"Chambermaid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and even that he had learned by mere chance, was, that the girl's name was Suky Wood; that she was a native of Folkstone, where her parents kept a sailor's tavern; and that, before coming to France, she had been a chambermaid at ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... physician; who dream'd, that a friend of hers deceased, told her mother, that if she gave her daughter a drink of yew pounded, she should recover: She accordingly gave it her, and she presently died: The mother being almost distracted for the loss of her daughter, her chambermaid, to comfort her, said, surely what she gave her was not the occasion of her death, and that she would adventure on it her self; she did so, and died also: Whether all this be but a dream, I cannot tell, but it was haply from ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... glass of steaming brandy-and-water, and then began nodding, from the united effects of the stout, the fire, and the lecture; till the Squire, observing Tom's state, and remembering that it was nearly nine o'clock, and that the Tally-ho left at three, sent the little fellow off to the chambermaid, with a shake of the hand (Tom having stipulated in the morning before starting that kissing should now cease between them), ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... reached the hotel, he was surprised to find it only eleven o'clock. No one had returned, the building was deserted by all but the bar-keeper and a flirting chambermaid, who regarded him with aggrieved astonishment. He began to feel very foolish, and half regretted that he had not stayed to dance with Mrs. Tripp; or, at least, remained as a quiet onlooker apart from the others. With a hasty excuse about returning to write letters for the morning's ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... time when the vaudeville sketch was moulded on lines that presented less difficulties and required less technique of the playwright than does the playlet of today. The curtain generally rose on a chambermaid in above-the-ankle skirts dusting the furniture as she told in soliloquy form that her master and mistress had sent for a new butler or coachman or French teacher. How the butler, coachman or French teacher might make her ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... suddenly rises into a digue or terrace on which is built a primitive casino, and below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's passage. Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Ginevra sought to leave the house at the hour when she usually went to the studio, she found the gates of the mansion closed to her. She said nothing, but soon found means to inform Luigi Porta of her father's severity. A chambermaid, who could neither read nor write, was able to carry letters between the lovers. For five days they corresponded thus, thanks to the inventive shrewdness ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... gunboats move up and take position where they could check the enemy's approach. Never did general lose his laurels so quickly. Indeed, my son, when he returned to Washington, with little else than his saddle, there was not a dog to bark him a welcome, nor a chambermaid to wave ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... Tutt had been to see us in our absence. She had been into our room I see, for she had dropped one of her mits there. And the chambermaid said she had been in and waited for us quite a spell - the young man a waitin' below on the piazza, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... without laughter and in a good cause, three archangels, two Dantes, a nondescript lady with brocade garments and a delectable amorino whose counterpart, the sole survivor, was reserved for a better fate—being carried home and presented as a gift to my chambermaid. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... mayhap, is going to Paris, en poste, and wondrous is the jabber of the courier, the postilion, the inn-waiters, and the lookers-on. The landlord calls out for "Quatre biftecks aux pommes pour le trente-trois,"—(O my countrymen, I love your tastes and your ways!)—the chambermaid is laughing and says, "Finissez donc, Monsieur Pierre!" (what can they be about?)—a fat Englishman has opened his window violently, and says, "Dee dong, garsong, vooly voo me donny lo sho, ou vooly voo pah?" He has been ringing for half an hour—the last energetic appeal succeeds, and shortly he ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one to attend to it, except one frightened rabbit of a boy, who appeared to be manager, hall porter, waiter, boots, and chambermaid in one; but when we had scrambled up a ladder-like stairway—it was almost as difficult as climbing a greased pole—we found decent rooms, and after that, things we wanted came by some mysterious means, we knew ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... transportation for the young girl and himself to Harrison's Landing; that they reached that return terminus of the campaign against Richmond, a little after midnight; that a place was found on board one of the boats at the Landing, for Miss Hobart, under the kind care of the colored chambermaid; that Colonel Warren kept his promise and procured the wounded Zouave, (whose arm had been examined by one of the surgeons, and found to be badly torn and lacerated, though none of the bones were broken), ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... door of her own boudoir, the landing of which commanded the lower hall, and there overheard two of her servants discussing the Cowperwood menage in particular and Chicago life in general. One was a tall, angular girl of perhaps twenty-seven or eight, a chambermaid, the other a short, stout woman of forty who held the position of assistant housekeeper. They were pretending to dust, though gossip conducted in a whisper was the matter for which they were foregathered. The tall girl had recently been employed ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... quite removed. The famiglia Bonvicino was gone, and so was Cricco. The cook, the new waiter, and the landlord (who sings a good comic song upon occasion) had all drunk as much wine as they could carry; and later on I found Veneranda, the one-eyed old chambermaid, lying upon my bed fast asleep. I afterwards heard that, in spite of the autumnal weather, the landlord spent his night on the grass under the chestnuts, while the cook was found at four o'clock in the morning lying at full length upon a table under the veranda. Next day, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... eight years the little tavern had been kept by a man and his wife, with two servants,—a chambermaid named Trinette, and a hostler called Pecaud. This small staff was quite equal to all the requirements, for a canal between Beaucaire and Aiguemortes had revolutionized transportation by substituting boats for the cart and the stagecoach. And, as though to add to the daily misery which this prosperous ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Yveline Samoris died mysteriously, and here are all the details of her death I could gather from Joseph, who got them from his sweetheart, the Comtesse's chambermaid: ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... first of all, then "Paddens," then "Tappi-tarver." Eventually, when the two arrive hand-in-hand at Barbox Brothers' hotel, nobody there could make out her name as she set it forth, "except one chambermaid, who said ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... eating the luxuries of the market. You also get a better room than at many hotels, and you have a good strong door, with a padlock on it, which enables you to prevent the sudden and unlooked-for entrance of the chambermaid. It is a good-sized room, with a wonderful amount of seclusion, a plain bed, table, chairs, carpet and so forth. After a few weeks at the seaside, at $19 per day, I think the room in which I am writing is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... hand, Julia, the slim chambermaid, who would have been delighted with such employment, and who would have undoubtedly refreshed herself on each excursion upstairs with a lengthened gaze from the window, was condemned to the polishing of silver and dusting ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... shoes outside the door at night? I should never remember. The first day I was here I made my own bed! The chambermaid nearly ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... woman!" scolded Dukovski, going out of the house. "It is clear she knows something, and is concealing it! And the chambermaid has a queer expression too! Wait, you wretches! We'll ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... silent ride through the late moonlight. The men spoke only when it was necessary to keep the right road. Gila, huddled sullenly in the back seat beside a dozing, gray-haired chambermaid, spoke not at all. And who shall say what were her thoughts as hour after hour she sat in her humiliation and watched the two men whom she had wronged so deeply? Perhaps her spirit seethed the more violently within her silent, angry body because she was not yet sure ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... vaguely staring at the sunbeams that stretched across his bed before he could recall himself. The room was exactly as before, the portmanteau strapped and pushed under the table as he had left it. There came a tap at the door—the chambermaid to do up the room. She had been there once already, but seeing him asleep, she had forborne to wake him. Apparently the spectacle of a gentleman lying on the bed fully dressed, even to his boots, was not an unusual one at ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Nor had certain gossipy members of the picnic party refrained from canvassing threadbare the significance of the unfortunate scene which had taken place on that occasion—contributory evidence to the truth of the chambermaid's account ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... fairly to his senses again he was lying in his little room and the slatternly chambermaid was ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... the general good, and forthwith we fell upon the bed, and amongst us got it down. It was the greatest fun! We carried the pieces and the mattresses all off ourselves up to the attic, after ten o'clock, and we gave the chambermaid a dollar next morning, and nobody's been the wiser since. And then we walked to the upper village and bought that extraordinary chintz, and frilled and cushioned our trunks into ottomans, and curtained the dress-hooks; and Lucinda got us a rocking-chair, and Maud came in ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... reporter. The reader thinks that I am going to draw his attention to some celebrated divorce case, an account of which was reported in full in the columns of some daily paper under a large heading "Painful Details," the details being the account the chambermaid gave the outraged husband ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... it again!" cried Ludovicka. "My heavens! what would my chambermaid say, if to-morrow morning one of my shoes had ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... into the yard, she stopped; for the landlord, landlady, and head chambermaid, were all on the threshold together talking earnestly with a young gentleman who seemed to have just come or to be just going away. The first words that struck upon Mrs Gamp's ear obviously bore reference to the patient; and it being ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... gentleman's house, as it befell [2007] Euphormio, after some seven years' service, he may perchance have a living to the halves, or some small rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a cracked chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life. But if he offend his good patron, or displease his lady mistress in the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... that the child, who soon became the pet of the whole household, was always addressed by the servants at the inn as "Miss Fanny," and, moreover, that Mrs. L. was certainly in mourning for her husband, as she had been seen one morning by the chambermaid weeping over the miniature of a "very fine-looking man, dressed in uniform," and had, in all probability, come to take up her residence in our quiet Aberdeen, as she had been heard inquiring about the small cottage beneath the hill, (the self-same, dear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... a woman, she expects that the tea will be of the finest flavor, and never boiled; that steaks will be porter-house steaks; that green peas will be in plenty; and that the American girl, who is chambermaid for the summer, and school-teacher in the winter, and who, ten to one, could put her to the blush in five minutes by superior knowledge on many subjects, will enter and leave her room and wait upon her at the table with the silent respectfulness ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Although she was but forty-five, some obscure disease had taken the fire out of her figure. Listlessly she went about the disorderly old hotel looking at the faded wall-paper and the ragged carpets and, when she was able to be about, doing the work of a chambermaid among beds soiled by the slumbers of fat traveling men. Her husband, Tom Willard, a slender, graceful man with square shoulders, a quick military step, and a black mustache trained to turn sharply up at the ends, tried to put the wife out of his mind. The presence of the tall ghostly figure, ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... in the capacity of scullion. He had gone with his mistress to Rouen during the Terror, and since the return to Tournebut she had given the administration of the estate into his hands. In this way he had authority over the domestics at the chateau, who numbered six, and among whom the chambermaid Querey and the gardener Chatel deserve special mention. Each year, about Easter, Mme. de Combray went to Rouen, where under pretext of purchases to make and rents to collect, she remained a month. Only Soyer and Mlle. Querey accompanied her. Besides her patrimonial house in the Rue Saint-Amand, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... repair to the Old Lady's room, which is precisely in the style of our good old Aunt's—that is to say, nicely fixed for all sorts of work—On one side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting—on the other, a little colored pet learning to sew, an old decent woman, with her table and shears, cutting out the negroes' winter clothes, while the good old lady directs them all, incessantly knitting herself ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... it would kill you to wear a long cashmere in hot weather; and then you could not refuse a third to go to the bath or to mass in—well, that makes three, don't you see? I would not be married with fewer. No, thank you, I wouldn't go about looking like a chambermaid. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... quality, but her conceit and love of admiration far outstripped them. The little jeweller had seen this, and had guessed that she would best answer his purpose of the younger members of the household. Quiet, sensible Joan, the upper chambermaid, would not have suited him at all; neither would sturdy, straightforward Meg, the cook-maid; but Kate's vanity and indiscretion were both so patent that he fixed on her at once as his chosen accomplice. His ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... brown uplands of Castile to Madrid and Goya and Velasquez, till it was time for Paris, before the law-term began. There, in a queer little French hotel—all bedrooms, and a lift, coffee and carved beds, wood fires, and a chambermaid who seemed all France, and down below a restaurant, to which such as knew about eating came, with waiters who looked like monks, both fat and lean—they had spent a week. Three special memories of that week started up in the moonlight before Gyp's eyes: The long drive in the Bois among ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... work was too hard for her, nor could she undertake it. This put my sister beyond all patience, and me into the greatest admiration. "Young woman," she said, "you have made a mistake; I want a housemaid, and you are a chambermaid." "No, madam," replied she, "I am not needlewoman enough for that." "And yet you ask eight pounds a year," replied my sister. "Yes, madam," said she, "nor shall I bate a farthing." "Then get you gone for a lazy impudent baggage," said I; "you want to be a boarder, not a servant; have you ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... take those dusters away; the chambermaid has forgotten them. [Re-reads the letter.] Strange girl this; the only thing I know against her is that she takes soup twice. It's the old story. Her father wants her to marry a fellow who can keep her, and she ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... I heard this terrific intelligence, it chilled and animated me alternately; and, as soon as I could recollect myself, I determined not to quit his apartment all night. No persuasions could prevail on me; and when the chambermaid, who sat up with him, attempted to use force, I was so violent in my resistance that she desisted, and suffered me to remain ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... artificial meekness. The former is universal and habitual, the latter, local and temporary. Every young female may keep this rule by her, to enable her to form a just judgment of her own temper: if she is not as gentle to her chambermaid as she is to her visitor, she may rest satisfied that the spirit of gentleness is not ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... talk of being chambermaid to a cow, but it's worse being groom to a gun. These rifles have been in use all summer, and they're all et up inside. They're like fat men, they sweat. Then they rust. Put in some dope and swab the barrel, then take twenty-five dinky little squares of cotton flannel and run ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... in my berth," said Octavia, who was Rollo, "that next thing I shall be out on the floor. Hark! How the water is pouring in! I'm afraid the ship has sprung a leak; and if it has I must call the chambermaid." ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... its installation in the Hutukhtu's boudoir and himself turned chambermaid. As this was the first time he had ever made a bed for a Living God, he arranged the spotless sheets and turned down the covers with the greatest care. When all was done to his satisfaction he reported to one of the Hutukhtu's ministers that the bed was ready. Two lamas, ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... the evening Lucille knocked at the door of Lady Carey's suite of rooms at the hotel. There was no answer. A chambermaid who was near ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... entering any room downstairs, or even lifting her veil, she walked straight along the passage and up to her apartment, the chambermaid preceding her. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... eyes, des luisants (sparklers), &c. In jargon several words were also taken from the ancient language of the gipsies, which testifies to the part which these vagabonds played in the formation of the Argotic community. For example, a shirt was called lime; a chambermaid, limogere; sheets, limans—words all derived from the gipsy word lima, a shirt: they called an ecu, a rusquin or rougesme, from rujia, the common word for money; a rich man, rupin; a house, turne; a knife, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... lived down-stairs in two vaulted rooms with little windows designed for the farm-hands; the farmhouse was plain, and the place smelled of rye bread and vodka, and leather. He rarely used the reception-rooms, only when guests arrived. Ivan Ivanich and Bourkin were received by a chambermaid; such a pretty young woman that both of them stopped and ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... when all were still sleeping. He dressed himself and jumped out quickly with the expectation of miracles. But he was unpleasantly surprised—the rooms were in the same disorder as usual in the morning; the cook and the chambermaid were still sleeping and the door was closed with a hook—it was hard to believe that the people would stir and commence to run about, and that the rooms would assume a holiday appearance, and he feared for the fate of the festival. It was still worse in the garden. The paths were ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... ——- brought me the compliments of his mistress, and that she begged to inform me that she had another servant at my disposal (otra criada mi disposicin), I returned for answer, that I was greatly obliged, but had just hired a recamerera (chambermaid). At this the man, stupid as he was, opened his great eyes with a slight expression of wonder. Fortunately, as he was turning away, I bethought me of inquiring of the Seora's health, and his reply, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... either," muttered the chambermaid; but the traveller, turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that she smiled, coloured, and went ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... surprise, 'I will comply with the wishes of the little princesses, and eat if they insist on it. I am only ashamed of my dinner to-day, for I have permitted the cook to go to the coronation, and she has not yet returned. The chambermaid, therefore, prepared some food for me; it is so plain, however, that I cannot invite you to partake of it.'—'Oh, we do not want to eat, but only to sit with you,' exclaimed Frederica and I; we then took the arms of the old lady and conducted her to the table. She sighed, but yielded to our solicitations. ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... pupils; the carver at work upon a stall; the mason chiselling a Gothic arch or modelling a statue; the blacksmith, the carpenter, the shepherd, the fisherman, the gardener in his vineyard, the midwife, the chemist at work among his test-tubes and alembics, the chambermaid ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... come in but the chambermaid, and she will be too busy to disturb anything," Josie decided; and then she locked her room door and went down ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... of them, were anything but vegetables, they'd get out and hustle with keeping house, to work some of their flabbiness off and give us a chance to get somebody in besides a chocolate-eating, novel-reading crowd of useless women who think, mommy, you're a dumbwaiter, chambermaid, lady's maid, and French chef rolled in one! Honest, ma, if you carry that ice-water up to Katz to-night on the sly, with that big son of hers to come down and get it, I—I'll go right up and tell her what I think of her ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... wax candles. He retired early, and, as he had burned but a small part of the candles, he took them with him into his bedroom. In the morning, finding he was charged 2s. in his bill for wax candles, instead of fees to the waiter and chambermaid, he gave to ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... curious, and would not be read even by the curious, but for the fame which he acquired in the latter part of his life by works of a very different kind. What is the value of the Temple Beau, of the Intriguing Chambermaid, of half a dozen other plays of which few gentlemen have even heard the names? Yet to these worthless pieces my noble friend would give a term of copyright longer by more than twenty years than that which he would give to Tom ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the chambermaid, who was folding my opera cloak, which I had dropped on the floor; "give ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... permit your wife to have a dressing-room, a bath-room, and a room for her chambermaid. Think then on Susanne, and never commit the fault of arranging this little room below that of madame's, but place it always above, and do not shrink from disfiguring your mansion by hideous ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the traveller asks the chambermaid if he can have his linen back from the wash in time to catch an early train, and notices an expression passing across her face as she replies, "Impossibilissimo!"—well knowing that nothing is easier, only she wants an extra fifty centimes—even such ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... to-night, sir," said the waiter. "The southerly breeze has been bringing up a fog these two hours past, and the inside of the harbour is thick as soup. More by token, I've already sent word to the chambermaid to fill a couple of warming-pans. You're booked with ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... coach at the inn at Tuxford to give the chambermaid a sixpence, telling her that he had forgotten it when he slept there two years before. I was a very saucy boy, and I said to him, 'Friend, have you seen the motto on the coach?' 'No.' 'Then look at it, for I think giving her only sixpence now is neither ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... servants for the time. But, to say the truth, there is a degree of the same kind of annoyance in an American hotel, although it is not so much an acknowledged custom. Here, in the houses where attendance is not charged in the bill, no wages are paid by the host to those servants—chambermaid, waiter, and boots—who come into immediate contact with travellers. The drivers of the cars, phaetons, and flys are likewise unpaid, except by their passengers, and claim threepence a mile with the same sense of right as their masters in charging for the vehicles and horses. When you come to understand ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... French; he acts like the common amateur; and in short there is no end to the number of things that he does, and does badly. His one manly taste is for the chase. In sum, he is but a plexus of weaknesses; the singing chambermaid of the stage, tricked out in man's apparel, and mounted on a circus horse. I have seen this poor phantom of a prince riding out alone or with a few huntsmen, disregarded by all, and I have been even grieved for the bearer of so futile and melancholy an existence. The ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... house in 1760. Terrible night of storm—sleet tingling on the panes; crimson curtains fluttering in the draught; roads crusted with ice; savoury fumes of roast goose, plum pudding, and brandy. Pretty chambermaid in evident anxiety about something; guest tries to kiss her in the corridor; she's too distrait to give the matter proper attention. She has heard faint agonized cries above the howling ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... there was to be no noise in the halls while he slept, and then went into his room and stretched out. Anyone who has stopped at the Hotel Four Seasons will have no difficulty in recalling the electric hall-bells which serve to attract the chambermaids to given spots. If one needs the chambermaid, he presses the button in his room and a little bell in the hall tinkles furiously until she responds and shuts it off. In that way one is sure that she has heard and is coming, a most admirable bit of German ingenuity. If she happens to be taking ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... simplicity. He had merely to slip out of the hotel, carrying the key to 1734 with him. Certainly it would be as late as noon the following day before chambermaid or clerk tried to rouse the supposed occupant of the empty room. In all likelihood it would be later than noon. He would have at least twelve hours' start, even though the authorities were nimble-witted enough ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... he hustled him on shore and up a narrow street to an inn, over the archway of which hung the sign of a White Lamb with a flag between its forelegs. Here they rang a bell, and were admitted after ten minutes by a sleepy chambermaid, who led them upstairs to a low-browed sitting-room facing the street, as they perceived when she drew back the shutters. At the back of this room lay two bedchambers; and Tristram withdrew into the nearer, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by the black stone god, I did not think You had the nature of a chambermaid, Who pries and fumbles in her lady's clothes With her red hands, or on her soily neck Stealthily hangs her lady's jewels or pearls. You shall be tiring-maid to the next queen And try her crown on every day o' your life In secrecy, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... hour, and then hesitated about going down-stairs. He peeped out of his room twice, but there was always some one on the stairs, chambermaid, waiter, or ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Freeman—she had charge of the upper decks in the "Old Home" and was rated head chambermaid—up and quit, and being as we couldn't get another capable Cape Codder just then, Peter fetched down a woman from New York; one that a friend of old Dillaway's recommended. She was able seaman so far's the work was concerned, but ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was paid to a principal servant, whom, perhaps, you seldom or never saw; the actual attendance upon yourself being performed by one of his deputies; and to this deputy—who is, in effect, a factotum, combining in his single person all the functions of chambermaid, valet, waiter at meals, and porter or errand-boy—by the custom of the place and your own sense of propriety, you cannot but give something or other in the shape of perquisites. I was told, on entering, that half a guinea a quarter was the customary ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... child. Does not remember having had the usual diseases of childhood; had a severe attack of typhoid fever when quite young. Attended school until fourteen years of age, having reached the third grade. Upon leaving school she went to work as chambermaid and soon became addicted to the excessive use of alcohol, as a result of which she got into numerous fights and quarrels. In 1895, while intoxicated, she stabbed a man in the back and was sent to Albany Penitentiary for five years and eleven ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... two legs? The same that led Alexander to Babylon, Scipio to Carthage, Godfrey de Bouillon to Jerusalem, and Napoleon to Moscow—Ambition! Meiser did not expect to be presented with the keys of the city on a cushion of red velvet, but he knew a great lord, a clerk in a government office, and a chambermaid who were working to get a patent of nobility for him. To call himself Von Meiser instead of plain Meiser! What a ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... true that the actual world is 'with pathos delicately edged.' For Malvolio living we should have had living sympathies: so much aspiration, so ill-educated a love of refinement; so unarmed a credulity, noblest of weaknesses, betrayed for the laughter of a chambermaid. By an actual Bottom the Weaver our pity might be reached for the sake of his single self-reliance, his fancy and resource condemned to burlesque and ignominy by the niggard doom of circumstance. But is not life one thing ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... inheritance. In 1424, the couple were short of money, and they sold a house, concealing the fact that it was mortgaged. Being charged by the purchaser, they were thrown into prison, where they aggravated their offence by suborning two witnesses, one a priest, the other a chambermaid. Fortunately for them, they ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... most merciless manner! The chief ornament on the principal table was a model of the Reichshaus in "Schwarzbrod," cheese and confectionery. The dome consisted of a Dutch cheese, the "Germania" on the top was represented by a smartly aproned chambermaid on horseback, the horse being led by a footman in imperial livery, while the whole was labeled "Der gipfel des geschmack,"—the acme of taste. Another item of the programme was a sort of automatic machine, which, when a gold medal was ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... asked somebody outside, and then the door was tried. Soon a key was inserted in the lock, the door was opened, and a chambermaid showed herself. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... said in a whisper. "Yes, I am. I'm afraid that he'll change things, that he'll not approve of Martha, or the way dinner is made, or my habits in dishwashing or bedmaking or marketing or something that will—well, put me right in the role of a paid chambermaid, a servant, a menial with no more to say about the running of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... is that your chambermaid, bellboy, hotel clerk, taxi driver, dressmaker, saleslady, cook and laundress, hairdresser, waiter and bootblack may all and each be a so-called divorcee. (For convenience sake, I speak of them all as "divorcees," although Webster defines a "divorcee" as a man or woman ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... be, with economy, is always to give to the poor what you wouldn't be found dead in yourself, because it is more blessed to give than to receive badly made things. On the same principle I immediately passed the gift on to a chambermaid of the hotel, who perhaps in her turn dropped it a grade lower in the social scale, and so it may go on forever, blouse without end; but all that is apart from the point. The important part of the transaction was the token that the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to the Cheap Jack, she was a chambermaid in a small hotel in London, and "under notice to leave." Why—she did not deem it necessary to tell George. In this hotel Jan was born, and Jan's mother died. She was a foreigner, it was supposed, and her husband also, for they talked a foreign language to each other. He was not ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... five-and-twenty guineas for the voyage, which, with many Sighs and almost Weeping, my poor Little Master agrees to give. He might have recouped himself ten guineas of the money; for there was a Great Italian Singing Woman, with her Chambermaid, her Valet de Chambre, a Black Boy, and a Monkey, bound for the King's Opera House in the Haymarket, very anxious to reach England, and willing to pay Handsomely—out of English pockets in the long-run—for the accommodation we had to give; but my capricious Master flies ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... and therefore towards their beauty; and that is, the quietude and perpetuity of their domestic institutions. They do not, like us, fade their cheeks lying awake nights ruminating the awful question who shall do the washing next week, or who shall take the chambermaid's place, who is going to be married, or that of the cook, who has signified her intention of parting with the mistress. Their hospitality is never embarrassed by the consideration that their whole kitchen cabinet may desert at the moment that their guests ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be shown the best spare room in the house. On the bed in this room he laid the body of the still insensible Platzoff. His next act was to despatch a mounted messenger for the nearest doctor. Then, having secured the services of a brisk, steady-nerved chambermaid, he proceeded to dress the wound as well as the means at his command would allow of—washing it, and cutting away the hair, and, by means of some ice, which he was fortunate enough to procure, succeeding in all but stopping ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... imagined herself much more skilful than she really was, consequently she did not claim her husband's forbearance on account of inexperience. Philip was not rich, and she had a desire to be an economical wife, so she did not employ an experienced cook and chambermaid, but tried to accomplish it all by the aid of a ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... never, till thou swearest to be mine, thou lovely, blushing chambermaid divine! Here, at thy feet, the Royal Bulbo lies, the trembling captive ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... started from their inn one morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick suddenly stopped, and vowed that he would return, being certain "that damned scoundrel" (the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the sixpence intrusted to him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded to give up the project, seeing that there was no reason for suspecting the waiter of especial perfidy.—F.D.) Accordingly he came and ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... "My chambermaid, Marie, told me that you might perhaps know how he proposed to spend the evening," she continued. "He was quite a stranger in Paris, and he may ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a pretty Irish chambermaid at Jack's elbow whose eyes were as gray as the stones in the Giants' Causeway, but glittering now with scorn. For heretofore, Henry Phipps had been an humble worshipper. She permitted several of his condescending remarks to pass without notice, but finally when he ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... poor Karl done that he should be bidden so fiercely to hold his tongue? Then she thought that Bower must have recalled Stampa's history, and feared that perhaps the outspoken peasant might enter into a piquant account of some village scandal. A chambermaid in the hotel, questioned about Stampa, had told her that the daughter he loved so greatly had committed suicide. Really, she ought to be grateful to her companion for saving her from a passing embarrassment. But she had the tact not to ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... by Howe and Hummel, left the room, went to the elevator and descended to the dining-room upon the second floor. Jesse watched until they were safely ensconced at breakfast and then returned to the fourth floor where he tipped the chambermaid, told her that he had left his key at the office and induced her to unlock the door of room Number 420, which she did under the supposition that Jesse was the person who had left the chamber in Dodge's company. The contents of the ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... his home in Orange street about three o'clock, noiselessly opened the door and strode up to his apartments, thinking he would get to bed without disturbing his young wife; but she was not there. The bed remained as it was when the chambermaid left it that morning, after giving it its finishing touches. Ben Hartright looked about the room in wild amazement. He drew out his watch, scanned its face eagerly. "By ginger!" he exclaimed, "it's ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... stairs, in the principal hotel, with nothing on but one brief undergarment—met a chambermaid, and exclaimed: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a paltry sum, an elderly spinster, a Swede, with frightened, hare-like eyes, who spoke French and German indifferently, played the piano after a fashion, and, in addition, knew how to salt cucumbers in first-class style. In the society of this instructress, of his aunt, and of an old chambermaid, Vasilievna, Fedya passed four whole years. He used to sit in the corner with his "Emblems"—and sit ... and sit ... while the low-ceiled room smelled of geraniums, a solitary tallow candle burned dimly, a cricket chirped monotonously, as ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... measures of reform. With disgustful desperation, she emptied the room and swept it as with fire and sword. Her change of mind, from the passive to the active state, relieved and stimulated her, and she hurried from one needed reform to another. She drew others into the vortex. She inspired the chambermaid to unwilling yet amazing effort, and the lodging-house endured such a blast from the besom that it stood in open-windowed astonishment uttering dust like the breath of a dragon. Having swept and garnished the bed-chambers, Virginia moved on the dining-room. As the ranger ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... kitchen; my evening at the billiard club, the concert, the theatre, or at somebody's party, if I pleased,—what could be better than all this? Was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations of a barnyard; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen cows; to eat salt beef, and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth, into whose vocation I had thrust myself? Above all, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hotel, and the smallest and quietest. In fact there was yet no one in it but themselves, and they dwelt there in an image of home, with the sole use of the veranda and the parlor, where Maxwell had his manuscripts spread about on the table as if he owned the place. A chambermaid came over from the hotel in the morning to put the cottage in order, and then they could be quite alone there for the rest of ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... demarcation which Descartes drew between consciousness and the material world," whispered Oscar with satisfaction, and knew that if Descartes were on the examination paper he could start with this and go on for nearly twenty lines before he would have to use any words of his own. As he memorized, the chambermaid, who had come to do the bedrooms three times already and had gone away again, now returned and no longer restrained her indignation. "Get up Mr. Blake!" she vociferated to the sleeping John; "you ought to be ashamed!" And she shook the bedstead. Thus John ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... together by lamplight at the hotel, and Selincourt had seen his sister into the Chilmark train. Nothing could have been more circumspect— comically circumspect! between Selincourt and Isabel and the chambermaid, malice itself was put to silence. But Lawrence was fever-fretted by the ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... not hammered long before an eager, respectful chambermaid came and asked her what she wanted. When she learned she hurried off to Mr. Wilkinson and awoke him. Mr. Wilkinson, desiring to sleep yet another hour, would not hear of any bathing. On learning this, Pollyooly hammered on the door yet more ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... the chambermaid avowed that no one but the gas-man had entered or gone out by the ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... alive. Five hundred bodies, in a state of coacervation, without even a preference for cleanliness, "think of that Master Brook." All the forenoon the court is a receptacle for cabbage leaves, fish scales, leeks, &c. &c.—and as a French chambermaid usually prefers the direct road to circumambulation, the refuse of the kitchen is then washed away by plentiful inundations from the dressing-room—the passages are blockaded by foul plates, fragments, and bones; to which if you add the smell exhaling from ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... short time the great steamer drew up to the wharf, and Shawn, supporting Mrs. Alden's frail form with his strong arms, went up the steps and into the cabin. The chambermaid placed Mrs. Alden's chair in the ladies' cabin, and Shawn went off to select a convenient and ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... will tell you when I have done with him. How dare you treat Her Highness in this disgraceful manner? What sort of pothouse is this? Where did you learn to speak to persons of quality? Take away your cold tea and cold cake instantly. Give them to the chambermaid you were flirting with whilst Her Highness was waiting. Order some fresh tea at once; and do not presume to bring it yourself: have it brought by a civil waiter who is accustomed to wait on ladies, and not, like you, on ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... was repeated, louder and louder, still no answer. But at last the door was suddenly opened, and while Ralph stood in breathless expectation, he saw a mulatto chambermaid before him, beating a pillow with one hand, from which two or three feathers had broken loose, and stood ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... when conflagration rises, till Usher Maillard snatched his drum. Sincerer Patriot there is not; but many a shiftier. He, if Dame Campan gossip credibly, is paying some similitude of love-court to a certain false Chambermaid of the Palace, who betrays much to him: the Necessaire, the clothes, the packing of the jewels, (Campan, ii. 141.)—could he understand it when betrayed. Helpless Gouvion gazes with sincere glassy eyes into ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... determined to fix them for those poor little ragged children," said Anna; "and if you will not help me, I will get Kitty the chambermaid to do it." ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... French-horn, and the other endeavouring, but without effect, to smoke away a little sickness, which he feels from the fumes of his last night's punch. Beneath them is a traveller taking a tender farewell of the chambermaid, who is not to be moved by the clangour of the great bar bell, or the more thundering sound of her ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... language. Ponce is mastering the mysteries of American money. Ponce is inquiring into the methods of American politics. Ponce is preparing to abandon the church schools and adopt our system of education. Papeti, the chambermaid in the Hotel Francais, has already been taught to say, "Vive l'Americano!" Papeti's brother was shot by the Spanish a few ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... was gone there entered the chambermaid, and sad desecration was wrought. Chambermaids are another modern inconvenience. The Pilgrim Fathers got along without chambermaids; and even at a much later period chambermaids worked at least under the supervision of a mistress of the household. But ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... strikingly, the conspicuous features of his attire being a long blue coat with brass buttons and a pair of plaid trousers. He was older, too, than the other participants, which made his agility the more remarkable. His partner was a new chambermaid, who had just come to town, and whom the head waiter introduced to the newcomer upon his arrival. The cake was awarded to this couple by a unanimous vote. The man presented it to his partner with a grandiloquent ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... interest in the unpacking of our luggage. There the cook would come and take personal instructions as to the coming meal, throwing out suggestions the while as to the merits of this or that particular dish, and in one place the ancient chambermaid insisted that one of the ladies, who had got a slight cold, should have the prete put into her bed for a short time to warm it. You need not look shocked, Colonel. The prete in question was merely a wooden frame, in ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... arrangements. My father was earnest in wishing to dispose of Biddy—but on that point, though quiet, I was resolute in opposition. Poor warm-hearted Biddy, with all her stupid thriftless ways, I could not find in my heart to turn away, and as my chambermaid wanted to go to her relations in the "back states," as she called the great West, I proposed to Biddy to take her place, so soon as the new ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... destinies of the younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel, and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh Review of Grimm's Correspondence, seven or ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... fire, which I occupied (No. 9) on the second story of the Hotel de la Porte-Verte; it was midnight; I had just gone to bed and was falling asleep, when a knock sounded at my door. I awoke. I always left the key outside. "Come in," I said. A chambermaid entered with a light, and brought two men whom I did not know. One was a lawyer, of Ghent, M. ——; the other was De Flotte. He took my two hands and pressed them tenderly. "What," I said ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... said he wanted it to get into the moving picture place just down the street," the chambermaid said. "I thought you had let him go, and that he had forgotten the money. It's ten cents for children to get in afternoons, you know, and a penny for war tax. I ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... mastery, with Nietsche's "pathos of distance," separating class from class. The "instinct for rank," and "delight in the nuances of reverence," are not signs of nobility, as Nietsche would have it. There is no nose for them so {30} sensitive and discriminating as that of the chambermaid or butler. The mere pride of an easy mastery over slaves is the taint of every society in which class differences are recognized as fixed. It attaches to all classes; whether it be called snobbery or obsequiousness, ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... shows you a straw hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you "It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat." To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious pretense of learning and antiquities, to impose ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and made for the recreation room. For the first time the piano was in use. A chambermaid, surrounded by four admiring fellow-workers, was playing "Oh, they're killin' men and women for a wearin' of the green." That is, I made out she meant it for that tune. With the right hand she picked out what every now ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... chambermaid assigned to care for the room he occupied refused to perform her duties so far as his room was concerned on the ground, as she stated, that she "would not clean up after a nigger." For this refusal to do her work the management discharged ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... escaped from justice, and compared his face with the pictures of criminals in the newspapers, or she was reasonably sure that he was dishonest, although she had little to tempt him. She employed one chambermaid and a stable-boy, and did the cooking herself. Miss Hart was not a good cook. She used her thin, tense hands too quickly. She was prone to over-measures of saleratus, to under-measures of sugar and coffee. She erred ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... dancing and music. Her skill in the first led him sometimes to indulge her with a vacant corner in his carriage, when he went to the neighbouring assembly; and, in whatever light he might himself think proper to regard her, he would have imagined his chambermaid, introduced by him, entitled to an undoubted place in the most splendid circle. Her musical talents were frequently employed for his amusement. She had the honour occasionally of playing him to sleep after the fatigues of the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... how it place itself there?" demanded the still puzzled chambermaid in her halting English, then mother-wit overmastering native superstition, she burst into laughter. "Oh! Oh! Oh! It is no magic but you, Signorina. Who hid my towels? I go to tell Mees Rodgers. Yes! You shall get ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... the missing property was restored to its rightful owners. This 'arrangement' was accepted, the girl fulfilled her part of the contract, and every article that had been stolen was promptly restored. The chambermaid was dismissed, and any further prosecution of the affair was summarily closed. In this particular instance, it will be seen that matters terminated favorably, but it would be well if wealthy citizens would be warned against the 'family' risk to which ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the old chambermaid beamed upon the two young girls, and showed her satisfaction at their evident delight, and when she found that they could understand and speak a little of her own language, her heart was indeed won, and she bustled about seeking whatever she could do to add to their comfort, just for ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... peace, Monsieur," answered the busy chambermaid, in a scolding tone, while she cleaned the runnels of a chair, upon which the feet of the young man had left a good portion of the soil of the garden; "I should like to see the day when you are as well behaved as Mademoiselle Piccolissima. It was once Mademoiselle ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... admired by Dahlia and Zephine. She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident. The result had been Favourite. She met her father from time to time, and he bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of a devotee, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... before that the girls had a way of shrugging their shoulders whenever they were trying to put a loose garment straight on their bare necks, as well as that Mimi always grew angry on witnessing this manoeuvre and declared it to be a chambermaid's trick. As Katenka bent over the caterpillar she made that very movement, while at the same instant the breeze lifted the fichu on her white neck. Her shoulder was close to my lips, I looked at it and kissed it, She did not turn round, but Woloda remarked without raising his ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy |
