"Duenna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sallies, there was no levity in her demeanour, and she kept Mistress Margery Wimpole in discreet attendance upon her, as if she had been the daughter of a Spanish Hidalgo, never to be approached except in the presence of her duenna. Poor Mistress Margery, finding her old fears removed, was overpowered with new ones. She had no lawlessness or hoyden manners to contend with, but instead a haughtiness so high and demands so great that her powers could scarcely satisfy ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... as if he could not help it. "Look here, Cousin Janetta," he said, "I'm awfully sorry, but I really can't help it. The idea of you as a duenna and of Wyvis as a heavy father has been tickling me ever since yesterday, and I shall have to have it out sooner or later. I assure you it's only a nervous affection. If I didn't laugh, I might cry or faint, and that would be worse, ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Hotep's older sister, the Lady Bettis, a dark-eyed matron of thirty, presided in duenna-like guardianship over the rout. They sat in a diphros apart ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... servants, armed to the teeth, are my guards. The commissary is my purveyor, and," she added, glancing at his rotund figure, "I have no fear of starving in his company. Mrs. Shortridge, though she does not look sour enough for the office, is my duenna, punctilious and watchful—" Here she suddenly broke off her discourse, and fixed her eyes on old Moodie, who now entered the court, leading in a powerful horse of her father's, with a pair of huge holsters at the saddle-bow. ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... off.] And this is the way the ladies at present dress their heads in a morning. [Takes the head.] A lady in this dress seems hooded like a hawk, with a blister on each cheek for the tooth-ach. One would imagine this fashion had been invented by some surly duenna, or ill-natured guardian, on purpose to prevent ladies turning to one side or the other; and that may be the reason why now every young lady chooses to look forward. As the world is round, every thing turns round along with it; no wonder there should be such revolutions in ladies' head-dresses. ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... duenna," Matteo said carelessly. "She has been with them since they were children, and their father places great confidence in her. And he had need to, for Maria will ere long be receiving bouquets and perfumed notes from many a ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... beauty of the quadroons and octoroons, stories which I had taken with a grain of salt; but they had not indeed been greatly overdrawn. For here were these ladies in the flesh, their great, opaque, almond eyes consuming us with a swift glance, and each walking with a languid grace beside her duenna. Their faces were like old ivory, their dress the stern Miro himself could scarce repress. In former times they had been lavish in their finery, and even now earrings still gleamed and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... kept the dresses, nursed the sick, revered Rugge, told fortunes on a pack of cards which she always kept in her pocket, and acted occasionally in parts where age was no drawback and ugliness desirable,—such as a witch, or duenna, or whatever in the dialogue was poetically called "Hag." Indeed, Hag was the name she usually took from Rugge; that which she bore from her defunct husband was Gormerick. This lady, as she braided the garland, was also bent on the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... very Calmuck features, susceptible as a girl, and passionately fond of music, hung over Sybil's piano by the hour; he brought Russian airs which he taught her to sing, and, if the truth were known, he bored Madeleine desperately, for she undertook to act the part of duenna ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... between the confidante and her mistress, cast down her eyes, like a discreet woman, and, pretending to be observant of nothing that was passing, listened with the utmost attention instead. She heard nothing, however, but a very significant "hum" on the part of the Spanish duenna, who was the perfect representation of extreme caution—and a profound sigh on that of the queen. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the history of her life in the doctor's house. 'We are five in the harem, besides our mistress,' said she: 'there is Shireen, the Georgian slave; then Nur Jehan,[41] the Ethiopian slave girl; Fatmeh, the cook; and old Leilah, the duenna. My situation is that of handmaid to the khanum,[42] so my mistress is called: I attend her pipe, I hand her her coffee, bring in the meals, go with her to the bath, dress and undress her, make her clothes, spread, sift, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... deeply hurt and scandalized, but my offence was nothing to the shock he received when young Lowell ran to the carriage and caught up my hand. He looked at me with a smile that would have softened a Spanish duenna. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the young lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was young for Bradshaw,—very young,—but he knew his own affairs. If he chose to make love to a child, it was natural enough that he should ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... confidant and her mistress, cast down her eyes like a discreet woman, and pretending to be observant of nothing that was passing, listened with the utmost attention to every word. She heard nothing, however, but a very insignificant "hum" on the part of the Spanish duenna, who was the incarnation of caution—and a profound sigh on that of the ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of lingua Franca had been patched up between the unsuspicious Clayton and the dark-eyed duenna. A few words of German, a little scattered French, and a bit of gibberish English enabled the two to hold occasional ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... himself of the thoughts of others, that we find in this extract, word for word, the same extravagant comparison of the effects of music to the process of Egyptian embalmment—"extracting the brain through the ears"—which was afterwards transplanted into the dialogue of the Duenna: "Mortuum quondam ante aegypti medici quam pollincirent cerebella de auribus unco quodam hamo solebant extrahere; sic de meis auribus non cerebrum, sed cor ipsum exhausit lusciniola, &c., &c." He mentions, as the rivals most dreaded by her admirers, Norris, the singer, whose musical ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... Conti: her name is Mademoiselle de Chouin, and she is still living at Paris (1719). It was generally believed that he had married her clandestinely; but I would lay a wager he never did. She had the figure of a duenna; was of very small stature; had very short legs; large rolling eyes; a round face; a short turned-up nose; a large mouth filled with decayed teeth, which made her breath so bad that the room in which she sat could hardly ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... man of 60, who saw a country maiden named Leonora, whom he liked, and intended to marry if her temper was as amiable as her face was pretty. He obtained leave of her parents to bring her home and place her under a duenna for three months, and then either return her to them spotless, or to make her his wife. At the expiration of the time, he went to settle the marriage contract; and, to make all things sure, locked up the house, giving the keys to Ursula, but ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... school-days endure through life. This association of the sexes operates as a restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old, wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she witnesses in wedded life, and which ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... comedies to have a love of sudden strokes and surprises, approaching almost to practical jokes, and very successful when upon the stage. A screen is thrown down and Lady Teazle discovered behind it—a sword instead of a trinket drops out of Captain Absolute's coat—the old duenna puts on her mistress' dress—all these produce an excellent effect without showing any very great power of humour. But he was celebrated as a wit in society—was full of repartee and pleasantry, and we are surprised ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... to the edifice, and stretched itself out grandly, with two pretentious wings, which certainly gave it a just claim to be called a mansion. It required a great many servants to keep it in order, and the numerous servants required an experienced duenna, almost as grand in appearance as Lady Aylmer herself, to keep them in order. There was an open carriage and a closed carriage, and a butler, and two footmen, and three gamekeepers, and four gardeners, and there was a coachman, and there were grooms, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... belong to the family. Thanks to me, the law has tied the knot. Now, no nonsense. I intend that you and I should play above board. I know the tricks you will try against me; and I shall watch you like a duenna. You will never go out of this house except on my arm; and you will never leave me. As to what passes within the house, damn it, you'll find me like a spider in the middle of his web. Here is something," he continued, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... maintain the many posts and fortresses the French had captured in Spain, and to keep open the various lines of communication. It was agreed upon by the British and Spanish commanders to march themselves against the French under Marshal Victor, while at the same time Vinegas advanced against Fuente Duenna on the Upper Tagus, in order to draw Sebastiani thither, that he might not aid Victor; or if that general refused to move, Vineeas was to march on Madrid from the south-east, while Sir Robert Wilson menaced it from the opposite quarter. The combined armies of Sir Arthur ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... dark walls, and having nearly passed round them, came to the portal denoted by Xarisa. He paused and looked around to see that he was not observed, and then knocked three times with the butt of his lance. In a little while the portal was timidly unclosed by the duenna of Xarisa. "Alas! senor," said she, "what has detained you thus long? Every night have I watched for you; and my lady is sick at heart with doubt ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... wildness or eccentricity. Melodrama, etc., may be very successful at a trans-pontine theatre, but it is unpardonably out of place in our salons. The Tresilyan understood the duties of her social, if not of her moral position (so long as the first was not forfeited) as well as the strictest duenna alive. Though she might choose to defy the world's censure, she never dreamed of giving an opening to its ridicule; she was less capable of gaucherie than of a crime. In her bearing toward others she was just the same as ever; if any thing, rather more brilliant and ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... champagne, out to the veranda. When we were satisfied, we went to bed, but not to sleep. The peaches kept that party on the veranda and in the rooms below exhilarated until nearly daylight. I suppose the duenna did her duty and sat out the revel in the distant security of the dining-room. Several of her charges added a number of points to our store of information the next day, at the noon breakfast hour, when ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... to open the carriage door and bear the bride's train. In one moment's parting of the silken walls the girl saw a sun-flooded cluster of staring faces, thronging for her arrival, and then the damask intervened and through its lane, followed by her duenna and her maids of honor, she entered the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... send her up," said he; no doubt this was some trembling debutante, accompanied by an ancient duenna and a roll of music. And then he went to the window, to try to get the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... herself across an arm-chair as rigid as marble thereby assuring the audience that she is in a "dead faint"—I say, that when we see all this performed by a travelling "star," and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions, even in the slightest degree, forgetting ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... In the Duenna we find this thought differently illustrated; by no means imitative, though the satire is congenial. Don Jerome alluding to the serenaders says, "These amorous orgies that steal the senses in the hearing; as they say Egyptian embalmers serve mummies, extracting ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Mrs. Thomas was very strong. That Mrs. Thomas should have used all her vigilance to detect such goings on as those of the lamp-post was only natural. What woman in Mrs. Thomas's position,—or in any other position,—would not have done so? Mary Snow knew that had she herself been the duenna she would have left no corner of a box unturned but she would have found those letters. And having found them she would have used her power over the poor girl. She knew that. But she would not have betrayed her to the man. Truth between woman and woman ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... but it did not tend to console him. 'Mr. Finch! O no! We left him to the society of his port wine. I mean to test the clairvoyante by asking what he is dreaming about. But there is no fear of our coming to harm. Here's sister Jane for a duenna, and I always find ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fair, and mother and Mollie and Betty may be angry with Esther for not telling. Even if I have the right to get into trouble myself, I haven't the right to drag in other people. But, oh dear! what fun it will be! And with Esther for my duenna, things are sure to turn ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... of concerts at the Bath assembly rooms, paying special attention to the rendition of the works of Handel. Linley removed to London in 1775, and was manager with Doctor Arnold of the Drury Lane Oratorios. With his son Thomas, he composed the music for his son-in-law Sheridan's comic opera of "The Duenna," and his other works include the music for "The Camp," and other pieces by Tickell, another son-in-law, for a version of Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," and for "Selima and Azor," and "Richard Coeur de Lion," two adaptions ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... it; nor do I seek counsel from the children I have tossed on my foot to the tune of a nursery rhyme." He shook his white-crowned head reprovingly. "He was always screaming at his duenna, one child that I ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... thought it was rather his duty and privilege,—especially, he added, with a slight smile, as he was quite sure that it was not very disagreeable to us. As for the gossips, he didn't think they would make much out of it, with such an excellent duenna as Cousin Mary,—and, indeed, he heard the other day that he was paying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... and a Skin that shewed 'il bruno il bel non toglie;' whereas, King, in his Mischief, drew a fancy Portrait, much liker you, Moll, than the Incognita, which hit Milton's Taste soe much better, that he was believed for his Payns; and then he declared that I had beene describing the Duenna! . . . Some Time after, when Milton beganne to talk of visiting Italy, we bantered him, and sayd he was going to look for the Incognita. He stoode it well, and sayd, 'Laugh on! do you think I mind you? Not a Bit.' I ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... been before by Madame de Bleury, a decayed gentlewoman and distant relative of Madame de Valricour, who had for some years past lived at the chateau, and discharged the multifarious duties of housekeeper, chaperone, duenna, and private secretary to the baroness as occasion required. More than once during those few days Madame de Valricour went over to Beaujardin, but did not take either of the young ladies with her, a circumstance ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... do something striking. "You must ACT, my dear; in your situation the great thing is to act," said Mrs. Penniman, who found her niece altogether beneath her opportunities. Mrs. Penniman's real hope was that the girl would make a secret marriage, at which she should officiate as brideswoman or duenna. She had a vision of this ceremony being performed in some subterranean chapel— subterranean chapels in New York were not frequent, but Mrs. Penniman's imagination was not chilled by trifles—and of the guilty couple—she liked to think of poor Catherine ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... wheels of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you need a duenna to watch you with ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... a day of festival In the capital of Valladolid That their eyes met at a crossing And their two souls rushed together. By the greed of a bought duenna And the interchange of love-notes And the help of a hempen ladder They ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... desires of me—How am I to say it? I hardly myself understand! I feel as if I were dreaming—He wishes to know whether I am already betrothed?" Lene at this recognises, of course, that here is that reprobate thing, a lover, and remembers her first duty as a duenna, to keep off all such from her young charge. She is for hurrying home at once. Walther resolutely detains her. "Not till I know all!"—"The church is empty, every one is gone!" Eva gives as a reason for not being so punctilious. Lene sees in the very ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the execution of this honest scheme, he had subjected Aurelia to the superintendency and direction of an old duenna, who had been formerly the procuress of his pleasures; and hired a new set of servants, who were given to understand, at their first admission, that the young lady was disordered ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... When this duenna had made all preliminary arrangements, she took from the well-filled pouch of my conductor, which he had hung up by the door, one or two salmon, or GRILSES, as the smaller sort are termed, and selecting that which seemed best and in ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... but this battery of eyes discountenanced him, and down went his eyes on the ground. Then the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten, giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely, "Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... post, and, snatching the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we discussed traveling third class and continued to travel first. Get into that clean, hard-seated, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... must respect himself. Thank you, yes; just a leetle, leetle, tiny - thanks, thanks; you spoil me. But, as I was saying, Richard, or was about to say, my daughter has been allowed to rust; her aunt was a mere duenna; hence, in parenthesis, Richard, her distrust of me; my nature and that of the duenna are poles asunder - poles! But, now that I am here, now that I have given up the fight, and live henceforth for one only of my works - I have the modesty ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rival has not been a dangerous one, but Mrs Lupin here has played duenna for some weeks; not so much to watch your love as to watch her lover. For that Ghoul'—his fertility in finding names for Mr Pecksniff was astonishing—'would have crawled into her daily walks otherwise, and polluted the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... girl does not need a duenna to watch her; that is what I think. And an American girl, pure and free, would not suffer herself to be watched by any woman, old or young. Her lover comes boldly into her home; she is too proud, to ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... too, having been great flirts and coquettes in their younger days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant guardians and strict censors of the conduct of their niece; for there is no duenna so rigidly prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a superannuated coquette. She was rarely suffered out of their sight; never went beyond the domains of the castle, unless well attended, or rather well ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... the drift of this epistle, exhibited symptoms of distress. She flung out her arms in a dramatic attitude, and confided to the audience her disinclination to take over the unwelcome task of becoming duenna to her niece. There was no other course open to her, apparently; the idea of sending the girl home by the next train, or of hastily packing her own box and departing somewhere on urgent business did not seem to occur to her. She grumbled, but accepted the responsibility, ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... got him out of a bad fix. It was on a Friday at half-past six in the morning, I still remember, because I hadn't breakfasted. That lady who is followed by a duenna is the celebrated Pepay, the dancing girl, but she doesn't dance any more now that a very Catholic gentleman and a great friend of mine has—forbidden it. There's the death's-head Z——, who's surely following her to get her to dance again. He's a good fellow, and a great friend of mine, but ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... water-shield (Hydropeltis) is chief maid-of-honor; she is a highborn lady, not without royal blood indeed, but with rather a bend sinister; not precisely beautiful, but very fastidious; encased over her whole person with a gelatinous covering, literally a starched duenna. Sometimes she is suspected of conspiring to drive her mistress from the throne; for we have observed certain slow watercourses where the leaves of the water-lily have been almost wholly replaced by the similar, but smaller, leaves of the water-shield. More rarely seen is the slender ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... following inscription in large gold letters: "The illustrious Don Quixote of La Mancha has, by merely attempting it, finished and concluded the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed Duenna; Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of the duennas are now smooth and clean, and when the squirely flagellation shall have been completed, the white dove shall find herself delivered from the pestiferous hawks that persecute her,[476-6] and in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... heat, its tramways, and its great sea wall; its Botanical Gardens in which once more I had the delight of losing myself with Dolores, to the evident anxiety of her aunt and duenna, Mrs. Darbyshire; it seemed so strange to find such a foreign little person with such a distinctly English name. She, however, refused to be beguiled away by St. Nivel to look at the giraffes. I think she began to smell more than a rat when we reached the monkey house, and to ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... before that blue eyes had so much of fire in them. I think, my little saint, 'tis time I sent you back to your old duenna." ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... to butt in on this little argument?" There was an ominous note in her slow drawl. "No one asked you to sit in, Senor Duenna, I'm playing my own hand. You durn fool, don't you see I had the coyote ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... the agitated duenna, and peremptorily summoned one of the tray-bearing stewards. "I ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... "thinking more of propriety than of my enjoyment, had kept a frightful old duenna with her. So that, while you two, between looks and words, got on extremely well together, my lot, in the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... day Caroline was in bed with one of her worst headaches. Mary felt that she had been a cruel and prim old duenna, and meekly ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not know what you mean by duenna, Mr. Brudenell, but I know what is due to your mother," replied ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... plains. She would sing her glowing Spanish songs to the accompaniment of the mandolin; or else she would dance like a fairy, her foot scarce seeming to touch the floor as she floated along, to the sound of the tambourine played by her old negro duenna. She was too beautiful for him to restrain, in dancing, riding, or anything. Too beautiful!" he repeated, becoming more and more enthusiastic. "I have seen her often, when summoned to the plantation ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... evidently a young lady's boudoir. This much his first glance showed Jack. It showed him also two women—one young and very beautiful, the other wizened and monkey-like, both terrified and speechless. They were Don Fernandez' daughter, Rafaela, and her duenna or chaperone, ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no guardians nor aunts, were haled forth o' nights to duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do. It was not an ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... enjoined me to silence. A whisper breathed into my ear, 'He sleeps!' Then, as we were sure that nobody would see us, we went to walk, Zena and I, upon the ramparts, but accompanied, if you please, by a duenna, as hideous as an old portress, who didn't leave us any more than our shadow; and I couldn't persuade Madame Pirate to send her away. The next night we did the same thing, and again I wanted to get rid of the old woman, but Zena resisted. As my sweet love spoke only Greek, and I Venetian, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... patronage of this mystic duenna, the Little Countess enjoys an absolute independence, which she uses to excess. After spending the winter in Paris, where she kills off regularly two horses and a coachman every month for the sole gratification of waltzing ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... to be parted with on slight conditions. The jealous vigilance with which Lilian had been guarded along the route—amounting, as I had incidentally ascertained, to a positive espionage—her yellow duenna at once acting as spy and protectress—all were significant of the intent already suspected by us, but of which the young girl herself was perhaps happily ignorant. The failure of his design—and now for the second time—would be a rude contre-temps for the pseudo-apostle; and would no doubt ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... she reined in and faced him, after a hurried glance that told her her duenna had failed her. The old ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Mr. Parkman has painted of Maisonneuve founding and consecrating Montreal. He flushed with the recollection of the historian's phrase; but in that moment there came forth from the cabin a pretty young person who gave every token of being a pretty young actress, even to the duenna-like, elderly female companion, to be detected in the remote background of every young actress. She had flirted audaciously during the day with some young Englishmen and Canadians of her acquaintance, and after passing the La Chine Rapids she had taken the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... at me slyly, and observed, "Somehow I don't think your indifference will be very pleasing to the virtuous duenna." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you are of the attention of young gentlemen. First, you led Mr. Henry Huntington in a wild goose chase all around the island, and next, we find you holding a very confidential 'tete-a-tete' with young Mr. Arthur. Such proceedings are really too bad, and, as your watchful 'duenna,' I must enter ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... murderous and evil nature of this man, his wife was faithful enough to him, always ready, like a candlestick, arranged for her duty like a chest which never moves, and opens to order. Nevertheless, the advocate had placed her under the guardianship and pursuing eye of an old servant, a duenna as ugly as a pot without a handle, who had brought up the Sieur Avenelles, and was very fond of him. His poor wife, for all pleasure in her cold domestic life, used to go to the Church of St. Jehan, on the Place de Greve, where, as everyone knows, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... of her sisters playing chess, while an old duenna looks on, was in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte and is said to be now in a private gallery in England. Her religious pictures are rare; a "Marriage of St. Catherine" is in the gallery at ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... joy, could scarce restrain himself from embracing the duenna at intervals, during the course of her entertaining narrative, especially when she told him what a splendid picture she had drawn of ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... was patent that Dorothea had been too much her own mistress. Without admitting that he had been wrong in his methods hitherto, he confessed that the time had come when the duenna system must be introduced, as a matter not only of propriety, but of prudence. He assured himself of his regret that no American lady who could take the position chanced to be on the spot, but allayed his sorrow on the ground that any fairly well-mannered, virtuous woman ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... primitive appearance and manner seemed to indicate that he was a country servant. The stranger was scarcely placed in the boat when, somewhat to his surprise and pleasure, he saw this old man carefully depositing the duenna of his young friend in a seat near him; and in another moment there was a light footfall on the ladder, a waving of white garments, and she was herself placed beside him, whilst the sailors, pushing off from the side of the vessel, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... friend," laughed Anstruther, "such a rose as the peerless Nadine Johnstone must have a duenna." He deftly caught an impassioned glance from the softly shining brown eyes, and hastily went on. "She was educated right here in this emporium of watches, musical boxes, correct principles, and scientific research. Mesdames Justine and Euphrosyne Delande, No. 122 ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Bulteel, who now stood beside the girl, herself a figure out of a picture by Velasquez, had said of her sadly; for she saw in Fleda's rare qualities, in her strange beauty, happenings which had nothing to do with the life she was living. So this duenna of Gabriel Druse's household, this aristocratic, silent woman was ever on the watch for some sudden revelation of a being which had not found itself, and which must find itself ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the great couch up, the Duke of Medina sent?" to which the duenna replies, "'Tis up and ready;" and then Marguerite asks, "And day beds in all chambers?" receiving ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... by long odds the most eligible young man in town; good looking in a spare, ruddy, sandy-haired Scottish fashion; important, incorruptible, "rising." But he took good care of his heart. Precisely that; like a sharp-eyed duenna to his own heart. One felt that here was the man, if ever was the man, who held his destiny in his own hand. Failing, of course, some quite gratuitous and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... the dramatist. In the following year, in conjunction with his father-in-law, he purchased from Garrick the Drury Lane Theatre. They brought out several operas together; Linley's music in "The Duenna" and "The Beggar's Opera," being especially fine. Hazlitt speaks of the songs in them as having a joyous spirit of intoxication, and strains of ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... so arch. The old lady was not even a faithless duenna. It was an invitation to an assembly, or something of the kind, at a place, somewhere, as Theodore Hook or Mr. Croker would say, 'between ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... thing will be to see how she and our little deformed gentleman get along together; for, as I have told you, they sit side by side. The next thing will be to keep an eye on the duenna,—the "Model" and so forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The intention of that estimable lady is, I understand, to launch her and leave her. I suppose there is no help for it, and I don't doubt this young ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and they ate and drank and washed their hands, after which they set her a royal chair and she sat down; and all played on instruments of music and with ravishing voices incomparably sang. Presently, out ran an old woman, a duenna, and clapped hands and danced, whilst the girls pulled her about, till the curtain was lifted and forth came Jamilah laughing. Ibrahim gazed at her and saw that she was clad in costly robes and ornaments, and on her head was a crown set with pearls and gems. About ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... That she had ever indulged in any romance of human existence, I greatly doubt; the lanky girl teacher at the Vermont academy had enough to do to push herself forward without entangling girl friendships or confidences, and so became a prematurely hard duenna, paid to look out for, restrain, and report, if necessary, any vagrant flirtation or small intrigue of her companions. A pronounced "old maid" at fifteen, she had nothing to forget or forgive in others, and still less ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... as I could recover my solemnity, 1 tound a little gentleman, who reminded me strongly of cunning little Isaac in the Duenna, advancing towards Miss Amelia with true dancing-master-like precision. I soon discovered, by her holding up her fan at his approach, that she held him in utter aversion, and found he received a reply very derogatory to his wishes; ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... so well pleased with the afflicted duenna, were encouraged to proceed with other projects, seeing that there was nothing too extravagant for the credulity of the knight and squire. The necessary orders were accordingly issued to their servants and vassals with regard to their behavior towards Sancho ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a good introduction to Rome was not a thing to be despised. Isabel in truth needed no urging, and the party of four arranged its little journey. Mrs. Touchett, on this occasion, had resigned herself to the absence of a duenna; we have seen that she now inclined to the belief that her niece should stand alone. One of Isabel's preparations consisted of her seeing Gilbert Osmond before she started and mentioning ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... affections on him. So he waits patiently, and one morning, whilst his brother is reading the "Vie tres-horrifique de Pantagruel," and he himself is taking a guitar lesson from the Signor Uberto Vinibella, a wrinkled duenna brings him a scented note, closed with a gold thread, and a large green seal, bearing a Cupid with finger on lips, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... circumstances, a childish playfulness with persons whom she loved—were all characteristic attractions of the modest stranger who was in the charge of the ugly old woman, and who was palpably the object of that wrinkled duenna's devoted love. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... guard under the absolute control of black Mustapha, armed to the teeth, chaperoned by Mrs. Grundy in the shape or, as I should say, represented in the shapeless person of a dusky duenna of many moons, a good heart and a vitriolic tongue, who coyly peeped from behind the sombre curtains of her middle-aged palanquin, Jill started on her wedding journey. Over a carpet of flowers, through ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... represented by his favorite subject, a doctor feeling the pulse of a lovesick girl in the presence of her duenna. It is an admirable study of expression, of piquant, roguish smiles. The doctor's face seems to say, "I think I understand;" the invalid's, "Something more than your prescriptions are needed;" the duenna's, "I know what she wants." ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... by the diamond lake. Senora Dolores, her tutor, Padre Francisco, and the placid Duenna Juanita make up a pleasant home circle. It is brightened by luxuries provided by the new lord. Maxime Valois' voice is heard through the valleys. He travels in support of James Buchanan, the ante-bellum President. For is not John C. Breckinridge, the darling ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... dreamt of Mr. Belamour heeding the little nursery. He has always been an obstinate melancholic lunatic, confined to his chamber by day, and wandering like a ghost by night, refusing all admission. Moreover my good Aylward had appeared hitherto a paragon of a duenna for discretion, only over starched in her precision. Little did I expect to find my young lady spending all her evenings alone with him, and the solitary hermit transformed into a gay and gallant bachelor like the Friar of Orders Gray in the song. And since matters have gone to such a length, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mrs. Malvina Reed, widow of that great statesman, the Hon. Alonzo Confucius Reed, who will be remembered as the author of the notable bill to prohibit barbers breathing on the backs of their customers' necks, was duenna of the party. She was a dumpy, small woman, gray, with lines in her steamed face, in which all attempts at ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... my duenna," she said, sinking into a chair upon one side of the centre table, upon which I placed the lamp. "Lessons are unquestionable, at any place or time. Behold the beautiful posies!" She spread the book open on the table between ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... a great interest in the young man, for to get a girl married to the "Young Savage of Champdoce" would be a feat to be proud of; but unluckily his father watched him with all the vigilance of a Spanish duenna. But there was a young girl who had long since secretly formed a design of her own, and this bold-hearted beauty was Diana de Laurebourg. It was with perfect justice that she had received the name of the "Belle ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... having been great flirts and coquettes in their younger days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant guardians and strict censors of the conduct of their niece; for there is no duenna so rigidly prudent and inexorably decorous as a superannuated coquette. She was rarely suffered out of their sight; never went beyond the domains of the castle unless well attended, or rather well watched; had continual ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... is as worthy of a description as the gondola of Venice. The dames of Cuba delight in it, for it is not only picturesque, but luxurious in the extreme. It is made to contain two sitters with comfort, but when a duenna is in attendance, she is seated on a middle seat between her charges. It has two enormous wheels, strong and thick; the body is supported on the axle-tree, and swings forward from it on springs; it is somewhat low down, and affords abundance of room for the feet, which ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... door opens at length, and a comely matron far stricken in years welcomes the cavalier. Don Lope is not backward in his advances; a smile of grateful recognition plays upon his lip. He then seizes the good duenna's hand, and presses it in ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... stone bench, both hallowed now by the sweetest associations. And yet it might be that those associations would be his last with her! It was almost a relief, on reaching the yew walk, to find it deserted. He went to the Pavilion, and there he elicited from Daphne's elderly duenna, who was rather hard of hearing, that, as her young mistress was certainly not indoors, he would probably ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... shrouded Moorish maid Showed melting eyes, as limpid as a lake; A brow untouched by care; a band of jetty hair, And nothing more. The all-concealing haik Fell to her high arched instep. At her side An old duenna walked; her withered face Half covered only, since no lingering grace Bespoke the ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Tom and his clientele in a manner befitting the occasion and the supposed wealth of the bridegroom, Then none of us saw Luisa for a week at the bathing-place, and her non-appearance was discussed with interest at the nightly kava-drinking at half-caste Johnny Hall's public-house. Old Toi'foi, duenna of the kava-chewing girls, used to say solemnly that the old man had Luisa locked up in her room as she was vale (obstinate), and sat on a chair outside and looked at her through a hole ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... would beg of you though to respect our marriage vow unbroken as long as you possibly can. I neither intend nor wish to leave you in the charge of any person, but leave you to be your own guardian. Truly, there is no duenna, however watchful, who can prevent a woman from doing what she wishes. When therefore your desires shall prick and spur you on, I would beg you, my dear wife, to act with such circumspection in their execution that they may not be publicly known,—for if you do otherwise, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... no water. Pretty dimpled ground, covered with low vineyards, purple hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them. . . . We shall not leave Florence till November—Robert must see Mr. Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartments with Wilson for a duenna. It's an excellent plan for him and not a bad one for Wilson. . . . Forgive me if Robert has told you this already. Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his "gentleness and sweetness". A most courteous and refined gentleman he is, of course, and very affectionate ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... their time for glory could not come till the male world should appear upon the scene. But Lady Ware's tiara still wagged and nodded behind her counter, and Margaret, looking at her, thought that she must have come there as the grand duenna of the occasion. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... follow us upstairs, downstairs, and into my lady's chamber. She would have an eye at the key-hole by day, and an ear by night, when we went up to bed and talked over the events of our frivolous day.' In short, he enumerated our duenna's perfections till our blood ran cold; and it was ever so long before he would tell us who it was— Aunt Maitland. We screamed with surprise. They are like cat and dog, and never agree, except to differ. We sought an explanation of this strange choice. He obliged us. It was not for his gratification ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... there. However, she is not such as would give this Hurlstone any trouble. It seems I must look elsewhere for the brains of this party, and to find a solution of this young man's mystery; and, if I judge correctly, it is with this beautiful young agitator of revolutions and her oratorical duenna I must deal." ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... in a convent;—they had neither money nor beauty; so they are dead to me. My brother is a Jesuit, so he is dead to me. My father fell by the hands of Indians in Mexico; my mother, a penniless widow, is companion, duenna—whatsoever they may choose to call it—carrying fans and lapdogs for some princess or other there in Seville, of no better blood than herself; and I—devil! I have lost even my sword—and so fares the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and was inconsistent with all servitude. That was what she had meant by the drop of the objection to a school; her small companion was no longer required at home as—it was Mrs. Beale's own amusing word—a little duenna. The argument against a successor to Miss Overmore remained: it was composed frankly of the fact, of which Mrs. Beale granted the full absurdity, that she was too awfully fond of her stepdaughter to bring ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... young lady compared very favorably with that of the duenna. A dark-blue riding costume sat tightly on a magnificent form; a brown velvet hat with a long white feather sat coquettishly on her dark locks; fresh red lips, sparkling black eyes, a classically formed nose, and finely curved lips completed her charming appearance. The young ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... the demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking at a bare gravelled court, with an enormous "pas de geant" in the middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a boys' school-house round. Not only then, but many a time after, especially in ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Viceroy's two nephews, Don Cinthio and Don Charmante, as being men of men of mere terrestial mould. The girls are, however, secretly assisted in their amours by Scaramouch, the doctor's man, who is himself a rival of Harlequin, Cinthio's valet, for the hand of Mopsophil, duenna to the young ladies. Harlequin, hoping to find his way to his mistress, gets to Bellemante's chamber but when she appears conceals himself. The doctor, however, who has been hastily summoned to the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... by one who is well-known to the family as quite to be trusted, and only to such parties as are presided over by responsible patronesses. This should be exceptional for any but the young woman who has been left without immediate family and who has been already in society more than one season. The duenna who acts as her natural guardian and chaperon, ordinarily ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... was still more at a loss to account for this sudden awakening into humanity. He had as yet to learn that two days of having her only companion seasick, coupled with a sparkling sun and a crisp breeze, can rouse even a duenna-led English girl to the point of expressing her opinions pithily ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... Wohlfart, eh?" asked Fink, looking Anton full in the face. "I was not aware that you were this lady's duenna too." ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... now pretty well modernised into the Scottish language, is, originally, and in the early editions, a bungling low imitation of the Scottish manner, by that genius, Tom D'Urfey; so has no pretensions to be a Scottish production. There is a pretty English song by Sheridan in the "Duenna," to this air, which is out of sight superior to D'Urfey's. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... herself—to sit, Duchemin had no doubt, by the bedside of d'Aubrac, under the duenna-like eye of an old nurse ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... indolent walk, the walk of the woman without occupation, but in the movements of which one devines all the pleasure that lies asleep. Well, she turned back again, she saw me, once more she adored me, once more trembled, shivered. It was then I noticed the genuine Spanish duenna who looked after her, a hyena upon whom some jealous man has put a dress, a she-devil well paid, no doubt, to guard this delicious creature.... Ah, then the duenna made me deeper in love. I grew curious. On Saturday, nobody. And here ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... menagerie; where, a few months later, she sate by his death-bed and received his blessing. She therefore called to her aid an old nurse-maid, named Tib, who had been much trusted by her father, and with this homely but respectable duenna, she shut herself up in the house at Brighton, limited her expenses to her allowance of 200l. a-year, and resolutely set about the course of study which seemed best adapted to absorb attention and prevent her thoughts from wandering. Hebrew, Mathematics, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. In yet another version (also a contemporary atelier piece), which is in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, and has for that reason acquired a certain celebrity, the greedy duenna is depicted in full face, and holds ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... unexpected appearance, and at the substance of what I had just said. I observed that the two ladies were apparently in some slight degree even distressed, the younger turning her head on one side in maiden modesty, while the elder, a duenna sort of looking person, dropped her eyes to the floor, but succeeded in better maintaining her self-possession and gravity. The eldest of the two gentlemen approached me with dignified composure, after a moment of hesitation, and returning my salute by waving his tail with ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I have remarked, was deeply in love with my Agatha. He followed her about everywhere, was present at all the rehearsals, waited for her at the wings, and called on her every day, although her landlady, a duenna of the Pacienza school, would never let her see him alone. The principal methods of seduction—rich presents—had not been spared, but Agatha persistently refused them all, and forbade her duenna to take anything from the young nobleman. Agatha had no liking ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... presently met the great lady, a stout woman attended by a duenna, gliding fearfully through the darkened archways to learn the answer of the stars and pay many good pesos for it, and the sight of her made me laugh so much that I forgot quickly about the other lady ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... N. teacher, trainer, instructor, institutor, master, tutor, director, Corypheus, dry nurse, coach, grinder, crammer, don; governor, bear leader; governess, duenna [Sp.]; disciplinarian. professor, lecturer, reader, prelector^, prolocutor, preacher; chalk talker, khoja^; pastor &c (clergy) 996; schoolmaster, dominie [Fr.], usher, pedagogue, abecedarian; schoolmistress, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Vatican. An incident which happened during the French invasion of 1494 brings the domestic circumstances of a Pope of the Renaissance vividly before us. Monseigneur d'Allegre caught the ladies Giulia and Girolama Farnese, together with the lady Adriana de Mila, who was employed as their duenna, near Capodimonte, on November 29, and carried them to Montefiascone. The sum fixed for their ransom was 3,000 ducats. This the Pope paid, and on December 1 they were released. Alexander met them outside Rome, attired like a layman in a black jerkin trimmed with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... came into a chamber where there was a light. He saw a negress, a Sudanese duenna, crouching in a corner and staring at him with white eyes. He turned toward the other side ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... not," he replied. "You look at me with that warm light in your eyes, because you think I am not human. I am a mere duenna, a ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... replied. "Please don't trouble about it," she added; "it will be all right. I will be as grave as a duenna; and when I come back Amos shall read me an essay on prudence, and I will listen to every ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... in the most praiseworthy feelings. Call it if you will the prejudice of education, it is still a prejudice honourable in itself, and useful to the public. I only find fault with it, because, like the Friars in the Duenna monopolising the bottle, these English monks will not tolerate in their lay brethren of the north the slightest ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... of the chaperone in America is peculiarly perplexing. The consternation of the hen whose brood of ducklings took to the water is a fit symbol of the horrified amazement with which an old-world "duenna" would be filled if she attempted to "look after" a bevy of typical American girls, with their independent—yet confused—ideas of social requirements in the matter ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... continued to whisper, but in his whisper was a suggestion of the proprietorial tone. Also for the first time in his life he addressed her without the prefix of Miss before her name. This affair plainly was progressing rapidly, despite the handicaps of a withered black duenna in the immediate offing. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... duenna! You would be an acquisition to some crabbed old Spaniard who had a beautiful young wife to look after! Now I want you to tell me how on earth my burning up that old loom and wheel, and putting a ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Flesh and English Spirit. The Princess Charlotte, as we have seen, had an undoubted will of her own, and could, as we have also seen, assert it when occasion demanded. Here she is presented to us at the moment when a hideous German duenna, catching her in the act of writing to her mother abroad, orders her at once to desist. The princess, however, in plain terms, enforced with a clenched fist, gives her clearly to understand that she fully intends to have her ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... she can; she must watch the characters of the men who approach her charge, and endeavor to save the inexperienced girl from the dangers of a bad marriage, if possible. To perform this feat, and not to degenerate into a Spanish duenna, a dragon, or a Mrs. General—who was simply a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... meanwhile, conscious that she was being looked at, but not apparently disturbed by it, was talking to another lady, the only person with her, a tall, gaunt woman, also dressed in black and gifted abundantly with the forbidding aspect which beauty requires in its duenna. ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... asserted, that on the evening of Mr. Sheridan's grand display in the House of Commons, The School for Scandal and the Duenna were acted at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and thus three great audiences were at the same moment amused, agitated, and, as it were, wielded by the intellect of one man. As this triple triumph of talent—this manifestation of the power ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... She had a stepmother of the traditional type, and had never known a happy home life. She was of a loving and trusting and at the same time a coquettish nature, and she attracted young Walton's eye while out for a walk with a "Miss Brown" order of duenna. The duenna saw the little embryo flirtation, and became very much horrified, and preached the girl a long sermon, and set a close watch ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... after the form of young damsels in the times of chivalry; at another, that she was the parent of some lord, who could only be brought to concede something to the Warden by the force of the impledgment of his mother; and, again, that she was the duenna of an heiress, who could only be got through the confinement of the old hag. Be who she might, however, Christie's Will declared, upon the faith of the long shablas of Johnny Armstrong, that he would carry her off through fire and water, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... is absent at Havana, and will probably remain so for a few days, until his wrist gets well; in the meantime, his sister acts as duenna over Donna Clara. She is quite a nice old lady, however, and allows my sister far greater liberty in her brother's absence than ordinarily, as, for instance, to-day. I will get her to permit Clara to spend a few days at my villa down the bay—Alvarez ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... by her countenance. She was on the opposite side of the street to myself, and was attended by an old Moorish woman, who carried an illumined missal. Of these women, several may yet be seen in Malta, looking very Oriental and duenna-like. As I stopped to admire her, she suddenly attempted to cross to the side of the street where I stood. At the same moment, I observed a horse attached to a caleche galloping furiously towards her. It was almost upon her ere Acme ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was as good as his word. Miss Dunreddin was already off on her pleasuring, he took the gray little governess for duenna, and a blither three never sat out a tragedy, or laughed over wine and oysters in the midst of a garden with its flowers and fountains afterwards. 'T was a long day since the poor little woman had known such merrymaking; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... superior attractions, none can deny that the unknown maiden is exquisitely beautiful, and demands are eagerly made as to who she may be. No one can answer—and no clue is given by her companion, for the elderly dame by whom she is attended, and who resembles a duenna, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... I know so little of myself, when I sent my Duenna to forbid your coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little of you, Diego, as to imagine you would not have staid one day in Valadolid to have given ease to my doubts?—Was I to be abandoned, Diego, because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, whether ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... by her Swiss duenna, penetrated almost furtively into Marien's studio, her heart beat as if she had a consciousness of doing something very wrong. In truth, she had pictured to herself so many impossible scenes beforehand, had rehearsed the probable questions and answers in so many strange dialogues, had soothed ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... will send Petronilla, Mary's duenna as a companion for her; the interview with the Chevalier Schoonhoven may not detain me long. We will afterwards go to the dock-yard, and we will at least enjoy the fine ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... The two young people on the porch have no duenna, for Mrs. Grandon retired early,—indeed, she has left Miss Murray quite to Violet, and she thinks if Eugene lets slip this chance he will be foolish above what is written. He plays at love,—it is no new thing for him,—but he convinces "Polly" without any actual questions and answers that he cares ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... doubt, Madam, your name was often on their lips," returned the count gallantly, who evidently believed in the Spanish proverb: "Woo the duenna, not the maid; then in love ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... from home, having gone to Paris to be witnesses on one side or the other of the royal wedding. And consequently we young people, not greatly checked by the presence of good-natured, sleepy Madame Claude, Catherine's duenna, were disposed to make the most of our liberty; and to celebrate the ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... replied to her, "it is almost a pity Fabio is dead! While he lived he played an excellent part as a screen—he was an unconscious, but veritable duenna of propriety for both of us, as no one else ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no guardians or aunts were haled forth o' nights to [v]duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it was not an ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... exclaimed Gomez Arias, "thou art marvellously complaisant, friend—thou hast seen the duenna, I suppose?" ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... without her duenna," said Aunt Viney emphatically. "Of course there's the Concha variety, that ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... literally threw himself at the feet of the fair Donna Paltravi; and she was delighted with him. He was somewhat younger than she was, but that had been the case with her first lover, and she had not objected. The two young people got on famously together, although there was now a duenna as well as a maid on the second floor. Jaqui was greatly comforted. He spent a good deal of his spare time going about Florence looking for a desirable house with two floors. The courtship went on merrily, and there was talk of the wedding; and, while Jaqui could not help ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... his bars, his bolts, His withered Centinel,[96] Duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts,[df] Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen, (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,) With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... paused and knelt at the sound of the angelus, a young girl, carefully surrounded by her discreet mantle, sought to pass through the praying multitude; she was followed by a mestizo woman, a sort of duenna, who watched every glance and step. The duenna, as if she had not understood the warning bell, continued her way through the devout populace: to the general surprise succeeded harsh epithets. The young girl would have stopped, but the ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... Whig, and for whom therefore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that the words "little Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the words "little Isaac " occur in the Duenna, and that Newton's name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addison's "little Dicky" had no more to do with Steele, than Sheridan's "little Isaac" with Newton. If we apply the words "little Dicky" to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... suspicious. Was she the duenna, the mother or an old relative? At any rate she was very ugly, not because her head was like a stone mask with spiral eyebrows, and lips slashed like the fossa of a heraldic dolphin, but vulgarity had stamped the mask, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... of the Japanese woman's indifference to fate and readiness to oblige, I may say that we had on our ship two or three hundred girls in charge of a duenna or so, who were bound for Honolulu to be married to Japanese settlers there, to whom their photographs had been forwarded. These girls are known as "Picture Brides." At Honolulu their new proprietors awaited them, and I suppose identified and ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... be found at Maraquito's. Certainly, only the aristocracy of crime came here, and never a woman. Maraquito did not appear to love her own sex. She received only gentlemen, and as she was an invalid and attended constantly by a duenna in the form of a nurse, no one could say anything. The police knew in an underhand way that the Soho house was a gambling saloon, but the knowledge had not come officially, therefore no notice was taken. But Maraquito's servants suspected nothing, neither ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... route; last of all, Mary and the sailor, for all the world like the old father and mother of the party. Mr Pennycuick excused himself from excursions nowadays, and so did Miss Keene, the elderly and quite uninfluential duenna of the house, when one was needed (she "did the flowers" and knitted singlets ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge |
