grey bodice, a thick woollen red petticoat, under which her bare lean legs showed, came to the door, waving the yellow ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... changed her personality with her clothes, and whirled in astride over two horses with neither saddle nor bridle, guiding them and keeping them together by the pressure of her feet. She had full skirts, to her knees, of white satin, and pearl-coloured silk stockings. Her satin bodice was cut heart-shaped and there was a high jewelled band round her long throat. Her hair hung down in a thick plait, tied with ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... caught the reflection of a bright face, surrounded by heavy chestnut curls, and lighted with clear hazel eyes, and flashing teeth, a head of queenly shape and poise, and a firm, graceful figure, well set off by its white dress, black bodice, and scarlet ribbons,—a charming picture, with the quaintly decorated chamber for background, and the heavy black frame of the old mirror for setting: and a brighter color washed into the young girl's cheek as she recognized the ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... sleeves, shoes, and the bosom of her dress with the yellow blossoms, and I often found these fragrant tokens of her presence scattered about my house after she had been there. Once, when we were all out walking together, she stopped to pick some from a bush, and as she was putting them into her bodice she made a remark which gave me ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... yards away from us, over the dark water, was Mildred. She stood on a slender azure cylinder that came just to the surface. Tall, slender, superbly graceful, with only the scant bodice of green silken stuff about her, she looked like the statue of a goddess in white marble. Her head was thrown up, golden-brown hair fell behind her shoulders, and the pure notes of her ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... Mary Denison was going to her work, Lena rapped on the window, and called her attention by signs to the bodice she had on. It was a gay striped silk, little worn, but still showing, in spite of pressing, the marks of crumpling and tossing. The bright colors suited Lena's dark skin well, and as she stood there with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... decidedly a German face of the higher type, and such as is seldom found among the lower or even middle classes. And yet you instinctively felt that it belonged to the latter, notwithstanding the richness of the dress, from the pearl-embroidered cap set jauntily on the reddish golden hair to the velvet bodice and the satin peasant waist. The hands, small and dimpled like those of a child, were clasped around a prayer-book and a bunch of wild flowers which had evidently just been gathered. It was a marvelously beautiful face, pure and sweet as that of a Madonna, and the workmen involuntarily ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... (in blue chucu, white cotton bodice, and red mantle secured by a golden topu or pin, set with emeralds, and a blue skirt), and the princess CUSI COYLLUR (in a chucu, with feathers of the tunqui, white bodice and skirt, and grey mantle with topu, set with pearls) ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... scarlet satin which were tightly bound about the slender ankles by jewelled bands, displaying to advantage the tiny feet, clad in boots of soft, yellow kid, fantastically wrought with gold threads; the robe parted over a bodice of yellow, open at the throat, around which chains of gold and jewels ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... needs no fillip. It is disgraceful to try and make me eat more than I do already. I am getting hideously stout. I found my maid in tears to-night because I positively could not get into my most becoming bodice." ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rapture. And she played on her lute, too, on the lute he had given her of old, those slender fingers making ravishing music on the many-stringed instrument, though her pose as she played was more witching still. What a beautiful glimpse of white shoulders and dainty lace her straight-cut black bodice permitted! ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... was turned, for the bridal party was advancing. Slowly down the aisle came M'haley, in the pink chiffon gown from Paris. Mom Beck's quick needle had altered it considerably, for in some unaccountable way the slim bodice fashioned to fit Lloyd's slender figure, now fastened around M'haley's waist without undue strain. The skirt, though turned "hine side befo'," fell as skirts should fall, for the fulness had been shifted to the proper places, and the broad sky-blue ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... drawing-rooms and dining-rooms gives ample opportunity for a harmless deception in these days, and the blue half-circles were not seen round Helena's eyes, nor would any of the company in the drawing-room have guessed that the heart under that silken bodice was bleeding. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... herself down upon a gilt tabouret which stood near. It was much lower than the Prelate's seat, and he could not fail to look down into the deep decolletage of her bodice. He moved away a little, while a faint flush rose ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... peasant girls were busy working, hacking the ground, their faces illuminated by the wonderful sunset glow. They wore short full peasant skirts edged with bright-coloured ribbons, and each had a gaily coloured scarf pinned round the neck and bodice. ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... the middle of the duet Mrs. Maper herself burst in, with her bodice half hooked and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and wherever she went the wooers flocked on her path. Bjarne shook his head at her, and often had harsh words upon his lips, when he saw her braiding field-flowers into her yellow tresses or clasping the shining brooches to her bodice; but a look of hers or a smile would completely disarm him. She had a merry way of doing things which made it all seem like play; but work went rapidly from her hands, while her ringing laughter echoed through the house, and her sunny presence made it bright in the ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... on the right is the mantle of St. Cecilia; others are the bodice of St. Agnes, St. Stephen's robe, a prophet's tunic; and above these, before reaching the lapis-lazuli border of sky, the robe ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in crimson satin with cunningly-wrought silver embroideries, trimmed with tufted silver fringe, her stomacher stiff with silver bullion studded with gold rosettes and Roman pearls, her bodice cut low to display her splendid neck, decked by a carcanet of pearls and rubies, and surmounted by a fan-like cuff of guipure, high behind and sloping towards the bust. Thus she appeared to the sentinel as the rays of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... was both happy and sad when the dear maid took a flower from her bodice and gave it to him as a token of remembrance. He solemnly tucked it away in a pocket, stammered his farewells, and went to join his uncle who waited in the yawl at the wharf. Once on board the Plymouth Adventure, they were swept into a bustle and ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... her husband had ordered for her from a fashionable dressmaker in Posen. She could very well have worn her blue silk again if the rats had not been nibbling it! However, this filmy white gauze, with its long flowing sash and a small bouquet of artificial roses for the bodice and another for the hair, was certainly much prettier; there was an underskirt of silk, too, which rustled and swished every ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... as no other house in Seville could have boasted. She had arrayed herself for the interview with an almost wanton cunning that should enhance her natural endowments. Her high-waisted gown, low-cut and close-fitting in the bodice, was of cloth of gold, edged with miniver at skirt and cuffs and neck. On her white bosom hung a priceless carcanet of limpid diamonds, and through the heavy tresses of her bronze-coloured hair was coiled a string of lustrous pearls. Never had Don Rodrigo found her ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... of his wife, who was a dark and very beautiful Spanish woman, would have strengthened this idea. She wore a dress of black silk with velvet bodice and sleeves, tastefully embroidered. A mantilla of dark cloth covered her shoulders, and on her head was a low broad-brimmed hat, similar to those usually worn by men, for a bonnet is a thing unknown to the ladies of Spanish America. A single ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown—which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of—till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... just as greedy of your work as before. I sometimes wish," she went on, with a laugh that had a touch of real merriment in it, "that ladies were made with hair like a cat, I am so tired of the everlasting bodice and skirt!—Only what would become of us then! It would only be more hunger for less weariness!—It's a downright dreary ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... was wearing an old black dress many sizes too big for her. Great pleats of it were secured by pins in unexpected places, so that quaint chaos was made of the scheme of decoration—black velvet and bugles—on the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged, fat, second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago for synagogue wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous. Preposterous too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in black, with a cheap black ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... season: one white moss-rosebud in her smoothly-braided hair; her dimpled, round, white shoulders left to their own adornment; and for jewels, only one opal on her ripening bosom;—as much of her dress as was shown was the simple white bodice of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... to consciousness when Mrs. de la Vere joined the kindly women who were loosening her bodice and chafing her ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to the strangers. They were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress. Yet Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect, although he could not quite determine what it was, in the little while that he had to ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various |
