"Chambermaid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dream of making love to a chambermaid, shows he is likely to find himself an object of derision on account of indiscreet conduct ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... door opening into the garden, sat George, the doctor's man, who was coachman, groom, and gardener, and who, having picked a basket of peas, had been requested to shell them. By an open window, Amanda, the chambermaid, was extracting the stones from a little dish ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... in such schemes as should have nerved her woman's heart to indignation rather! Marry that man! I would have cut off my own right hand, or burnt it to a cinder like Scaevola; sooner gone out to service—played chambermaid on the boards, or the tragedy-queen of the commonest melodrama, far rather! It was all insult, injury, degradation, in whatever light I could view it, and every feeling in my nature was stung ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... proved a decided hit, and was received with shouts and acclamations. Not a little done over, the old statesman was now regaled on delicious krout and gin-slings, and put carefully to bed by a Dutch chambermaid. This was at three o'clock in the afternoon. At seven I marshalled all hands for a grand banquet, which had been prepared without any regard to expense, it being intimated that Uncle Sam would settle for the ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... to this difficult question, the chambermaid interrupted my reverie, by warning me in a shrill voice, that it was very late, and that she had called ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... groom, butler, and errand boy. I have already stated that no other domestic, male or female, lived in the house: Hugot, therefore, was chambermaid as well. His manifold occupations, however, were not so difficult to fulfil as might at first appear. The Colonel was a man of simple habits. He had learned these when a soldier, and he brought up his sons to live like ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the couple were short of money, and they sold a house, concealing the fact that it was mortgaged. Being charged by the purchaser, they were thrown into prison, where they aggravated their offence by suborning two witnesses, one a priest, the other a chambermaid. Fortunately for ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... jumped out of bed and protested in loud and profane language. I paid no attention to his protest and then he rang his bell long and violently. As I wanted to make a respectable appearance at breakfast, I kept on stropping diligently. This added to his indignation, and when the chambermaid entered his den in response to the bell, he ordered her to go into my room and stop the noise. She rushed toward me and intimated that the gentleman was at the point of death—that he might die at any moment from ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... The chambermaid took a key hanging from a large black wooden tablet on which were arranged the numbers in white in two rows, and signed to the young traveller ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... that servant of Captain Jones; but then they all are. Valet, cook, porter, boots, chambermaid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coal-heaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... Addington—Dr. Addington suggested it! Because I fancied—it could not give you pleasure to see me like this?' she continued with a flashing eye, her passion for a brief moment breaking forth. 'Or to go back a month or two and call me child? Or to speak to me as to your chambermaid? Or even to give me ten ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... lived down-stairs in two vaulted rooms with little windows designed for the farm-hands; the farmhouse was plain, and the place smelled of rye bread and vodka, and leather. He rarely used the reception-rooms, only when guests arrived. Ivan Ivanich and Bourkin were received by a chambermaid; such a pretty young woman that both of them ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... brought up to do their own work. That tall, fine-looking girl, for aught we know, may yet be mistress of a fine house on Fifth Avenue; and if she is, she will, we fear, prove rather an exacting mistress to Irish Bridget; but she will never be threatened by her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or two have ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... me appeared conclusive. I gave the chambermaid a parting chuck under the chin—no one being ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... thinking," he went on. "You think that if you lie there long enough, you'll be all right, for when the chambermaid comes to do up the room, I must let her in, or else I'll have to say you're sick, and then the Chippertons will ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... but almost approve them. But when one personally encounters this corduroy braggadocio; when the man to whose services one is entitled answers one with determined insolence; when one is bidden to follow "that young lady," meaning the chambermaid, or desired, with a toss of the head, to wait for the "gentleman who is coming," meaning the boots, the heart is sickened, and the English traveler pines for the civility—for the servility, if my American friends choose ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... distinguished, because somebody else always pays the bills, although there has never yet been invented any painless dentistry for extraction of the purse. The room clerk in the hotel was new to her job, and so was the boy who conducted the Judge to his room; but, sad to relate, the chambermaid winked at the Judge and blew him a kiss. She was rather pretty too. Now to have a pretty chambermaid blow one a kiss when he arrives in a fine hotel is not objectionable to most travelers. It shows such a friendly spirit, and makes one feel at home, or else fancy that he is ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... his teeth and grinned and said, "If you don't ask for what you want you won't get it. You said tea, and you've got tea, you never mentioned sugar and milk." Then he bounced off, and when the lift boy whistled as he brought me up, and the Irish chambermaid began to chat to Octavia, she said she could not bear it any longer, and Tom must go out and find another hotel. So late last night we got here, which is charming; perhaps the attendants are paid extra for ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... when he passed her in the passage. He looks in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous changes in his person. His fears have no foundation in fact—or should I say in the flesh? A year after the duchess makes overtures, the chorus girl threatens to throw up her engagement for him, and the chambermaid pesters him with unnecessary questions concerning baths and towels. These facts tend to show, indeed I think they prove, that love is a magnetism, which sometimes we possess in almost irresistible ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... chanced that Susan, the chambermaid, was about, though Conrad did not see her, when he carried out his purpose, and, instigated by curiosity, she peeped through the half-open door, and saw him place the ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... trade, A Spider heard the sighing maid, And kindly stopping in a trice, Thus offered (gratis) her advice: "Turn, little girl, behold in me A stimulus to industry; Compare your woes my dear, with mine, Then tell me who should most repine; This morning, ere you'd left your room, The chambermaid's relentless broom, In one sad moment that destroyed To build which thousands were employed. The shock was great, but as my life I saved in the relentless strife, I knew lamenting was in vain, So patient went to work again; By constant work a day or more My little mansion did restore. ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... hastily and made for the recreation room. For the first time the piano was in use. A chambermaid, surrounded by four admiring fellow-workers, was playing "Oh, they're killin' men and women for a wearin' of the green." That is, I made out she meant it for that tune. With the right hand she picked out what every now and then approached that melody. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... with Miss Hayes, the translator of George Sand's best works, was at the last dates on a visit to the popular poetess of the milliner and chambermaid classes, Eliza Cook, who was very ill. Miss Cushman is really quite as good a poet as Miss Cook, though by no means so fluent a versifier. She will return to the United States in a few weeks to fulfill some ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... of M. Zola's chamber were, I remember, of a summary description. There were few chairs, and so one of us sat on the bed. We succeeded in procuring some black coffee, though the chambermaid regarded this as a most unusual 'bedroom order' at that hour of the day; and when M. Desmoulin had lighted a cigar, his friend a pipe, and myself a cigarette, a regular Council of War was held. [N.B.—M. Zola ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... matters not whom I take, but take Fielding. His early works are read only by the curious, and would not be read even by the curious, but for the fame which he acquired in the latter part of his life by works of a very different kind. What is the value of the Temple Beau, of the Intriguing Chambermaid, of half a dozen other plays of which few gentlemen have even heard the names? Yet to these worthless pieces my noble friend would give a term of copyright longer by more than twenty years than that which he would give to Tom ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at the word, and though inquisitive were altogether amiable; and, until the last afternoon, only the manager didn't like the Twinklers. He didn't like them because of the canary. His sympathies had been alienated from the Miss Twinklers the moment he heard through the chambermaid that they had tied the heavy canary cage on to the hanging electric light in their bedroom. He said nothing, of course. One doesn't say anything if one is an hotel manager, until the unique and final ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... Venus, the chambermaid, who would have passed very well for a bronze image of the sea-born goddess, tossed her head as she replied: "Dunno bout dat ar. Massa does a heap o' courtin' ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... leaves just the four of us here, working off the two days' board bill of Bradley and the manager, Rushcroft's ungodly spree, and at the same time keeping our own slate clean. Miss Thackeray will no doubt make up your bed in the morning. She is temporarily a chambermaid. Cracking fine girl, too, if ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... will permit your wife to have a dressing-room, a bath-room, and a room for her chambermaid. Think then on Susanne, and never commit the fault of arranging this little room below that of madame's, but place it always above, and do not shrink from disfiguring your mansion by ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... It may also be said with truth that he was more than most men. At the outpost men were few, and of women there were none. It may be imagined, then, that the cook's occupations and duties were numerous. Francois Le Rue, besides being cook to the establishment, was waiter, chambermaid, firewood-chopper, butcher, baker, drawer-of-water, trader, fur-packer, and interpreter. These offices he held professionally. When "off duty," and luxuriating in tobacco and relaxation, he occupied himself ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sierras. They were tied together by a narrow blue ribbon, and had evidently been intended to attract his attention. As he took them in his hand, the distinguishing subtle aroma of the little sylvan hollow in the hills came to him like a memory and a revelation! He summoned the chambermaid; she knew nothing of them, or indeed of any one who had entered his room. He walked cautiously into the hall; the lady's sitting-room door was open, the room was empty. "The occupant," said the chambermaid, "had left that afternoon." He held the proof of her identity in his hand, but she herself ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... coveted, he struck a light with the flint and steel which he had brought with him; and having kindled his torch and wrapped himself close in his mantle, he went to the door of the Queen's room, and tapped on it twice with his wand. The door was opened by a very drowsy chambermaid, who took the torch and put it out of sight; whereupon without a word he passed within the curtain, laid aside the mantle, and got into the bed where the Queen lay asleep. Then, taking her in his arms and straining her to him with ardour, making as if he were moody, because he knew that, when the ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... chambermaid has been missing for a month and the poor girl is terribly afraid he has been killed. He was at Arras, and the fighting there ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous
... a shipwreck we find the following: "The captain swam ashore. So did the chambermaid; she was insured for a large sum and ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... make her as comfortable as he could, draw the table to her side, straighten the Navajo blanket and get another pillow from the bedroom. Tomorrow morning he would send in a doctor and on his way out stop at the office and leave a message for the chambermaid to look in on her during the evening. She answered his good-by with a nod and a slight, twisted smile, the first he had seen on ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... dressing me one morning, for now I had two maids, and Amy was my chambermaid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what! a'nt you with child yet?" "No, Amy," says I; "nor ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... in the least remember; another her address-book of pensions and hotels, to which she was always adding new volumes; above all, grumbling. Favourite subjects were her kettle and her methylated spirits, whether the hotel would allow her to take up milk and sugar from breakfast, whether the chambermaid abstracted the biscuits she brought from dessert overnight. Everyone who came in contact with Miss Symons found they were made to listen to an endless story of a certain Elise who had stolen the biscuits and substituted other ones that were ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... "You talk like a chambermaid," said Dan Anderson, scornfully. "Do you suppose a Wellesley girl, accustomed steady to high thinkin', can't get along with a little plain livin' once in a while? As for women folks, why can't Curly's girl take care of her? Does a chance lady caller in this ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... before her marriage to the Cheap Jack, she was a chambermaid in a small hotel in London, and "under notice to leave." Why—she did not deem it necessary to tell George. In this hotel Jan was born, and Jan's mother died. She was a foreigner, it was supposed, and her husband ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had a Bubbles," said Florence. "We have a black man, but I think a little girl is ever so much nicer; then there is nurse, she takes us to walk; and then there is Kate, the cook, and Lena, the chambermaid, they are always fussing and quarreling. I get tired of ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... superintended its installation in the Hutukhtu's boudoir and himself turned chambermaid. As this was the first time he had ever made a bed for a Living God, he arranged the spotless sheets and turned down the covers with the greatest care. When all was done to his satisfaction he reported to one of the Hutukhtu's ministers that ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... most well-balanced person I was ever introduced to—except Dad. I'm proud that his ancestors were Devonshire men. And oh, the junket and Devonshire cream are even better than he used to tell me! I haven't tasted the cider yet, because I can't bear to miss the cream at any meal; and the chambermaid at Sidmouth warned ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... A chambermaid came one day to her employer and said she did not wish to complain but thought it better to say frankly that she was not satisfied with what she was getting to eat in her house: she wanted to have roast beef for dinner more often, at least ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... chambermaid," she said. "I," she added in a tone which marked the social superiority, "am a ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... XVIII. The history of Betty the chambermaid, and an account of what occasioned the violent scene in the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... degree of the same kind of annoyance in an American hotel, although it is not so much an acknowledged custom. Here, in the houses where attendance is not charged in the bill, no wages are paid by the host to those servants—chambermaid, waiter, and boots—who come into immediate contact with travellers. The drivers of the cars, phaetons, and flys are likewise unpaid, except by their passengers, and claim threepence a mile with the same sense ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the course of which William was guyed in a most merciless manner! The chief ornament on the principal table was a model of the Reichshaus in "Schwarzbrod," cheese and confectionery. The dome consisted of a Dutch cheese, the "Germania" on the top was represented by a smartly aproned chambermaid on horseback, the horse being led by a footman in imperial livery, while the whole was labeled "Der gipfel des geschmack,"—the acme of taste. Another item of the programme was a sort of automatic machine, which, when a gold medal was placed ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... left, Paul locked the door, drew out the five pound note which he carefully examined to convince himself that it was genuine. He then in his great joy took two or three handsprings and made such a noise that the chambermaid rapped on his door and desired to know if the gentleman was knocking for anything. During the day, the manager visited Paul frequently and gave him encouragement. By evening the report of the intended lecture had circulated ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... that the hour for luncheon was well past, and we stopped at the rambling old Swan Hotel, which was to all appearances deserted, for we wandered through narrow halls and around the office without finding anyone. I finally ascended two flights of stairs and found a chambermaid, who reluctantly undertook to locate someone in authority, which she at last did. We were shown into a clean, comfortable coffee room, where tea, served in front of a glowing fire place, was grateful indeed after our long ride through the ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... the yard, she stopped; for the landlord, landlady, and head chambermaid, were all on the threshold together talking earnestly with a young gentleman who seemed to have just come or to be just going away. The first words that struck upon Mrs Gamp's ear obviously bore reference to the patient; and it being expedient that all good attendants should ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... dripped into it for years. To-day Mrs. W. made tea out of dried blackberry leaves, but no one liked it. The beds, made out of equal parts of cotton and corn-shucks, are the most elastic I ever slept in. The servants are dressed in gray homespun. Hester, the chambermaid, has a gray gown so pretty that I covet one like it. Mrs. W. is now arranging dyes for the thread to be woven into dresses for herself and the girls. Sometimes her ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... recently come to light in connection with the direct inoculability of tubercular consumption, both in the later works on phthisis and in the medical press, are not without interest or without a lesson. The case recorded within the past year of a healthy chambermaid, who was immediately inoculated with tubercular matter with rapidly-following constitutional effects through a scratch on the hand, received from the sharp edge of a broken china cuspidor that a consumptive was using, is one of these cases that are to the point; so it is evident ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... French; he acts like the common amateur; and in short there is no end to the number of the things that he does, and does badly. His one manly taste is for the chase. In sum, he is but a plexus of weaknesses; the singing chambermaid of the stage, tricked out in man's apparel, and mounted on a circus horse. I have seen this poor phantom of a prince riding out alone or with a few huntsmen, disregarded by all, and I have been even grieved for the bearer of so futile and melancholy an existence. The ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... being towed by wine-wagons. They spent hours by the wayside while Aristide took her to pieces and, sometimes with the help of a passing motorist, put her together again. Sometimes, too, an inn boasted no landlady, only a dishevelled and over-driven chambermaid, who refused to wash Jean. Aristide washed and powdered Jean himself, the landlord lounging by, pipe in mouth, administering suggestions. Once Jean grew ill, and Aristide in terror summoned the doctor, who told him ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... exclusively personal preparations, that she forgot to go to eight o'clock mass. She proposed to hear a low mass, but she was afraid of losing the delight of her dear Adolphe's first glance, in case he arrived at early dawn. Her chambermaid—who respectfully left her mistress alone in the dressing-room where pious and pimpled ladies let no one enter, not even their husbands, especially if they are thin—her chambermaid heard her exclaim several times, "If it's your master, let ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... visor; and so 'tis with us; the visor must be removed as well from things as from persons, that being taken away, we shall find nothing underneath but the very same death that a mean servant or a poor chambermaid died a day or two ago, without any manner of apprehension. Happy is the death that deprives us of leisure for ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... peace, Monsieur," answered the busy chambermaid, in a scolding tone, while she cleaned the runnels of a chair, upon which the feet of the young man had left a good portion of the soil of the garden; "I should like to see the day when you are as well behaved as Mademoiselle Piccolissima. It was once Mademoiselle Touch-every-thing. ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean he never speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a chambermaid, or a woman of quality's porter. Now that ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... gray Sunday morning hung like a cloud over the little Pension Schwarz. In the kitchen the elderly maid, with a shawl over her shoulders and stiffened fingers, made the fire, while in the dining-room the little chambermaid cut butter and divided it sparingly among a dozen breakfast trays—on each tray two hard rolls, a butter pat, a plate, a cup. On two trays Olga, with a glance over her shoulder, placed two butter pats. The mistress yet slept, ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was repeated, louder and louder, still no answer. But at last the door was suddenly opened, and while Ralph stood in breathless expectation, he saw a mulatto chambermaid before him, beating a pillow with one hand, from which two or three feathers had broken loose, and stood quivering ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... desired to be shown to a bedroom, and ordered tea, and tired and ill the landlady said she looked, but she did not know how very ill she really was. Well, after tea she put you to bed, and prepared to go herself, and she told the chambermaid to call her next morning at eight o'clock, for that, after breakfast, she intended to continue her journey. She ordered breakfast too, but, poor lady, when the morning came she was ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... when all were still sleeping. He dressed himself and jumped out quickly with the expectation of miracles. But he was unpleasantly surprised—the rooms were in the same disorder as usual in the morning; the cook and the chambermaid were still sleeping and the door was closed with a hook—it was hard to believe that the people would stir and commence to run about, and that the rooms would assume a holiday appearance, and he feared for the fate of the festival. It was still worse ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... unfitness to become the head of a family. Why, I know at this moment a young lady of this description, who expects in a few months to become a wife, and whose cultivated ignorance of household duties is now the ridicule of her mother's cook and chambermaid. The prospect of marriage alarmed her for her total ignorance of domestic duties. She had never made her own bed, or dusted the furniture; and as to getting up a dinner, she knew even less than a squaw. She is now vainly seeking to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... I am determined to fix them for those poor little ragged children," said Anna; "and if you will not help me, I will get Kitty the chambermaid ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... The chambermaid, passing, remonstrated with him by beating on the other side of the door. She was a pert young woman with a squeaky voice, and she thought she knew what was wrong with the occupant of 17. She had heard kicks ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or studying the pictures upon the tiles: the "Punishment of Caliban and His Associates," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Fall of Phaeton." He even pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... Then she had two hours at her own disposal. To these hours we owe great part of her Diary. At five she had to attend her colleague, Madame Schwellenberg, a hateful old toadeater, as illiterate as a chambermaid, as proud as a whole German Chapter, rude, peevish, unable to bear solitude, unable to conduct herself with common decency in society. With this delightful associate, Frances Burney had to dine, and pass the evening. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... work to help his friend. He picked up the broken glasses which strewed the table and took them out, replaced the plates and knives and forks, and put the child into his high chair, while Parent went to look for the chambermaid to wait at table. The girl came in, in great astonishment, as she had heard nothing in George's room, where she had been working. She soon, however, brought in the soup, a burnt leg of mutton, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... later, Mademoiselle Yveline Samoris died mysteriously, and here are all the details of her death I could gather from Joseph, who got them from his sweetheart, the Comtesse's chambermaid: ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... there entered the chambermaid, and sad desecration was wrought. Chambermaids are another modern inconvenience. The Pilgrim Fathers got along without chambermaids; and even at a much later period chambermaids worked at least under the supervision of a mistress of the household. But nowadays they have their own ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... how it place itself there?" demanded the still puzzled chambermaid in her halting English, then mother-wit overmastering native superstition, she burst into laughter. "Oh! Oh! Oh! It is no magic but you, Signorina. Who hid my towels? I go to tell Mees Rodgers. Yes! You shall get ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... clung to civilization enough, at least, to prefer that her chambermaid should be a woman rather than a Chinese. It did not suit her preconceived idea of the proper thing that Lee Ming should sweep floors, dust bric-a-brac, and make the beds. To see him slosh-sloshing around in his felt slippers made her homesick for Kalamazoo. There ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... said in a whisper. "Yes, I am. I'm afraid that he'll change things, that he'll not approve of Martha, or the way dinner is made, or my habits in dishwashing or bedmaking or marketing or something that will—well, put me right in the role of a paid chambermaid, a servant, a menial with no more to say about the running of the house, once ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... terms you may be quite good friends. In most German households there is no such thing as the strict division of labour insisted on here. Your cook will be delighted to make a blouse for you, and your nurse will turn out the dining-room, and your chambermaid will take the child for an airing. They are more human in their relation to their employers. The English servant fixes a gulf between herself and the most democratic mistress. The German servant brings her intimate joys and sorrows to a good Herrschaft, and expects their sympathy. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... wondrous is the jabber of the courier, the postilion, the inn-waiters, and the lookers-on. The landlord calls out for "Quatre biftecks aux pommes pour le trente-trois,"—(O my countrymen, I love your tastes and your ways!)—the chambermaid is laughing and says, "Finissez donc, Monsieur Pierre!" (what can they be about?)—a fat Englishman has opened his window violently, and says, "Dee dong, garsong, vooly voo me donny lo sho, ou vooly voo pah?" He has been ringing for half an hour—the last energetic appeal succeeds, and shortly ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... once the world was younger. The man who directed us to the place called it a kahveh; but that means a place for donkeys and foot-passengers, and when we spoke of it as kahveh to the obadashi— the elderly youth who corresponds to porter, bell-boy and chambermaid in one—he was ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... of those who have afflicted us. It is a mental jack-screw by which we wind ourselves up to a height from which we can look down on lacks in others. To lose sight of our own pain after shooting down a flight of steps, in grave pitying contemplation of the stupidity of the chambermaid who left the bar of soap on the first step—that is your true Philosophy. And the man who forgets to rub his back, through pitying her ignorance, is the true philosopher. It is a quality from the gods, and ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... thousand; that five hundred pounds with a daughter was, in the latter period, deemed a larger portion than two thousand in the former; that gentlewomen, in those earlier times, thought themselves well clothed in a serge gown, which a chambermaid would, in 1688, be ashamed to be seen in; and that, besides the great increase of rich clothes, plate, jewels, and household furniture, coaches were in that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... long motor journey. Next day she remained in her room all day. On the third day an elderly man called, and she went out with him, being absent about a couple of hours. On her return she went straight to her room and nothing was seen of her further until the next day at noon the chambermaid failed to arouse her by knocking. The police were informed, the door was forced, and Mademoiselle Thomas was found dead. She was lying upon the floor ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh Review of Grimm's Correspondence, seven ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... with another giggle. 'He's A butler, though his name's Jenkins; and a butler's high rank—higher than chambermaid, anyhow. You see, Mr. Wingate,' she adds, ''twas all my fault. When that Oriental Seer man at the show said I was to marry a butler, I forgot to ask him whether you spelt it with a big B ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and philosopher, with an incompleted masterpiece in his pocket, and Fenelon's chambermaid, were both in danger of burning to death in the archiepiscopal palace at Cambrai, and if I could save only one of them, which ought I to save? It is a fascinating problem in casuistry, and Godwin with his usual decision of mind, has no doubt about the solution. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... be realized that above the number necessary for essentials, each additional chambermaid, parlor-maid, footman, scullery maid or useful man, is made necessary by the size of the house and by the amount of entertaining usual, rather than (as is often supposed) for the mere reason of show. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... had risen. The servants were stirring about the house. The chambermaid came with the chocolate. Yvette put the tray on ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... one of the less fashionable, partly for the sake of economy, and partly, too, because she stood in awe, to a certain extent, of smart waiters and porters. She was shown to a room on the third floor with a window looking out on the street. The chambermaid closed the window when the visitor entered, and brought some fresh water, the boots placed her box beside the stove, and the waiter placed before her the registration paper, which Bertha filled up immediately and unhesitatingly, with the pride that comes ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... English language. Ponce is mastering the mysteries of American money. Ponce is inquiring into the methods of American politics. Ponce is preparing to abandon the church schools and adopt our system of education. Papeti, the chambermaid in the Hotel Francais, has already been taught to say, "Vive l'Americano!" Papeti's brother was shot by the ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... doubts of his moral status. She imagined him a murderer escaped from justice, and compared his face with the pictures of criminals in the newspapers, or she was reasonably sure that he was dishonest, although she had little to tempt him. She employed one chambermaid and a stable-boy, and did the cooking herself. Miss Hart was not a good cook. She used her thin, tense hands too quickly. She was prone to over-measures of saleratus, to under-measures of sugar and ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in the gray coat laughed and looked at me. The door opened and Mina came forth. She supported herself on the arm of a chambermaid, silent tears rolling down her lovely pale cheeks. She seated herself on a stool which was placed for her under the lime trees, and her father took a chair by her. He tenderly took her hand, and addressed her with tender words, while she ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... hands shall never perform a single menial task! Yet, after marriage, Her Ladyship finds that she is expected to be a cook, nurse, housekeeper, seamstress, chambermaid, waitress, and practical plumber. This is an unconscious tribute to the versatility of woman, since a man thinks he does well if he is a specialist in any ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... lip to request the chambermaid to give me another room; but this I felt to be scarcely prudent, for if the popular indignation should happen to turn toward me, the servant would be the one questioned, most likely, as to where I ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... made a suggestion, too. "Pity you can't have Bingo to keep you company. That's what comes of boarding. I knew a woman who boarded, and she lost her teeth. Chambermaid threw 'em away. Come in and see me any evening ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... life here; reading, writing, and walking all day; speaking to nobody but the waiter and the chambermaid; solitary in a great crowd, and content with solitude. I shall be in London again on Thursday, and shall also be an M. P. From that day you may send your letters as freely as ever; and pray do not be sparing of them. Do you read any novels ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Rosalia is the chambermaid, of whom I have already spoken, as dexterous in sweeping the mosquitos from the nets,—her afternoon service. She brings, too, the morning cup of coffee, and always says, "Good morning, Sir; you want coffee?"—the only English she can speak. Her voice and smile are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... with frightened, hare-like eyes, who spoke French and German indifferently, played the piano after a fashion, and, in addition, knew how to salt cucumbers in first-class style. In the society of this instructress, of his aunt, and of an old chambermaid, Vasilievna, Fedya passed four whole years. He used to sit in the corner with his "Emblems"—and sit ... and sit ... while the low-ceiled room smelled of geraniums, a solitary tallow candle burned dimly, a cricket chirped monotonously, as though it were bored, the little clock ticked hastily ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... with even greater pleasure than the sweetmeats; and the officious Hobart, not to lose time, was helping her off with her clothes, while the chambermaid was coming. She made some objections to this at first, being unwilling to occasion that trouble to a person, who, like Miss Hobart, had been advanced to a place of dignity; but she was overruled by her, and assured that it was with the greatest ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... I told you as to giving her money. And as to her transfer to the hospital, about which His Excellency has written, there is no objection to it, and the physician also consented. But she herself does not wish it. 'I don't care to be chambermaid to that scurvy lot,' she said. That is the kind of people ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... afternoon an ingenious damsel who had no sled conceived the idea of substituting a dust-pan. So she borrowed one of an obliging chambermaid and went out to the little slope which divides the front from the back campus to try her experiment. In twenty minutes the hill was alive with girls, all the available dust-pans had been pressed into service, and large ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... chambermaid of the "Red Lion" had just finished washing the front door steps. She rose from her stooping posture and, being of slovenly habit, flung the water from her pail straight out, without moving from where she stood. The smooth round arch of the falling ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... suddenly rises into a digue or terrace on which is built a primitive casino, and below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's passage. Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, bare little chamber with a balconied window that looks ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the chambermaid; but the traveller turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that she smiled, colored, and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... because aunt Celia has the guide-books, so I sit by the window in indolent content, watching the dear little school laddies, with their short jackets and wide white collars; they all look so jolly, and rosy, and clean, and kissable! I should like to kiss the chambermaid, too! She has a pink print dress; no bangs, thank goodness (it's curious our servants can't leave that deformity to the upper classes), but shining brown hair, plump figure, soft voice, and a most engaging ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at the tea-house, and the Geisha summoned to entertain him, with a cavalier familiarity that would infallibly lead to his summary expulsion from any well-regulated hotel or public-house, or other places of public entertainment at home, did he dare to show such want of respect to a chambermaid or to one of the haughty fair ones serving at a bar. He means no harm in nine cases out of ten; he has been told that Japanese girls don't mind what you say to them, and as to the tea-house girls, well, they are no better than they should ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... in addition to our ordinary servants, a keeper, a sort of brute devoted to my husband to the death, and a chambermaid, almost a friend, passionately attached to me. I had brought her back from Spain with me five years before. She was a deserted child. She might have been taken for a gipsy with her dusky skin, her dark eyes, her hair thick as a wood and always clustering around her ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... with the piercing laughter of a person who is being tickled, letting their embroidered skirts drag under the table, which was piled with broken victuals, and covered with grease. M. Louis had prudently withdrawn. The glasses were filled before they were emptied; a chambermaid dipped a handkerchief in hers, which was full of water, and bathed her forehead with it because her head was going round, she said. It was time that it should end; in fact, an electric bell, ringing loudly in the hall, warned us that the footman ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... thirty horse power, were below deck, under this bridge. The cabins, without state rooms, occupied the whole width of the boat. Wide seats with cushions extended around the cabins, and served as beds at night. Each passenger carried his own bedding and was his own chambermaid. The furniture consisted of a fixed table, two feet by ten, a dozen stools, a picture of a saint, a mirror, and a boy, the latter article ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the afternoon, you see,' said Mrs. Eldridge, cheerfully. 'It's Alice's day to go out, and I never like to trust our little ones with the chambermaid, who is n't over fond of children. We generally have a good time on these occasions, for I give myself up to them entirely. They've read, and played, and told stories, until tired, and now I've just brightened them up, body and mind, with ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... large preponderance of the cub of seventeen and eighteen. Some of these boys are the sons of merchants and lawyers, and are 'seeing life.' If they were told to go into their kitchens at home and talk with the cook and the chambermaid, they would consider themselves insulted. Yet they come here and talk with other Irish girls every whit as ignorant and unattractive as the servants at home—only the latter are virtuous and these are infamous. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Nevertheless I enjoy her, and I am certain she has never been finer than now. She has enriched herself greatly by her experiences the last two years, and seems at the height of her power. It was good to get, once again, little glimpses of her Childs waitress and the chambermaid. It seemed to me that there was a richer quality of atmosphere in the little Jewish girl with the ring curls and the red mittens, as also in her French girl with, by the way, a beautiful gown of rich yellow silk Frenchily trimmed in vermilion or orange, I couldn't ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... two children; a third was born in Cincinnati—yet it too must share the anticipated fate of its mother. She had always been a house-servant, but found the death of her master was about to make great changes, he being deeply in debt. By the aid of a chambermaid she was secreted on a boat, and kept the two children drugged with opiates until she feared they would never come to life. But after her arrival, under the care of a skillful physician, they survived. She had found good friends among her own people and Church two years. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... Sylvia in mighty rage, 'I can guess your business, and can revenge it too; curse on thee, slave, to think me grown as poor in sense as honour: to be cajoled with this—stuff that would never sham a chambermaid: death! am I so forlorn, so despicable, I am not worth the pains of being well dissembled with? Confusion overtake him, misery seize him; may I become his plague while life remains, or public tortures end him!' This, with all the madness that ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Pantaloon, a merchant of Venice, a doctor of laws from Bologna, and two servants, known to us as Harlequin and Columbine. When we add to these a couple of sons, one virtuous and the other profligate; a couple of daughters, and a pert, intriguing chambermaid, we have nearly the whole dramatis personae of these plays. The extempore dialogue by which the plot was developed was replete with drollery and wit, and there was no end to the novelty of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... taken the fire out of her figure. Listlessly she went about the disorderly old hotel looking at the faded wall-paper and the ragged carpets and, when she was able to be about, doing the work of a chambermaid among beds soiled by the slumbers of fat traveling men. Her husband, Tom Willard, a slender, graceful man with square shoulders, a quick military step, and a black mustache trained to turn sharply up at ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... that day was certainly not attractive; but Anna told herself that any place would look dreary such weather, and was much too happy in the first flush of independence to be depressed by anything whatever. Had she not that very morning given the chambermaid at the Berlin hotel so bounteous a reward for services not rendered that the woman herself had said it was too much? Thus making amends for those innumerable departures from hotels when Susie had escaped without giving anything at all. Had she not ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... but little to tell. The shrieks of the chambermaid, who had gone into the Hon. Robert's room with his shaving water at eight o'clock, had attracted some of the waiters. Soon the manager and his secretary came up, and immediately sent ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... table, and the service of their own colored men, in addition to that of the hotel servants. But their salon was large and beautifully furnished, their meals were cooked by a French chef, every one, from the lordly porter to the quick-footed chambermaid, served them with a courteous interest, and Mrs. Cliff said that although their life in the two hotels seemed to be in the main the same sort of life, they were, in reality, as different as an old, dingy mahogany bureau, just dragged from an attic, and that ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... remember that the chambermaid and the landlady might be allowed to mince across the stage, but men took the leading parts in life. The cousins had been away on a three-days' tramping tour through the forest. When they returned they were informed that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard |
