"Maiden aunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you—does she?—as an undignified or helpless human being. Her manners suggest a person of considerable self-control. And knowing less of me than you do, she probably regards me as almost as safe as—a maiden aunt say. I'm twice her age. We are a party of four. There are conventions, there are considerations.... Aren't you really, my dear Martineau, overdoing all this side of this very pleasant little enlargement of ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... it from me to advise that girls refrain from doing their part in the general work of the home, if servants are out of the question; that won't hurt them; but if some one must go out and support the family it would better be the mother or the maiden aunt. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... singular, that if Miss Knag did feel a strong interest in Kate Nickleby, it should not rather have been the interest of a maiden aunt or grandmother; that being the conclusion to which the difference in their respective ages would have naturally tended. But Miss Knag wore clothes of a very youthful pattern, and perhaps her feelings took ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... hidden under her hand when her husband came near the card-table; but all her dowry, her whole fortune, she had put absolutely at his disposal. She bore him two children, a son Ivan, the father of Fedor, and a daughter Glafira. Ivan was not brought up at home, but lived with a rich old maiden aunt, the Princess Kubensky; she had fixed on him for her heir (but for that his father would not have let him go). She dressed him up like a doll, engaged all kinds of teachers for him, and put him in charge of a tutor, a Frenchman, who had been an ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... sights constantly offered me. Another girl would have done so. I myself might have done so, had I been over eighteen, or, had I not come from the country, where my natural love of romance had been fostered by uncongenial surroundings and a repressed life under the eyes of a severe and unsympathetic maiden aunt. ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... friendly terms. "She is no end of fun," he would have told you; "has no nonsensical young-lady airs about her, is always ready for sport, sings all kinds of songs from grave to gay, knows a good joke when you tell one, and keeps a fellow up to the mark as well as a maiden aunt." ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... some large coachmaster; but few words were said, and I was consigned to the coachman of one of the country stages, with as little remorse and as little ceremony as if I had been an ugly blear-eyed pug, forwarded in a basket, labelled "this side uppermost," to an old maiden aunt, or a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Kilburn, in order to avoid the traps; for, as he observes, he has been among the Greeks and pigeons, who have completely rook'd him, and now want to crow over him: he has been at hide and seek for the last two months, and, depending on the death of a rich old maiden aunt who has no other heir, he ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... times. People said her head was not just right—she was overworked and nervous or something! The father had lost his place on account of too much gin and water, especially gin; the mother was almost helpless from paralysis, and in the family was an aged maiden aunt to be cared for. The only regular income was the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... his presence tolerable to his crusty maiden aunt by assisting her to the best of his ability, and the business of the little cottage bakery had grown in consequence. An aged horse with a hanging head had been purchased for eight pounds at a sale, a creaking cart with a whity-brown ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... urged. "These guys mean nothing in my young life except a dinner. And you needn't worry. Believe me, you'll be shown the same respect as if you were out with your maiden aunt. They know I'm refined and won't stand for anything else. And ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... at the theatre by an old maiden aunt, who had never heard of the Agency. The young lady offered as an explanation that the man with her was 'only engaged for the time,' which so shocked the poor old lady that she made a codicil next day to her will reciting her ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... shrewish beauty. Personally, I don't. She's a Hungarian gipsy, or something of that kind, so Riccardo says; from some provincial theatre in Galicia. He seems to be rather a cool hand; he has been introducing the girl to people just as if she were his maiden aunt." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... young girl, cut down at the early age of nineteen. She was left an orphan at the age of nine months, her father dying suddenly, and her mother a few weeks after, with consumption. She was tenderly cared for by her maternal grand-parents and a maiden aunt, well educated and had commenced teaching, when she was seized suddenly with an alarming fever, which in a few short days, was terminated by death. They bore her to the resting place with many tears, and placed her beside those dear parents from whom ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Adelaide's two older sisters were married and her brother Charles, also older than herself, by three years, was a senior in college. Adelaide had just finished her course in the Academy where the long service of a maiden aunt as a teacher had secured certain appreciated privileges, without which it is doubtful if both Charles and Adelaide could have been sent away to school at the same time. A boy of fourteen and the eight-year old baby ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... aversion might have been traced to Aurora's maiden aunt Eliza, who had directed Aurora's education, and had from her niece's early youth instilled into Aurora's mind very distinct notions touching ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... returned to him he was almost happy again, in spite of the shadow caused by the memory of what had happened, as well as by the uncertainty of the future. He had but one hundred pounds a year from his clerkship, and there was a maiden aunt as well as the father to be cared ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... have appeared in both their death certificates; and the worm must have been in the bud, for she died suddenly at twenty-five, following a short, apparently inadequate illness. Thus, three-year-old Francis was left to a busy father's care, a maiden aunt's theoretical incompetence, and to the ministrations of a series of governesses who remained so long as they pleased their youthful lord. The undisciplined father's idea of good times, for both himself and his son, was based upon having what you want right now, and why not?—with unlimited ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... conquered him by her charms, and he was now a slave, waiting an appropriate time for matrimonial sacrifice. William Summerkin was the young man's name; and as it was known that Mr Summerkin was to inherit a fortune amounting to five thousand pounds from his maiden aunt, it was considered that Polly Toogood was not doing amiss. "I'll give you three hundred pounds, my boy, just to put a few sheets on the beds," said Toogood the father, "and when the old birds are both dead she'll have a thousand pounds out of the nest. That's the extent of ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... genuine Havanas," he said. "A birthday present from a maiden aunt, who is wise enough to judge the quality of tobacco by the price. Here, too, are ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... an orphan, and possessed, I am told, of considerable property in her own name. A forceless, nerveless maiden aunt is about the only antecedent we see much of. Her guardian has been here once or twice, but practically ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... folk are all well here, both bairns and grown folk, and we will be blithe to hear from you, and if you have the time to send a scraps of your pen to your auld maiden aunt, that mony a time (though Lord knows not half often enough) has garred your lugs ring for your misdeeds—she will be pleased to hear if the butter and cheese were some kitchen ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... as ever, and even Willie could hardly have blamed prosperity for that. He had no deadly vices, but he could not stick to any job for more than a month. He was out of work at present. Having developed into a rather weedy, seedy-looking young man, he was not too proud to sponge on the melancholy maiden aunt who had brought him up, and whose efforts at stern discipline during his earlier years had seemingly proved fruitless. Macgregor was the only human being he ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... glad they are coming back soon,' said Gideon. 'This business strikes me as excessively unsafe; if it goes on much longer, I could provide you with a maiden aunt of mine, or my landlady if ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... annoyed her, the asking for the subscription to the church. There was neither blame nor punishment; but she could not help a certain cold restraint of manner, by which Kate knew that she was greatly displeased, and regarded her as the most hopeless little saucy romp that ever maiden aunt was afflicted with. ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... occasion to arrest, though one might have thought he had more reason than a good many others to complain of his lot in life. In the first place, he had a girl's name, and any one knows that would be a great cross to a boy. His name was Julia; his parents had called him so on account of his having a maiden aunt who had promised to leave her money to him if he was ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... of town life somewhat sobered me of my intoxication; or rather I was rendered more serious by one of my old complaints—I fell in love. It was with a very pretty, though a very haughty fair one, who had come to London under the care of an old maiden aunt, to enjoy the pleasures of a winter in town, and to get married. There was not a doubt of her commanding a choice of lovers; for she had long been the belle of a little cathedral town; and one of the prebendaries had absolutely ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... from the beach, two white tents gleamed. This was the camp of Marian and Lucile. The rock-ribbed and heavily wooded island belonged to Lucile's father, a fish canner of Anacortes, Washington. There was, so far as they knew, not another person on the island. They had expected a maiden aunt to join them in their outing. She was to have come down from the north in a fishing smack, but up to this time had not arrived. Not that the girls were much concerned about this; they had lived much in the open and rather welcomed the opportunity to be alone in the wilds. It was good preparation ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... motor bicycle, spattering noise and petrol. You couldn't see her features under her expression, which was agonized. The young man who propelled her was smirking conceitedly, as if to say, "What a kind chap I am, giving my maiden aunt a good time!" ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... have married them; and to grow queerer as life drags away, leaving them eternally unsatisfied, bitter and perverse. This deadly influence is supposed to have some poisonous effect on the pupils; just what is not defined. The unselfish, tireless service of the "maiden aunt" in the home we all know; but set her to teaching school, and some strange ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... mysterious meaning, beginning at the matrimonial advertisements last May? or of these letters in his breast-pocket from the widow of an affectionate and generous disposition and easy income on Callowhill, or from the confiding Estelle, whose maiden aunt dragonized her on Ridge Road above Parrish? When he saw them once, fate would speak out. Something in him was made for better things than this flat life: "instincts of chivalry and kindred souls,"—quoting Estelle's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... of age. I found grandmamma several years older, and many degrees more exacting than she was before. She was so much alarmed lest I should make an unsuitable alliance, that she never suffered me to go out without I was accompanied by herself, or an old maiden aunt, who was more rigid and stiff than ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... kindly maiden aunt, who, after having played for some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows, one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile plays only a deceptive and scarcely ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... to say that old age is not likely to find Mrs. Percival so happy and contented as is my dear old maiden aunt," ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... rarely, beneath That outward repose that concealed it in her) A something half wild to her strange character. The nurse with the orphan, awhile broken-hearted, At the door of a convent in Paris had parted. But later, once more, with her mistress she tarried, When the girl, by that grim maiden aunt, had been married To a dreary old Count, who had sullenly died, With no claim on her tears—she had wept as a bride. Said Lord ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... engagements, so few people had got back to town. She called upon Mrs. Witherby, needlessly reminding her of the charity committees they had served on together; and then she went home and actually sent out notes to the plainest daughter and the maiden aunt of two of the most high-born families of her acquaintance. She added to her list an artist and his wife, ("Now I shall have to let him paint me!" she reflected,) a young author whose book had made talk, a teacher ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... when we reached Carlisle, for there my journey ended—for that day at least. I was to spend the night with a maiden aunt, living near Carlisle, and go on to Inverness the next morning. The station came in sight only too soon. My companion had been telling me some mountaineering experiences which had been called to his mind by the scenery we had been passing through, ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... him. She had passed most of her life, for what crimes she could not tell, in a sort of prison, ycleped a fashionable boarding-school, and the greater part of the vacations had been spent with a rich maiden aunt and an old bachelor uncle in the city of Brotherly Love. A few days previous to her liberation from this "durance vile," Walter Cunningham had set out for Paris, where he was to remain as long as suited ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... passing framed steel engravings. The room beyond contained easy chairs, a sofa upholstered with hair cloth, an upright piano, a marble fireplace with a mantel, in a corner a triangular what-not filled with objects. It, too, was dim and curtained and faintly aromatic as had been the house of an old maiden aunt of my childhood, who used to give me cookies on the Sabbath. I felt now too large, and too noisy, and altogether mis-dressed and blundering and dirty. The little old man moved without a sound, and the grandfather's clock outside ticked deliberately ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... abroad. It had always been one of John's and Ellen's air-castles to take all the children to England and to Germany for some years of study. She proposed to take the youngest four, leaving the eldest girl, who was her father's especial pet and companion, to stay with him. A maiden aunt of ours was to come and keep the house, and I was to stay with the family. This ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of men three days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding over a pretty tea table, a la fusse, in the quaint old mansion, bowered in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a venerable maiden aunt, had her "local habitation and, a name!" A lonely woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... was five o'clock; the train for the North, the first express, left at half-past six. There would be time. She would leave all her business affairs in the hands of Mr. Farley, her legal adviser and general manager; and as to the house, the maiden aunt who resided with her could keep up the establishment until her return, if she ever ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... would be a long affair with Mrs. Best. After their decorous stillness at breakfast, it was a contrast to hear the merry voices and laughter outside, but it subsided as soon as she approached, though she did not hear the murmured ripple, "Here comes maiden aunt! ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... became very good chums, and used to ramble the woods together hand in hand, in a way that must have frightened them both had they been on the same psychic plane. Isaac had about the same regard for her that he might have had for a dear maiden aunt who would mend his old socks and listen patiently, pretending to be interested when he talked of parallelograms and prismatic spectra. But evidently Mary Story thought of him with a thrill, for she stoutly resented the boys ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... maiden aunt who sat under the lamplight with her sewing on her lap. He saw that her lips were intolerantly compressed and that her needle came and went in protesting little jabs. "Hannah," he quietly inquired, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... introduction must come from quite another quarter. Listen, and I'll communicate the facts and unfold my plan. It has been running in my head for weeks, ever since I heard that the girl was to spend the summer in the North with nobody but an old maiden aunt, half-cracked at that, to keep guard over her; but I couldn't quite make up my mind to it till to-night, for you must see, Tom," he added with a forced laugh, "that it can't be exactly delightful to my family pride to think ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... that her father would be less charmed than herself with Jasper Losely; that, if Jasper were presented to him, he would possibly forbid her farther acquaintance with a young clerk, however superb his outward appearance. She took the first false step. She had a maiden aunt by the mother's side, who lived in Bloomsbury, gave and went to small parties, to which Jasper could easily get introduced. She arranged to pay a visit for some weeks to this aunt, who was then very civil to her, accepting ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... might almost say always—the trying member of the family is trying only because we make her so by our attitude toward her, let her be grandmother, mother, or maiden aunt. Even the proverbial mother-in-law grows less difficult as our attitude toward her is relieved of the strain of detesting everything she does, and expecting to detest everything that she is going ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... under your care. Find him a place in your office; he has the necessary qualifications. He is a journalist, but I foresee ruin in that line for Desmond. Supply his immediate needs, and draw upon me, but invent some pious fiction to account for the capital—a dead maiden aunt or any other apocryphal person you like. If he thinks that the money comes from me, ten to one he will have none of it. Make him keep himself as far as possible by his own brains, and never offer the boy whisky. If you do this for ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... a string of wedding and funeral rings; the arms of the family curiously blazoned; the same in worsted, by a maiden aunt. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... But an old maiden aunt, whom, rest her soul! I never saw, for family pride's sake, bequeathed me an independence. To obviate his lordship's difficulties, I mean to—to marry into this humdrum ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... lady is my maiden aunt, come over from the State of Maine to see your British institutions," Mr. Parmalee said, in fluent fiction, to the obsequious landlady. "She's writing a book, and she'll mention the Blue Bell favorably ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... had vanished—alone—seven years before from the Manor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had been as much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische's daughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille's influence over his daughter and her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy whatever. Very often indeed, when he felt incompetent ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in human testimony has been shattered by Mactavish's uncle, Bloomer's maiden aunt, and Wiggins' brother-in-law. I put on one side the statement of Mirfin's grandmother because her allegation that 193 trains passed her house one night might have been based on the shunting of a single goods train. One knows the fiendish persistency ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... Ferdinand learnt that his father and mother were at Bath, on a visit to his maiden aunt, Miss Grandison, with whom his cousin now resided. As the regiment was quartered at Exeter, he was enabled in a very few days to obtain leave of absence and join them. In the first rapture of meeting all disappointment was forgotten, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... maiden aunt of the young officer who had been slain at Badajoz, kept house for us after my sister's death. She was a lady of good Welsh family, who after many years of genteel poverty had come into a legacy of seven thousand pounds from an East Indian ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... enamel, a number of highly reasoning men of semi-science have returned to the notion of our fathers, that ghosts have an existence outside our own fancy and emotion; and have culled from the experience of some Jemima Jackson, who fifty years ago, being nine years of age, saw her maiden aunt appear six months after decease, abundant proof of this fact. One feels glad to think the maiden aunt should have walked about after death, if it afforded her any satisfaction, poor soul! but one is struck by the extreme uninterestingness of this lady's appearance in the spirit, corresponding ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... her. Walks like a cat on a wet ash-pile. But—— Oh thunder, he's all right. Neat. I never could mingle with that bunch. I'd be web-footed and butter-fingered. And he seems to know all that bunch—bows to every maiden aunt in the shop. Now if I was following her, I'd never see anybody but her; rest of the folks could all bob their heads silly, and I'd never see one blame thing except that funny little soft spot at the back of her neck. Nope, you're kind to your cat, Milt, but you weren't ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... an amiable and ineffective maiden aunt in trousers, pounded frantically with his gavel. "Order!" he ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... more sober pace. Yes, she had heard of Aunt Betsy—a maiden aunt, who lived in her own house a little way from The Knoll. A lady who had plenty of money and decidedly masculine tastes, which she indulged freely; a very lovable person withal, if Bessie might be believed. Ida wondered if she too would be able ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... that is troubled with the Vapours, produces infinite Disturbances of this kind among her Friends and Neighbours. I know a Maiden Aunt, of a great Family, who is one of these Antiquated Sybils, that forebodes and prophesies from one end of the Year to the other. She is always seeing Apparitions, and hearing Death-Watches; and was the other Day almost ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... deadly dullness Hinpoha was ready to fly. And yet Aunt Phoebe was not conscious that there was anything wrong in the way she was treating Hinpoha. She cared for her in her frozen way. She was merely trying to bring her up in the way she herself had been brought up by a maiden aunt, not taking into account that this was another day and age. In her time it was considered the proper thing to shut down on all lightheartedness after a death in the family, and she was adhering steadfastly to the old principles. She was yet to learn that she could not force ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... "What are roomy eyes, dear?" (Being her fourth cousin by marriage, I am a sort of maiden aunt to her,—whence this respectful familiarity.) "Eyes in which there is room for the honest glances that never ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... The Indian Government is much too timid with its money—like an old maiden aunt of mine—always in a funk about her investments. They don't spend half enough on railways for instance, and they are slow in a general way, and ought to be made to sit up in all that concerns the encouragement of private enterprise, and coaxing out into use the millions ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... The maiden aunt, fortified in ignorance, gazed with pity and contempt upon this interest. "Well, now, Emily, how do I know?" she queried. "Was I goin' to stand over 'im? Of all the worryin' you do about that child! It's a shame the way you're bringin' ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... what more Could I ask of kind Fortune to grant? Humph! a few olive branches—say four— As pets for my old maiden aunt. Then, with health, there'd be nought to append. To perfect my happiness here; For the utile et duloc would blend. If I had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... caught James Cooper's thought to use them, by description, in his coming book, "The Spy." Chapter XIII describes closely the personal appearance and style of dress of these portraits. "Jeanette Peyton," the maiden aunt of Cooper's story, owes her mature charm to the portrait of Mary Duyckinck, wife of Peter Jay. From the "cap of exquisite lawn and lace," her gown of rich silk, short sleeves and "large ruffles" of lace which with "the ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... that is troubled with the vapours, produces infinite disturbances of this kind among her friends and neighbours. I once knew a maiden aunt, of a great family, who is one of these antiquated sybils, that forebodes and prophesies from one end of the year to the other. She is always seeing apparitions, and hearing death-watches; and was the other day ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... companion. "Every life has its romantic episodes, or, at least, incidents which appear such to him who experiences them. But these tender little histories are usually insipid enough when told. I have a maiden aunt, who once came so near having an offer from a pale stripling, with dark hair, seven years her junior, that to this day she often alludes to the circumstance, with the remark, that she wishes she knew some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... put her hand in Alexia's, and together they ran out into the hall, to the maiden aunt's room. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... in store for me. Margaret was not in the house; she had gone out to an evening party, given by a maiden aunt of hers, who was known to be very rich, and was, accordingly, a person to be courted ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... throne of their father; and the portions of Constantine II, the eldest of the three, and Constans, the youngest, have at last fallen into the hands, or the web, of Constantius,—a sort of cross between a spider, an octopus, and an elderly maiden aunt,—and in general about as unpleasant a creature as ever sat on a throne. Constantine the Great, indeed, had willed the succession into the hands of a much larger number of his relatives; but this Constantius, his father once decently buried, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... his spirits had reached their lowest ebb, and before many minutes had passed he was pouring forth his tribulations with much frankness and simplicity. Mr. Griffith Donne's principal trial was the existence of an elderly maiden aunt, who did not approve of him, and was in the habit of expressing her disapproval in lengthy epistolary correspondence, invariably tending to severe denunciation of his mode of life, and also invariably terminating with the announcement that unless he "desisted" (from what, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a sick uncle, all according to the very best melodrama. But what I feared is true—he is still as mad as ever about me. I went down to the post-office for the evening mail, and was coming home by moonlight, unattended, as any undesirable maiden aunt may safely do, when the boy overtook me. I had heard his hurried steps behind me for some time. Up he rushed just as we reached the vacant lot before the Temple house, and caught my arm and poured forth a volume of ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... that scene of confusion thrice confounded, in which we left the inhabitants of Headlong Hall, arrived the lovely Caprioletta Headlong, the Squire's sister (whom he had sent for, from the residence of her maiden aunt at Caernarvon, to do the honours of his house), beaming like light on chaos, to arrange disorder and harmonise discord. The tempestuous spirit of her brother became instantaneously as smooth as the surface of the lake of Llanberris; and the little fat butler "plessed Cot, and ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... to see the country turn back to New England, not only with historic pride, but with a rich appreciation of its artistic mother-land—not mistaking her for its bleak and apprehensive maiden aunt! ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... family, it is necessary to say here, consisted of my partner, his two parents, a maiden aunt, and a sister. Mr Hullock, a good and worthy little man, who had not had all the advantages of education which his son possessed, was a retired coal merchant, spending the afternoon of his days ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the tomb—also the victim of grief. They left two children behind them: Flora, who was then an infant, and a little boy, named Alessandro, who was five years old. The orphans were entirely dependent upon the kindness of a maiden aunt—their departed father's sister. This relative, whose name was, of course, also Francatelli, performed a mother's part toward the children: and deprived herself, not only of comforts, but at times even of necessaries, in order that they should not want. Father ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture. All in the cool of a white "sailor suit," he turned aside from the path of duty—which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt—and paused to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his ear, and he took it ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... want of an efficient person to assist you in taking charge of your domestic affairs, Enna," said a maiden aunt of mine to me one evening. I pulled my little sewing-table toward me with a slight degree of impatience, and began very earnestly to examine the contents of my work-box, that I might not express aloud my weariness of my aunt's favorite subject. I had been in want of just such ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... comprised a maiden aunt of Sir James, Miss Patricia, a stern and awful specimen of the female sex in its fossil state; her ward, Miss Henderson, who, having long passed her pupilage, remained at Collingham-Westmore in the capacity of gouvernante and companion to the young heiress; the heiress aforesaid, and myself. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... said, "I strongly advise you to dress as thinly as you can consistently with decency, and put your collar and tie in your pocket before the game begins. Hockey is properly a winter game." He told the maiden aunt-like lady with the prominent nose, and she said almost enviously, "Every one here is asked to play except me. I assuage the perambulator. I suppose one mustn't be envious. I don't see why I shouldn't play. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... neither very pleasant nor very satisfactory to herself or to any one else. She had never intended to end her days at Sutton Vicarage; it had only been an intermediate condition of things. She had no vocation for visiting the poor, or for filling that useful but unexciting family office of maiden aunt; and, moreover, she felt that, with all their kindness to her, her brother-in-law and his wife ought not to be burdened with her support for longer than was necessary. As to turning governess, or companion, or lady-help, there was an incongruity in the idea that made it ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... crept a certain weariness as of old age; but what justness of expression, what adjustment of puzzling relations! One lady follows you over the gallery with her stern gaze. It recalls to us the last judgment look which a maiden aunt was wont to bestow upon us years ago. The men regents will live into eternity if the canvas endures. The shiny varnish is not pleasing, yet it cannot destroy the illusion of atmosphere that circulates about the vigorously modelled figures at the table. What ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... is to go back to this tyrant of a maiden aunt," laughed the doctor. "But by all means let her come home first, as Rachel suggests, and then we shall see for ourselves, and hear how she likes ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... play, by Catherine Chisholm Cushing, after the novel by Eleanor H. Porter. 5 males, 6 females. 2 interiors. Costumes, modern. Plays 2-1/4 hours. An orphan girl is thrust into the home of a maiden aunt. In spite of the trials that beset her, she manages to find something to be glad about, and brings light into sunless lives. Finally Pollyanna straightens out the love affairs of her elders, and finds happiness for herself in Jimmy. "Pollyanna" gives a better appreciation ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... Squirearchy and the upper professional class," as Professor Saintsbury expresses it, down to the ground—knew it as a sympathetic onlooker slightly detached (she never married), yet not coldly aloof but a part of it as devoted sister and maiden aunt, and friend-in-general to the community. She could do two things which John Ruskin so often lauded as both rare and difficult: see straight and then report accurately; a literary Pre-Raphaelite, be it noted, before the term was coined. It not only ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... was a greater and more significant change than any of these. We found that he was sticking more steadily to work. I can hardly say his work; for he was Jack-of-all-trades, as I have already indicated. He had a small income, left him by an old maiden aunt with whom he had been a favorite, which had hitherto seemed to do him nothing but harm, enabling him to alternate fits of comparative diligence with fits of positive idleness. I have said also, I believe, that, although he could do nothing ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... was false, and to be forced glibly to chatter the words before the class shamed and angered me. Had not a maiden aunt of mine, after many trips to the library of the New England Genealogical Society, traced back our line to William the Conqueror? Was there another boy or girl in the school who had descended from William the Conqueror? No, sir! Several of them had kind hearts, and doubtless ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... or widower, a maiden aunt, a homeless uncle or cousin made his home with relatives, it was "as one of the family"; only the minister was recognized as having need for a separate sitting-room. The trials of this forced companionship have been told in many a witty story; and ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... that is troubled with the vapours, produces infinite disturbances of this kind among her friends and neighbours. I know a maiden aunt, of a great family, who is one of these antiquated Sibyls, that forebodes and prophesies from one end of the year to the other. She is always seeing apparitions, and hearing dead-watches; and was the other day ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... loyalty of a clanswoman, the hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the idolatry due to a god. No matter what he had asked of her, ridiculous or tragic, she would have done it and joyed to do it. Her passion, for it was nothing less, entirely filled her. It was a rich physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp for him when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came to them, Jack and Carl went to an uncle in Vermont, Miss Laura went to another in New Hampshire, and Ned and Willie went to visit a maiden aunt who ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... remedying this annoyance, would any man in his senses think of speculating on the possibility that all this should be a romance? Or, to come nearer in the kind of fact, if a man represented his family fortune as having been bequeathed by a maiden aunt in the last generation, would any man say otherwise than that doubtless the man knew his own benefactors and relatives best? On this same principle, when Christ was mentioned as the divinity adored by a certain part of the Jews who were ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey |
