"Matronly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the selectmen of the town, Reverend Doctor Cooper, Colonel Henry and Lucy Knox, Captain and Mrs. Brandon, Berinthia, Abraham Duncan, Major Tom Brandon, Rachel Walden; young ladies in the bloom of maidenhood, matronly mothers, fathers resolute of countenance,—all rejoicing ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... lighting of the rooms, when Mrs. Smith, before commencing her own toilette, entered the apartment of her guest. Miss Incledon, who considered herself past the time of life for other than matronly decorations of the person, was laying out a handsome pelerine, and a tasteful cap, to wear with a rich, dark ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... threshold of a door. A knock and an answer opened it, and Martin found himself shaking hands with Kreis, a handsome brunette man, with dazzling white teeth, a drooping black mustache, and large, flashing black eyes. Mary, a matronly young blonde, was washing dishes in the little back room that served for kitchen and dining room. The front room served as bedchamber and living room. Overhead was the week's washing, hanging in ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the empire. The young Paulina opened her veins with her husband, the philosopher, Seneca; Mallonia preferred to die in torments rather than give herself up to the odious he-goat of Capri. Who does not admire the noble independence, the conjugal love, and the matronly virtues of Agrippina, the wife ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... (veteran) 130; firstling; doyen, father; primogeniture. [Science of old age.] geriatrics, nostology^. V. be aged &c adj.; grow old, get old &c adj.; age; decline, wane, dodder; senesce. Adj. aged; old &c 124; elderly, geriatric, senile; matronly, anile^; in years; ripe, mellow, run to seed, declining, waning, past one's prime; gray, gray-headed; hoar, hoary; venerable, time-worn, antiquated, passe, effete, decrepit, superannuated; advanced in life, advanced ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... frames on the walls; a large mirror and a set of lock-boxes gave the teachers toilet accommodations; while baskets of knitting and other belongings bespoke this as the retiring-room of the lady teachers. The chief of these, a kind-faced matronly woman, spoke English imperfectly; but several of the younger ones spoke it very well, and one or two were of charming manners ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... oblong room that was stifling from many perfumes, and certain smaller chambers. The garden was inhabited by a gazelle, whose great startled eyes looked out through the long grass; and the oblong room by a number of women of varying ages, among whom were a matronly Mooress, called Tarha, in a scarlet head-dress, and with a string of great keys swung from shoulder to waist; a Circassian, called Hoolia, in a gorgeous rida of red silk and gold brocade; a Frenchwoman, called Josephine, ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her matronly little way about and about the room and folding up everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came creeping back to my side and said, "Oh, don't cry, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... unwholesome regard, for the gratification of my other appetites, I confess that this same vanity is by far the most poignant of the whole. I therefore surrendered myself freely to the soft allurements thrown in my way by such matronly denizens of Glasgow as were possessed of stock in the shape of marriageable daughters; and walked the more readily into their toils, because every party, though nominally for the purposes of tea, wound up with a hot supper, and something hotter still by way ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... across the meadows, which were gay with lady's smock, and he walked, by special request, between her and three matronly cows—feeling as Perseus might have done when he fended off the sea-monster. And so by the mill, and up a steep path to Immering Common. Across the meadows Lewisham had broached the subject of her occupation. "And are you really going away from here to be an amanuensis?" ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... never occurred to him to doubt his own intuition, until suddenly he heard his own name quite near, and turning quickly, he saw a stout matronly woman of forty years or thereabouts standing beside ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... allowed to die away; and the restless expression, produced by a perpetual labour to make conquests, which was, at one time, always to be traced upon her features, had now vanished entirely. In its place there was a touch of matronly care and affection, more natural, and far more pleasing. She, too, was sitting by the side of her child, driving away the flies from the little thing, who was sleeping in a berth. Adeline Taylor had married well, in the best sense of the word. Not that she deserved ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Chevening churchyard. The white marble monument of Lady Frederica Stanhope is in the church; plain though she was in life, she is beautiful in death, something of exquisite tenderness in the expression of her countenance, maternal tenderness, and repose, matronly repose, and yet the freshness of youth in the rounded arm and delicate hand that lightly, affectionately presses the infant—she dies, if dying it can be called, so placid, so happy; the head half-turned sinks into the pillow, which, without touching, one can hardly believe to be marble. I am ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... difficult and vexatious office fell upon the lieutenant-governor, William Dummer. When he first met the Council in his new capacity, a whimsical scene took place. Here, among the rest, was the aged, matronly countenance of the worthy Samuel Sewall, deeply impressed with the dignity and importance of his position as senior member of the Board. At his best he never had the faintest sense of humor or perception of the ludicrous, and being now perhaps touched with dotage, he thought ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... drew down her face and folded her hands in matronly dignity, gazing pensively at the blue-and-white stove, her head a ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... country-woman, to whose features, originally sly and espiegle in expression, matrimony had given that decent matronly air which peculiarly marks the peasant's wife of Scotland. She had an infant in one arm, and with the other she smoothed down her apron, to which hung a chubby child of two years old. The elder girl, whom the traveller had first seen, fell back behind her ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... supper-table—he sat down to it. "My goot girls!" said he, soon after, "you may go down; I do not want you; you need not wait." The two timid, gentle creatures instantly obeyed. More than an hour elapsed, and then Mr. Vanderclump's bell rang. The two matronly maidens were very busily employed in making a new cap. Betty rose at once; but suddenly recollecting that she had been trying on her new and unfinished cap, and had then only a small brown cotton skull-cap on her head, she ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... to watch over the different works. Smiling and merry as she used to be, a change had come over her, and she seemed already dignified and matronly. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... sermon lifted the schoolmaster up, and brought God very near; and the hearty hymns and reverent prayers helped him greatly. When the service was over, he waited, and soon Carruthers presented his comely, matronly wife, while Mrs. Carmichael recalled herself to his remembrance; and, finally, the minister, having divested himself of gown and bands in the vestry, came down the aisle with cheery step and voice to bid him welcome to Flanders. Wilkinson was happy—happier ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... crowd of diners to the inn- table; when we were all seated we made quite a company at the long, narrow board. The candles and lamps lit up any number of Vandyke pointed beards, of bald heads, of loosely-tied cravats, and a few matronly bosoms straining at the buttons of silk holiday gowns. For the Fete-Dieu had brought visitors besides ourselves from all the country round; and then "a first communion is like a marriage, all the relatives must come, as doubtless we knew," ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... had developed into matronly comeliness. Her fair complexion and pink cheeks had lost none of their freshness. Her smooth auburn hair was as soft and bright as it had been when she had braided it preparatory to a Barlingford tea-party in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... had been different—if she had died ripe in years, after a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? I think not. I believe that in ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... you," returned Phillis, naughtily, "for he talked to no one else. And you are so young-looking and pretty that of course no one could be surprised if he did." But though Mrs. Challoner said, "Oh, Phillis!" and looked dreadfully shocked in a proper matronly way, what was the use of that, when the mischievous girl burst out laughing in ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... to by a kindly-faced, matronly looking lady, whom he instinctively felt was the mother of the young lady. Making his business known, and requesting an interview with Miss Patton, he was ushered into a cool, well-furnished parlor, to await the conveyance of his message ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... constant, self-denying, earnest, and devoted; had acquired in her maidenhood—whether happily in the end, for herself or him, is foreign to our present purpose to inquire—something of that nobler quality of gentle hearts which is developed often by the sorrows and struggles of matronly years, but often by their lessons only. Unspoiled, unpampered in her joys or griefs; with frank and full, and deep affection for the object of her early love; she saw in him one who for her sake was an outcast from his home and fortune, and she had no more idea of bestowing that love upon him in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... thus discussing, Mrs. Cameron, carrying in her arms her babe, bore down in magnificent and modest pride, wearing with matronly grace her new glory of a great achievement, the greatest ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... goodness. You almost worship as you behold. What rendered him thus perfect? What rounded off his natural asperities, and moulded up his virtues? Love mainly. It permeated every pore, and seasoned every fibre of his being, as could nothing else. Mark that matronly woman. In the bosom of her family she is more than a queen and goddess combined. All her looks and actions express the outflowing of some or all of the human virtues. To know her is to love her. She became thus perfect, not in a day or year, but by a long series of appropriate means. Then by what? ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... learn from their very Bibles and prayer-books. There are such things as education and culture—not to speak of good birth. You yourself, Dr. Millar, are fairly well born and well connected for a professional man." She instanced this with an imperceptible bridle and toss of her matronly head, which hinted broadly, "If it had not been so, Jonathan, I should never have been Mrs. Millar." The movement threatened to deposit her cap on the carpet behind her, but she recovered it in time, and took up ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... come over Lady Fulkeward—a change, sudden, mysterious and amazing to many of her former distinguished friends with "pedigrees." In her husband's lifetime her hair had been a soft silver-gray; her face pale, refined and serious; her form full and matronly; her step sober and discreet; but two years after the death of the kindly and noble old lord who had cherished her as the apple of his eye and up to the last moment of his breath had thought her the most beautiful ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... the slender outline of the young writer. Agar was perhaps thirty-five at that time. She was certainly very beautiful, but to me there was no charm about her, and I could not understand why this poetical Bonaparte was in love with this matronly woman. It was as clear as daylight that he was, and she too appeared to be in love. This interested me infinitely. I watched them clasp each other's hands, and then, with an abrupt and almost awkward movement, the young poet bent over the beautiful ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... witness of this—this—ah wedding"—there was a whole volume of criticism in his utterance of the word—"was the landlady of the 'Adam and Eve.' I begin to think that she was this lady's good angel; Fate, clothed, for once, matronly and benign." Then he dropped the easy, bantering manner with a suddenness that was startling. Gallic fire blazed up through British training. "Let us speak plainly, my Lord Rotherby. This marriage is no marriage. It is ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her matronly fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... cooks hardly less ignorant than yourself," added I, laughing at her selfish horror of matronly bondage, yet provoked at it. "Miss Etty, would you, if you could, stand still instead ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... a cloud of white drapery was seen moving in the verandah. It soon resolved itself into a tall, dignified old lady, another of matronly appearance, and a bevy of young ones; two or three of them mere girls; perfect Houris they seemed to Adair, and Jack was much of the same opinion. As Adair threw himself from his horse, the old lady advanced from among the rest, holding out both ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... slight change in her manner was noticed by the few who saw her more frequently. Her apparently invincible girlishness of spirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness. She applied herself to her household cares and the improvement of the hacienda with a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degrees she wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, but part of her own individuality. Even ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... loafers energetic enough to shout "Whoa!" if the flies worried the horses beyond patience. In the yard, amongst the weeds and tall, unkept grass, chickens foraged all day long; the fence was so low that the most matronly hen flew over with propriety; and there were gaps that accommodated the passage of itinerant pigs. Most of the latter, however, preferred the cool wallows of the less important street corners. Here and there a big dog lay asleep in the middle of the road, knowing well that ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... of her rather short figure, she appeared at her best when she was sitting, and now, with her large, tightly laced hips hidden beneath the table and her firm, jet-plastered bosom appearing above it, she presented a picture of calm and matronly beauty. Not once did she seem to think of herself or her own breakfast. Even while she buttered her toast and drank her steaming coffee, her bright blue eyes travelled unceasingly over the table, first to her husband's plate, then to Gabriella's, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... by birth, he came of Venetian parentage, and learnt the first elements of his art in Venice. He never really mastered the inner niceties of anatomy in its finest sense, and the broad generalisation of his forms may be meant to conceal uncertain drawing, but his large-bosomed, matronly women and plump children, his round, soft contours, his clean brilliancy, and the clear golden polish in which his pictures are steeped, made a great appeal to the public. His invention is the large Santa Conversazione, as compared with those in half-length of the earlier ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... wonderful resemblances; I never saw them, but then he inherited his mother's repulsion towards me, and roared doubly at the sight of me. My mother held that he was the victim of Selina's dissipations and mismanagement of herself and him, and gave many matronly groans at his treatment by the smart, flighty nurse, who waged one ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its charm was mainly due to the ruling taste of Miss Clementina Harcourt, who had astonished her father by her marvelous intuition of the nice requirements and elegant responsibilities of their position; and had thrown her mother into the pained perplexity of a matronly hen, who, among the ducks' eggs intrusted to her fostering care, had unwittingly hatched a graceful but ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... her elder sister, who by virtue of her seniority and the fact of her having reached the mature age of ten was rather prone to giving herself certain matronly airs of superiority over the others, which they put up with in all good faith, albeit they were most amusing to outside onlookers. "You are always imagining something terrible is going to befall everybody, instead of hoping for the best! Why ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... no need to dwell upon the matronly bustle of Miss Prowley, who, utterly ignoring the proper ordinances of the day, proceeded to send to the hotel for a beefsteak and a bottle of British Stout which could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... surprised out of the pensiveness of her matronly gravity, "surely you do not mean to say that the girl would ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... pains to conceal. All the bright young married women who were "doing things," however, were not Lucy Stoners, advanced as they might be in thought. They were mildly sympathetic, but rather liked the matronly, and possessive, prefix. And, after all, what did it matter? There were enough tiresome barriers to scale, Heaven knew. This was the age of woman, but man, heretofore predominant by right of brute strength and hallowed custom, was cultivating subtlety, and if he feminized ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... directions as it was to expand it in others. Suitable companionship would be a great advantage to her in this regard, and he fancied that Cicely Drane would be as congenial and helpful a chum, and Mrs. Drane as unobjectionable a matronly adviser, as could be found. If the plan suited all concerned, it might perhaps be continued beyond the summer. He would see ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... last marry, Natalya—as everybody called the old clo'-woman—was not over-pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. But when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's critical maternity was set a-bristle. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... More; and she seems to have insisted on this, which I think was a weakness, since the dignity of her character, her fame and high social position, needed no conventional crutch to make her appear more matronly. As a mere fashionable woman of society, her name would never have descended to our times; as a moralist she is immortal, so far as any writer can be. As an author, I do not regard her as a great original genius; but her successful and honorable ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... we come to the mistress of "Gladswood." While she is carefully pruning some choice specimens of ferns growing on the shady side of the doorway, we take advantage of the situation, and hence the result: Mrs. Montgomery is a matronly-looking woman, of about forty-five years of age, perhaps less; for the abundant mass of dark chestnut hair reveals not one silvery thread. One glance is sufficient. Never was character more cleverly delineated than upon this woman's face. There, in bold relief, is the deep penetrative ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... and Gloria come in. Mrs. Clandon is between forty and fifty, with a slight tendency to soft, sedentary fat, and a fair remainder of good looks, none the worse preserved because she has evidently followed the old tribal matronly fashion of making no pretension in that direction after her marriage, and might almost be suspected of wearing a cap at home. She carries herself artificially well, as women were taught to do as a part of good manners by dancing masters and reclining boards ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... faithful and provident stewards of the bounty of Heaven, than, like greedy whirlpools, to absorb every thing within their reach. He contrasted their circumspect liberality with her thoughtless waste; the matronly sobriety and tempered magnificence of their attire with her new fangled fickleness and wanton costliness; their modest dignified courtesy with her wayward perverseness; their gravity with her lightness, in acting at court-revels and maskings, familiar with every gallant, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... children," Matronly Virtue exclaimed, "this anxiety to behold the young Marquis of Farintosh, whom we expect at our modest table, Mrs. Pendennis, to-day? Twice you have been at the window in your eagerness to look for him. Louisa, you silly ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... opposite wall—a broad band of mellow light, vividly telling of the glory he was shedding where roof nor shade checked his genial glow. On the smooth, hard, ashen floor, in the center of this bright zone, sat a matronly cat, giving with tongue and paw dainty finishing touches to her morning toilet, and watching with maternal pride a kittenish game of hide-and-seek on the front step. Through the open doorway came the self-complacent cackling of hens, celebrating their latest additions to their nests, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... she fancied Emma Colesworth to be thinking. He talked well, but for the present she was happier in her prospect of nearly a week of loneliness. The day was one of sunshine, windless, odorous: one of the rare placid days of April when the pettish month assumes a matronly air of summer and wears it till the end of the day. The beech twigs were strongly embrowned, the larches shot up green spires by the borders of woods and on mounds within, deep ditchbanks unrolled profuse tangles of new blades, and sharp eyes might light on a late white violet overlooked by the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the wedding dress of a virgin bride that it is not even proper for a widow to wear it on her second marriage. The shades of rose-color, crimson, or those beautiful modern combinations of velvet and brocade which suit so many matronly women, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... wear as much matronly expression as was obtainable out of six hours' experience as a wife, in order that the contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried young women present might be duly impressed upon the company: occasionally stealing glances of admiration at her left hand, but this quite privately; ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... of the winter there arrived at the parsonage the new mistress,—in the person of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of the incumbent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of his father before him,—every inch a Johns. No light cause could have provoked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... its glory was upon us. It was nearly a year since we were married, and I was beginning to feel the dignity of a family man. As Bessie regained her strength and bloom, she seemed to have a matronly grace and self-command quite new to her. As I looked back over our married life I saw no dark shadows, no coldness between us two, no misunderstandings that need occasion regret, but somehow it seemed as though that year had not been so bright and happy as it ought to have been. We had ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... caught the look at last, and rose, as if moved by the same machinery which impelled her hostess, and then, graceful as a swan sailing with the current, she drifted down the room to the distant door, and headed the stately procession of matronly velvet and diamonds, herself at once the most regal and the most graceful figure in ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... idea of the difference between his present company and Annie Foster. It was at that very moment that it occurred to Frank that he had last walked home from church under the protecting wing of the portly and matronly Mrs. Kinzer; and he could but draw some kind of a comparison ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... a man feels who isn't married to a beauty," remarked Galt, watching her matronly vanity dimple beneath his gaze. He was as much her lover as he had been more than twenty years ago when pretty Juliet Burwell had put back her wedding veil to meet his kiss. The very exactions of her petted nature had served to keep alive ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... we have spoken only of young ladies, a more matronly style being expected from their chaperons. For instance, caps at the opera or concerts, a charming variety of which were seen at Miss Wilson's November opening. Turc satins, velvets, and brocades are to those in place of white tulle or embroidered ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... vanished; in its place is a beautiful girl—you! You smile triumphantly at your reflection in a mirror, your path is strewn with roses, the world is at your feet. Slam! 'Scene III.' In a moment twenty years have passed; your hair is grey, you are matronly, stout, your face is no longer oval; yet unmistakably it is you yourself, the same woman. Slam! 'Scene IV.' You are enfeebled, a crone, toothless, tottering on a stick. Once more! It is the last effect—the door flies ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... were worth more.'" Enthusiastically the Chancellor exclaimed, "You are quite right. I admit the obligation. I remember all about it;" and, then, after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the reverse of matronly, he added, "But surely the time for keeping my promise has not yet arrived? You cannot be any one's wife at present?" For a few seconds Bessie hesitated for an answer, and then, with a blush and a ripple of silver laughter she replied, "No, but I do so wish to be ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... to the Indian village, in which he dwelt at the time with his still pretty though matronly wife Brighteyes, one of the agents of a man whose business it was to collect wild animals for the menageries of the United States and elsewhere. Probably this man was an ancestor of Barnum, for he possessed a mind which seemed ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... gave her the go-by. As the wife of the deputy sergeant-major, she felt herself at last on firm solid ground. She carried her head high in the barrack-yard, and ordered her house with a fine matronly dignity. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... gray and her magnificent figure somewhat matronly, but there were no other signs of autumn; her beautiful white skin was still as delicate as a baby's, her jet-black eyes as bright and full, her teeth just as they ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the street below. She wore a dark blue dress, with a small lace ruff opening in front, deep cuffs to match, and a white apron likewise edged with lace, and a coif, bent down in the centre, over a sweet countenance, matronly, though youthful, and now full of wistful expectancy; not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... going?" he added to Bessie; "indeed, that was what brought me here. My sisters sent me to ask whether they may shelter themselves under your matronly protection, for my mother dreads ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Mr Pritchard without meeting any adventure worthy of being marked down. I went into the little parlour, and, ringing the bell, was presently waited upon by Mrs Pritchard, a nice matronly woman, whom I had not before seen, of whom I inquired what I could have ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... his great forehead and bright eyes. He is in every way as large as most children are at two years. His supreme delight is to tease A. by making believe strike her or in some other real boy's hateful way. She and he play together on the grass-plat, and I feel quite matronly as I sit watching them with their balls and wheel-barrows and whatnots. This little scamp has, I fear, broken my constitution to pieces. It makes me crawl all over when I think of you three fagging all day at such dull and unprofitable ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the three waiting for them, and it took scarcely any time at all to add the extra grips to the growing pile in the tonneau of Mollie's car. Amid great fun, Mrs. Irving, who was rosy-cheeked and matronly and as jolly as the girls, was wedged into the remaining space, Amy climbed to the front seat beside Mollie and Grace took ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... could see them together—the mother of his children, and the woman who had already won his heart away from her. The shapely lady, with her queenly ways, her vivacity, her graceful adaptiveness to persons and circumstances, was sharply contrasted with the matronly figure, homely manners, and unresponsive mind of his wife. He pitied his wife, he pitied himself, he pitied his children, he almost pitied the dumb walls and the beautiful ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... dusk all the lights of the house went on with an illumination that fairly startled the guests, the host proposed a cheer for the boys which found an eager and unanimous response. Mr. Hooper attempted to make a speech, with his matronly and contented wife laughing and making sly digs at his effort, and his daughter ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... over to Ion next morning and found Zoe attending to her housekeeping cares with a pretty matronly air that became her well; Aunt Dicey receiving her orders with the look and manner of one who is humoring a child, for such she considered ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... the commencement of the levee. The party in the piazza consisted chiefly of women. Madame L'Ouverture was there—like, and yet unlike, the Margot of former years—employed, as usual—busy with her needle, and motherly, complacent, tenderly vigilant as of old; but with a matronly grace and dignity which evidently arose from a gratified mind, and not from external state. Her daughters were beside her, both wonderfully improved in beauty, though Genifrede still preserved the superiority there. She sat a little apart from ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... boy who had been sent to sea apparently with the idea of getting him out of the way, came to me and said, "Wouldn't you like some Youth's Companions to read? I have lots of them." At that time I had more of a juvenile than a matronly air and I presume he thought they would furnish me with appreciative reading matter. He had not then learned that he should not speak unless spoken to. One day on being told to make a rope fast he replied, "I did hitch it." An order to let go a brace was answered by the question, ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... that she wishes it,' said Sister Constance, who had been a wife before she was a Sister, and saw that it was matronly tact and tenderness that the crisis needed; 'but I'll tell you what you can safely and naturally do. Go in and fetch Cherry's folding chair, and call the children to carry her appurtenances down to the garden. That will make a break, and Wilmet can take ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... willingness to hold his hand and see him through. After which Christopher went out to fetch Patricia. He found her sitting on the floor at Renata's feet, the latter fussing over her with matronly joy and sisterly love, and talking inconsequently between times of Charlotte, with what would appear to an outsider irrelevance of ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... typical one of such communities at that period; horny-handed farmers with long shaggy beards and unkempt hair, dressed in ill-fitting black suits; matronly looking farmers' wives in their Sunday best; rosy-cheeked daughters full of fun and vivacity and chattering like magpies; tall, lank, awkward, bashful sons, and red-haired, black-haired, and tow-headed ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... and lady Ann had received the statement as an expected apology. Their quarrel had indeed given lady Ann no uneasiness. Daughter of one ancient house, and mother in another, a pillar of society, a live dignity with matronly back flat as any coffin-lid, she was of course in the right, and could afford to await the acknowledgment of wrong due and certain from an ill bred and ill educated chit of the colonies! For how could any one continue indifferent to the favour of lady Ann! She was incapable of ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... to picture her doatingly in her young matronly bloom ten years after marriage: without a touch of age, matronly wise, womanly sweet: perhaps with a couple of little ones to love, never having known ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Veronese artists of the first order. His characteristics can nowhere be seen to better advantage than in the Madonna of St. Andrew and St. Peter, in the Verona Gallery. The Virgin is in an oval glory, edged all around with small, fleecy clouds. She has a beautiful, matronly face, with abundant hair, smoothly brushed over her forehead. The two apostles, below, are fine, strong ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... Girardin, the popular journalist; now meeting George Sand, the great novelist, whom he describes as "just the sort of woman in appearance whom you might suppose to be the queen's monthly nurse—chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed;" then studying French art, and contrasting it with English art, somewhat to the disadvantage of the latter; anon superintending the translation of his works into French, and working hard at "Little Dorrit;" and all the while frequenting ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... her character trebly interesting. She was a wife—and wife to one whom she looked up to as her superior in understanding and in knowledge of the world, whom, therefore, she leaned to for protection. On the other hand, she was also a mother. Whilst, therefore, to her child she supported the matronly part of guide, and the air of an experienced person; to me she wore, ingenuously and without disguise, the part of a child herself, with all the giddy hopes and unchastised imaginings of that buoyant age. This double character, one ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the time when Lombroso saw her first, Eusapia was just beginning to be known to scientists, but no one of special note had up to this time (1891) reported upon her. She was known as the wife of a small shop-keeper in Naples, and seemed a decent, matronly person, quite untouched by mysticism. Although not eager to sit for Lombroso and his party of scientists, she finally consented. Among those who took part in these celebrated experiments were Professor Tamburini, ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... the latter was gazing thoughtfully on the scene before her, she flung her arm around her waist with the protecting manner of a mother. The mild blue eyes of Clara met those that were fastened in tenderness upon her, and a corresponding movement on her part brought the more matronly form of her cousin into close and affectionate contact with ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... who in conversation could be intellectual and serious as well as jovial and witty, who had a liberal education, and was considered wealthy—one of those well-poised, steady characters who look upon matrimony and life with practical views and social matronly instincts. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... trustin' blue eyes and the cheek dimples was still doin' business. But she was carryin' more or less excess weight for her height and there was the beginnings of a double chin. Besides, she always dressed quiet and sort of matronly. ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... rare a novelty suddenly appear upon the scene of their usually humdrum and uneventful lives. Quilts are spread for me on the sunny side of the village wall, and they gather eagerly around to feast to the full their unaccustomed eyes. A couple of the men round up a matronly goat and exact from her the tribute of a bowl of milk; others contribute bread, and the frugal repast is seasoned with the unconcealed delight of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... to," Ruth decided, seating herself on the edge of the lounge close to her mother. From his armchair, Mr. Levice noted with remorseful pride the almost matronly poise and expression of his lovely young daughter as she bent over her weary-looking mother and ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... dollarless experience, they might justify the wisdom of her objection. In this gracious fashion did Mrs. Hanway-Harley sanction the union of her only daughter Dorothy with Mr. Richard Storms; after which she folded her matronly hands in resignation, bearing meanwhile the manner of one who will face the worst bravely and hopes that others are prepared ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... contrary, the dislike which Lady O'Shane took at sight to both the mother and daughter—to the daughter instinctively, at sight of her youth and beauty; to the mother reflectively, on account of her matronly dress and dignified deportment, in too striking contrast to her own frippery appearance— increased every day, and every hour, when she saw the attentions, the adoration, that Sir Ulick paid to Miss Annaly, and the deference ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... to her mental disease, it seemed as though she had escaped the effects of time, and had she concealed her hair with a veil she might easily have passed for a woman still young. Mary Carvel had been beautiful, and was beautiful still in a matronly, old-fashioned way; Hermione was beautiful after another and a smaller manner, slender and delicate and lovely; but Madame Patoff belonged to a very different category. She was on a grander scale, and in ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... and women—a sort of human vultures sitting on their fathers' pockets and screaming 'Give! Give!' The prospect does not attract me! And she?—Innocent? I don't think I could bear to watch that little flower-like face gradually enlarging into matronly lines and spreading into a double chin! Those pretty eyes peering into the larder and considering the appearance of uncooked bacon! Perish the thought! One might as well think of Shakespeare's Juliet paying the butcher's bill, or worse still, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... these feathered pets, in feeding them and in teaching them pretty tricks and games. I recall those pleasant boyhood days when a pet crow, and a flock of pigeons, and two baby hawks afforded me rapture and solicitude combined. Then followed an experience with a matronly hen and her brood ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... Mrs. Farrinder again, who had remained on her sofa with Olive Chancellor; and as she turned her face to him he saw that she had felt the universal contagion. Her keen eye sparkled, there was a flush on her matronly cheek, and she had evidently made up her mind what line to take. Olive Chancellor sat motionless; her eyes were fixed on the floor with the rigid, alarmed expression of her moments of nervous diffidence; she gave no sign of observing her kinsman's approach. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... benefited by her counsel. She fixed that eye benevolently upon Loveday now; the lady stately in her black silk, the locket containing the hair of her departed parent, one-time a canon of Exeter, lying upon her matronly bosom; the girl awkward in her homespun wrapper, her feet fearful of ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... hag-procuress who pimps like Umm Kulsum,[FN341] for mere pleasure, in the luxury of sin, are drawn with an experienced and loving hand. Yet not the less do we meet with examples of the dutiful daughter, the model lover matronly in her affection, the devoted wife, the perfect mother, the saintly devotee, the learned preacher, Univira the chaste widow and the self-sacrificing heroic woman. If we find (vol. iii. 216) the sex ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... his brilliant Austrian waltzes, which was so bewildering that if any man had dared to put his arm round Jenny Lind's matronly waist I am sure she would have skipped ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... any idea," Mrs. Delarayne replied, as Leonetta stalked up the garden path with Denis at her side, followed by Vanessa, Guy Tyrrell, and the Fearwells. They all had their wet bathing things with them, and even the matronly Vanessa had her hair ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... matured into vigorous beauty, bright-eyed, a little sober, as might have become maturer years than hers. Perhaps there was something in the style of her dress that favoured the idea, not of age indeed, but of matronly years, and beyond those which Elinor counted. She was dressed in black, of the simplest description, not of distinctive character like a widow's, yet something like what an ideal widow beyond fashion ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... garments of a mourning colour, and of a fashion more matronly than perhaps altogether befitted her youth—plain to an extremity, and devoid of all ornament, save her rosary—Eveline now performed the duty of waiting upon her wounded deliverer; a duty which the etiquette ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... sere trees all round, their rough gardens of bright dahlias and chrysanthemums draggled by the autumn rains—in these there are, do not doubt it, still Nencias: magnificent creatures, fit models for Amazons, only just a trifle too full-blown and matronly; but with real Amazonian limbs, firm and delicate, under their red and purple striped print frocks; creatures with heads set on necks like towers or columns, necks firm in broad, well-fleshed chest as branches in a tree's trunk; great penthouses of reddish yellow or lustreless black ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... him. After lunch he drove alone to his father's house. The parlour-maid showed him into the hideously furnished and daub-hung dining-room. The Viennese horrors of plaster stags, gnomes and rabbits stared fatuously on the hearth. No fire was in the grate. Very soon Jane entered, tidy, almost matronly in buxom primness, her hair as faultless as if it had come out of a convoluted mould, her grave eyes full of light. She ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... below, of the sadness superinduced by the reflection that in these days people were found everywhere, and poetry was thwarted; again of heat, again of thirst, of beauty, and of chill. There was the enunciation of matronly advice; there was the outcry of girlish insubordination; there were sighings for English ale, and namings of the visible ranges of peaks, and indicatings of geographical fingers to show where Switzerland and Piedmont met, and Austria held her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... By the P.R.A. "What's that?" said one well-educated clerical visitor to his matronly wife. She read it out, pronouncing it thusly, "Return of Percy Fone." "What!" exclaimed the Clergyman. Then, taking the Catalogue into his own hands, he read "Return of Persephone." "It's pronounced," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... One who knew her well described her as "not possessing much sense, though a perfect lady and remarkably well calculated for her position," and confirmatory of this is the opinion of an English traveller that "there was nothing remarkable in the person of the lady of the President; she was matronly and kind, with perfect good breeding." None the less she satisfied Washington; even after the proverbial six months were over he refused to wander from Mount Vernon, writing that "I am now, I believe, fixed at this seat with an agreeable Consort for life," ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... come to them, and in the meantime here is something for you to criticise,' said she, taking from the recess of her matronly workbasket a paper with a pencilled poem, on the Martyrs of Carthage, far more terse and expressive than anything she used to write when composition was the object of the day. James read and commented, and was disappointed when they ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looked round and lo! old faces and places had changed. Children had grown into women, with children at their breasts; young wives had become matronly; and the middle-aged were slaving servants and apothecaries to make them young again. And the young man turned from the world he used to know, and said: 'There are but three things in the world worth doing—loving, roaming, and fighting.' Therefore, after one day, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ma'am," responded the clark, who, not knowing exactly who the lady was, jerked down his well-oiled and brushed "wig and whiskers" to the entire satisfaction of the matronly lady, who ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... brisk pace with him in his tramps up the Avenue, but walked more slowly and for shorter distances. She no longer sprang swiftly from her chair or ran to fetch him a needed tool; her every movement was matronly. But she was so well, so entirely normal, as practically to be unconscious of a change to which her husband ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... insignificant lives. Nattier made flattering representations of all of them, sometimes in the costume of mythological characters. Both Nattier and the great La Tour portrayed Marie Leczinska, the mother of Louis XV's ten children. Nattier's likeness shows a smiling, matronly lady with sweet-tempered brown eyes, seated in a chair, the face softened by a frill and a black lace scarf. Many of the portraits at Versailles painted by Charles Lebrun, Madame Vigee Lebrun, Jean-Baptiste and Michel Vanloo, Boucher, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... reciprocated the regard which makes her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact that, when he made his debut as a candidate for the honours of the State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... think that I have before said that she never avowed herself, either to my nurse or to myself, as more than my godmother. She evinced a brief, but violent emotion; and then controlled her features to a very staid and matronly expression. For myself I wept most bitterly; from many mingled emotions; but, to the shame of human nature, and of my own, wounded pride was the most intolerable pang that I felt. In all my day-dreams, I had made ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... its shelter from the biting blast in winter, not always content with an outside stand; for the goats of Waddy were conscious of their importance, and of a familiar and impudent breed. Sometimes a matronly nanny would climb the steps, and march soberly up the aisle in the midst of one of Brother Tregaskis's lengthy prayers; or a haughty billy, imposing as the he-goat of the Scriptures, would take his stand within the door ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... gentlemen who saunter past foreign to his encyclopedic eye. Constantly his great head swings a slow recognition, constantly his serene finger motions onwards a well-known undesirable, and his big, white teeth flash for an instant at young, laughing girls and the more matronly acquaintances who solicit the distinction of ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... noisy with crickets, fluttering with butterflies of sulphur yellow. About it lay a stony, barren farm, but lovely with the glamour of home. The girl was not pretty, as we know girls; but she had straight steady eyes, a wide brow, smooth matronly bands of hair, and a wholesome, homely New England character, sweet, yet with a tang to give it a flavour, like the apples on the tree near the old-fashioned, long-armed well. Peter could gain no competence from the stony farm, no consent from the girl. It was to ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... in words. Clarence seemed to her quite needlessly anxious in his inquiries concerning Miss Derrick's condition. Until that young lady had disappeared from 'Runnymede' for ever, Emmeline would keep matronly watch and ward. ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... does not belie its nick-name, and it is said that the matronly ladies, all over forty, who cook for the rotund priests, are the cordons bleus of Italy. The restaurant of the Hotel Brun is the one where the passing Anglo-Saxon generally takes his meals and a chat with the proprietor, who is generally addressed as Frank, is entertaining, for he owns ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... three years older than when we last saw her, had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening time. But her eyes were as black and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope. In her arms ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... foxes' heads upon it, lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was strange that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used to call her the brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia had always seemed a little proud of their serious and matronly sister. Her photograph stood before the pierglass. She held an open book on her knees and was pointing out something in it to Constantine who, dressed in a man-o-war suit, lay at her feet. It was she who had chosen the name of her sons for she was very sensible of the dignity of family life. Thanks ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... take up his old habits again with the Harrowbys. He found the patient constancy of his friend Josephine not a disagreeable salve for a wounded heart and broken life; albeit poor dear Joseph was getting stout and matronly, and took off the keen edge of courtship by a willingness too manifest for wisdom. Sebastian liked to be loved, but he did not like to be bored by being made overmuch love to. The things are different, and most men resent the latter, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very fashionably attired, Miss Morris, and her brother, who was very attentive to Miss Barclay, and a little farther on Mrs. Morris, fat, fair, and matronly. She was reading "The Lady of the Manor," and when the little girl found it afterward in a Sunday-school library, Mrs. Morris seemed curiously mixed up with it. Sunday papers at that period ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas |
