"Housemaid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Shepstone, aren't you?" her visitor queried in the friendliest of tones. "You see, I know quite a lot about you already. Lydia told me—Lydia's the housemaid—you'll like her; she's a really nice girl. My name is June Mason—I live here, too, and I hope we ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... seriously, and reconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in too after a fashion, as some greater philosophers have done—and went out one day with my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from the housemaid's cupboard) to sacrifice to the blue-eyed Minerva who was my favourite goddess on the whole because she cared for Athens. As soon as I began to doubt about my goddesses, I fell into a vague sort of general scepticism, ... and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... LIZA, a housemaid, not bad-looking, but very stout and snub-nosed; in a white dress, of which the bodice is short and ill-fitting. About her neck is a little red kerchief; her ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... favourite, and be revenged on her petulant rival, she prevailed upon the jeweller to employ a scout, who should watch all night upon the stair, without the knowledge of any other person in the family, alleging, that in all likelihood, the housemaid gave private admittance to some lover who was the author of all the losses they had lately suffered, and that they might possibly detect him in his nocturnal adventures; and observing that it would ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... sent to the military Governor at Odessa, which, though timed to explode in ten days, had not done so for something like three months. It was quite true that when it did go off, it merely succeeded in blowing a housemaid to atoms, the Governor having gone out of town six weeks before, but at least it showed that dynamite, as a destructive force, was, when under the control of machinery, a powerful, though a somewhat unpunctual agent. Lord Arthur was ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... of a gentleman seated in enjoyment, and parading his bandana, without associating it with a veritable footman, who, upon the occasion of his "Sunday out," may, perchance, be seen in one of the front lower tenements in Belgrave-square, or some such locale, paying violent attentions to the housemaid, and the hot toast, decorated with the order of the handkerchief, to preserve his crimson plush in all its glowing purity. We cannot take leave of this interesting work without declaring our opinion that the composition (of the frame) is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Lord Runton continued, "but don't you think it possible that—without your knowledge, of course—she may be hidden somewhere about here? That cry was not like the cry of a housemaid. Let us have ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... more tenacious in that respect than the men; they consider, even down to a housemaid, that their sex demands a certain tone of deference, however humble their position, and if a nobleman did not touch his hat to them when they open or shut the door for them, with the usual salutation of good ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... they entered the vessel, they felt convinced that a watery death had been substituted for the gibbet. Poor old Heinrich Dirckzoon, ex-burgomaster, pathetically rejected a couple of clean shirts which his careful wife had sent him by the hands of the housemaid. "Take them away; take them home again," said the rueful burgomaster; "I shall never need clean shirts again in this world." He entertained no doubt that it was the intention of his captors to scuttle the vessel as soon as they had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at last, and slowly crept upstairs, glad to meet no one, and that not even Josephine was there to see her red eyes. Her muslin frock was on the bed, and she managed to dress herself, and run down again unseen; she stood over the fire, so that the housemaid, who brought in her tea, should not see her face; and by the time she had to go to the drawing-room, the mottling of her face had abated under the influence of a story-book, which always drove ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was marked out with precision. By artful adjustment of pursuits, it was contrived that the men-servants should be kept apart from the maid-servants, except at their repasts. The women, namely, a cook, a housemaid, and a nurse, found their pastime in rambles with their mistress and her children, and lived mainly with them. The men were amused by games for which their master made regulated provision, now for summer, now for winter, offering prizes of a useful kind for prowess and adroitness. Often ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... were at first much discouraged, but they have now taken heart again. One of their Canvassers, it seems, has succeeded in making himself a persona grata to a lady who occupies the position of under-housemaid in the establishment of the TUFFANS. Through her he obtained an empty pot of strawberry-jam, lately consumed by the TUFFAN family. This has been fixed upon a long pole, with a placard underneath it, to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... poles. But here again that rigid duenna did her invaluable service, for if she didn't look handsome in the clothes selected for her, she didn't, as that lady said frankly, look vulgar in them. No longer would you be liable to mistake her for somebody's second-rate housemaid on her day out. The simple diet and the inexorable regularity of her hours also told in her favor, although she herself wasn't as yet aware of the change taking place. Already you could tell that hers was a supple and shapely young ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... faces smiling welcome; the Church, always the same, the green rail of the Vicarage garden, the paint was the only thing new; the porch, with roses hanging thicker over it than ever; Ranger, David Chapple, Jane, the housemaid, all in ecstasy in their ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... coming to the Place to morn: Bess housemaid told me. Lord and Lady——: dash My wigs! I can't think on. But there's a mash O' comp'ny and fine ladies; fit to torn The heads of these young chaps. Why now I'd lay This here gun to an empty powder-horn Sir Reginald be in love, or that-a-way. He ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... is ever permitted to enter that room save the housemaid in the morning, and my valet, or my wife's maid, during the rest of the day. They are both trusty servants who have been with us for some time. Besides, neither of them could possibly have known that there was anything ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... interrupted by the arrival of the very person in question, who was announced by the housemaid, and was ushered in. She was a handsome, florid, healthy-looking girl, awkward and naive in her manner, and apparently not over wise; there was more of the dove than of the serpent in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... clothes the sails of ships that took refuge there—on Mondays and Tuesdays. Even my father was symbolized with unparalleled audacity as a watchful government which had, up to the present, no inkling of our semi-piratical intentions! The cook and the housemaid, though remonstrating against the presence of Grits, were friendly confederates; likewise old Cephas, the darkey who, from my earliest memory, carried coal and wood and blacked the shoes, washed the windows ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... one day, earnestly endeavoring to persuade his patient to eat his poultice. It is otherwise now. The women, where there are any, ought to have the entire charge of the sweeping and cleaning,—the housemaid's work of the wards; and as to the rest, the men of the medical-staff corps have the means of learning how to dress a blister, and poultice a sore, and apply plasters, lint, and bandages, and administer medicine, and how to aid the sick in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... teeth against a babyish pink tongue. She was wearing a freshly washed bright blue dress, hanging loosely from her shoulders, and looked so prettily jolly, clean, capable, and curly-headed, that I immediately made her housemaid ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... carefully marked and labelled, were displayed. A few large tables stood at intervals on the shabby carpet, also laden with books and specimens. They conveyed an impression of dust and disorder, as though no housemaid had been allowed to touch them for weeks—with one exception. A table, smaller than the rest, but arranged with scrupulous neatness, stood at one side of the room, with a typewriter upon it, certain books, and a rack for stationery. A folded duster lay at one corner. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... after I found myself transported to the nursery, scarcely understanding why, accused of having by my naughtiness made ray poor mamma so ill, and discovering for the first time that I was a miserable, naughty little fretful being, and with nobody but Clarence and the housemaid to take pity ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blithe impersonal touch in Dr. Gurnet, a smiling willingness to look on private histories as of less importance than last year's newspapers. It was as if he airily explained to his patients that really they had better put any facts there were on the files, and let the housemaid use the rest for the kitchen fire; and he required very little on Winn's part. From a series of reluctant monosyllables he built up a picturesque and reliable structure of his new patient's life. They weren't by any means all physical ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?" asked Alice the housemaid, noticing that the pudding was unappreciated, and divining that something ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six 10 young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and young women employed in the business. In came the housemaid with her cousin the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular friend the milkman In came the boy from over the way, who was 15 suspected of not having enough to eat from his master. In they all came, one after another—some shyly, some ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... much," said Alice. "It did, though; nearly all he had got. But what matters? Money's nothing to him, except for its uses. My own little mite is my own now, and he shall have every farthing of it for the next election, even though I should go out as a housemaid the next day." There must have been something great about George Vavasor, or he would not have been so idolized by such a ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Miss Martineau's apocalyptic housemaid[117] tell us whether Flush has a soul, and what is its 'future destination'? As to the fact of his soul, I have long had a strong opinion on it. The 'grand peut-etre,' to which 'without revelation' the human argument ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... she has fine eyes for dust, I tell her. The new housemaid had better be careful with her room. Now, ma'am, ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... collection, which must, of course, be abandoned. Nay, if no journey is to be taken, a visitor, perhaps, comes unexpectedly; the little naturalist's apartment must be vacated on a few minutes notice, and the labour of years falls a sacrifice, in an instant, to the housemaid's undistinguishing broom. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... end his war-dance in a howl, bringing the ponderous Rob to the rescue, and there was a general melee, ending by all the five rolling promiscuously on the gravel drive. They scrambled up with recovered tempers, and at the sight of an indignant housemaid rushed in a general stampede to the two large attics opening into one another, which served as the lair of the Folly lads. There, while struggling, with Jock's assistance, to pull off his boots, Allen explained how he had been waylaid "by a beast in velveteens," and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whirled themselves away, and the stars told him it was ten o'clock. There was a light in the sitting-room, and Blue Dave judged it best to go to the back door. He rapped gently, and then a little louder. Ordinarily the door would have been opened by the trim black housemaid; but to-night it was opened by George Denham's mother, a prim old lady of whom everybody stood greatly in awe without precisely knowing why. She looked out, and saw the gigantic negro ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... a woman of economies, keeping vigilant watch over all expenditures, great and small, and employing one servant only, who was cook, housemaid, and laundress all in one, and expected to give every moment of her time to the service of her mistress, and be content with smaller wages than many ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... smiled delightedly when she saw his face, and at once proceeded to arrange her flowers, while Dawson bustled about and rang the bell, and chattered like an amiable magpie. In a very short time the weak-minded Charles, now a reformed and steady character and engaged to the head housemaid, brought in the tray, and a modest and appetising little meal was served. Cutlets with sauce piquant and pigeon pie, salad such as Malcolm loved, and a delicate pudding which seemed nothing but froth and sweets, while an excellent ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... servants are few, it goes almost without saying that large establishments are out of the question. Given equal incomes, and the English mistress has twice as many servants as the Australian, and what is more, twice as competent ones. Even our friend Muttonwool only has six coachman, boy, cook, housemaid, nurse, and parlourmaid. I don't suppose there are a hundred households in all Australia which keep a butler pure and simple, though there must be several thousand with what is generically known as a man-servant, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... same afternoon, Florence met him with the information that father and mother had both gone out, and Mary the housemaid did not know what time they ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... you be very kind? Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a housemaid who won't say yes ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... with a heavy sigh over this philosophical dictum, the poignancy of which was enhanced by his knowledge that the upper housemaid had taken to conversing with a mounted policeman in the Park during ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... being unmarried, chanced to fall in love with a neighbour, one Gabriotto, a man of low degree, but goodly of person and debonair, and endowed with all admirable qualities; and aided and abetted by the housemaid, the girl not only brought it to pass that Gabriotto knew that he was beloved of her, but that many a time to their mutual delight he came to see her in a fair garden belonging to her father. And ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to look on: she was a woman who spoke her meaning. She knelt, handling paper, firewood and matches, like a housemaid. Danvers proceeded on her mission, and Redworth eyed Diana in the first fire-glow. He could have imagined a Madonna on an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... first place and my last, and I don't think we should have got on in business as we have if it hadn't been for me being for six or seven years with one of the first families in the county. Though only a housemaid, you can't help learning something of their ways. At any rate, you learn what gentlefolks like, and what they can't abide. But the worst of being housemaid where there's a lot of servants kept is, that one or other or all of the men-servants is sure to be wanting to keep company with ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... Bible or elsewhere! It was a very strange thing she should be so different from everybody else: not even the clergyman's daughters—no, nor the Squire's daughters, for the matter of that—looked half so nice as pretty Polly Sweetlove, the housemaid at the Vicar's. ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... to mar the comfort and position of those who come after you, and who may not have the means of being liberal over and above the prescribed standard. Under no circumstances is a lady called upon by the rules of etiquette to give fees to men servants; the lady's-maid and the housemaid are the only ones she is expected to remember; but if a gentleman visit where only female servants are employed, he should make them a present on ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... your consent. You are in the position of the lady of a house whose servants have shut the door of the kitchen in her face that they may carry on their business after their own fashion, leaving only the housemaid and coachman at her command. It may be humiliating, perhaps, to be thus only partially mistress at home; but what can you do, my little demi-queen? I will tell you: make up your mind to govern the subjects under your orders as wisely as possible; and, as to the rest, be content ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... would not have wished me waked," she said, and rose, straightened her dress, waited a moment, and then pulled impatiently at an old-fashioned bell-rope that hung by the door. There was no answer. Again she rang, but the house lay dark and silent. A little housemaid with brown, startled eyes, came at last, just as she was beginning to grow alarmed at the darkness and stillness, ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... to the memorable course of affairs in Flanders at an epoch when many of the most inflammatory preachers and politicians of the Reformed religion, men who refused to employ a footman or a housemaid not certified to be thoroughly orthodox, subsequently after much sedition and disturbance went over to Spain ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... packing I rang for the porter to strap my trunk, but he did not come. I continued ringing with much vigour, and finally the nice little housemaid appeared on the scene and a flood of volubility broke over me. The porter was busy. He could not come. All Russians in the hotel were being arrested as criminals, for Russians had fired on a frontier town and war was declared. The hotel had been full of detectives for several days, ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... the hand of his only daughter Alice in marriage, by virtue of the King's command signed and sealed in his pocket. The belfry-fountain was humming like a swarm of bees as all the chambermaids and goodwives in the street rushed up to fill their pitchers at the very moment when Le Tellier's housemaid happened ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... The housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the next day was the sound which first roused Catherine; and she opened her eyes, wondering that they could ever have been closed, on objects of cheerfulness; ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... extremely exemplary gentleman was a little difficult, but in his present housemaid, Mary MacLean, he had a girl with a strong Highland strain of fidelity to a master, and an instinctive devotion to his interests, even if his person was hardly the chieftain her heart demanded. She was a soft voiced, anxious looking young woman, almost ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... the housemaid. 'Yes, yes, my darling, no one likes to hear who is to come after them. Don't you say nothing about it; ain't becoming; but, by and by, see if it don't come so, and if my boy ain't ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... found the cook and housemaid in the last row of all and was turning his eye-hole round ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... hated insect; and by due encouragement it might be hoped that they would flourish, and hang and dangle and wave triumphant in the breeze, to an extent as yet generally undreamed of. And he lamented much the destruction that has heretofore been wrought upon this precious fabric by the housemaid's broom, and insisted upon by foolish women who claimed to be good housewives. Indeed, it was the general opinion that the Doctor's celibacy was in great measure due to the impossibility of finding ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... come back to the house after the walk with Eliza, the nurse, or Annie, the housemaid; to go through all the rooms looking for Mimi; looking for Mamma, telling her what ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... passed; despair, black and awful, filled her soul at last. The choice seemed to lie between going out as an ordinary servant and starving. Even as a housemaid she would want this not-to-be-got-over reference. In this darkest-hour before the dawn she saw Madame Mirebeau's advertisement for sewing girls, and in sheer despair applied. Tall, handsome girls of good ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... and pleased with ourselves, not in the least depressed if we had drawn a blank, to jolly and delightful meals, without any formality at all. And if we were wet, there was a great drying-room off the kitchen premises where our clothes were dried by a housemaid who really understood the business. As for our tackle, we dried our own lines and pegged them under the verandah, and rewound them again in the morning, made up our own casts, and generally did everything for ourselves without a retinue of attendants. ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... (horses whose mothers and grandmothers had supplied the de Gramont stables from time immemorial) to cleanse windows, brighten mirrors, and polish dingy furniture. Bettina, the antiquated femme de chambre of the countess, who also discharged the combined duties of housekeeper and housemaid, flew about with a bustling activity that could hardly have been expected from her years and infirmities. Elize, the cook, made far more elaborate preparations for the coming of the young viscount than she would have deemed necessary for the dinner ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... immorality and vice, with degrees, of course, but in no case without deserving censure from the eminently respectable, well-born British matron. She could not have been more upset had the heroine of the story been the under housemaid; and indeed she placed actressess and housemaids in much ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Salthill, that it happened, sir: he was my benefactor through life. Always kind to me at the workhouse, where he was chaplain, he got me a situation, as soon as I was old enough, with a lady. I lived with her first as housemaid, and then as her personal attendant, till ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... of appeal for help came back to mind; it was evident something was wrong. I at once entered the open door into which the figure had passed, determined to do what I could to assist one in such unmistakable need of help. To my astonishment I found that the place was a mere housemaid's closet, for the keeping of brooms, dusting appliances, and the like. It was but a tiny room, too; a glance from the threshold was enough to convince me that no human ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... she is negotiating with Bertin.... That poor Dumesnil no longer knows either what he is saying or what he is doing.... Now, Miss, take your book." While Miss, who is in no hurry, is looking for her book, which is lost, while they call the housemaid and scold and make a great stir, I continue—"The Clairon is really incomprehensible. They talk of a marriage which is outrageously absurd: 'tis that of Miss ... what is her name? a little creature that used to live with so and so, etcetera, etcetera:—Come, Rameau, you are talking nonsense; it is ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... led the way up the stair that mounted to the attic story, and there soon succeeded in routing out the three servants. The Germans proved to be a man and wife, well past middle age, the former the gardener and the latter the cook. Erin was represented by a red-haired girl who was the housemaid. All of them were horrified when told their master had been murdered, but none of them could shed any light on the tragedy. They had all been in bed long before midnight, and had not been disturbed by any of the noises ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... underlies our present-day marriage system, although it is disguised as economic necessity; as a religious sacrament; and as a suitable or a brilliant "catch"—a type of marriage by capture which forms the ideal of our own upper-class women and which the housemaid ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... supposed as faultless in the eye of heaven as a dove or a woodcock; but it is not, in former divinities, thought the will of Providence that he should be dropped by a shot from a client behind his fire-screen, and retrieved in the morning by his housemaid under the chandelier. Neither is Lady Dedlock less reprehensible in her conduct than many women of fashion have been and will be: but it would not therefore have been thought poetically just, in old-fashioned morality, that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... laugh, I suppose, at the folly of it, but in her own way, my mother was setting up to be a fine lady. We had a cook and housemaid, and a nurse for me, and fine things I learned from her! We had a hired landau on Saturday afternoon to go drives in, a pew in the church, and sometimes people to dinner. She even got my father to send to Dublin to find out the Carville ancestry and coat-of-arms. She did, that's a fact! So ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... rose-growing as a life-work consolidated the earl's liking for her. Never, in his memory, had he come across so sensible and charming a girl; and he had looked forward with a singular intensity to meeting her again. And now some too zealous housemaid, tidying up after the irritating manner of her species, had destroyed the only ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... three more. You broke that woman's heart. I don't suppose you know that she died last month. You never noticed it, eh? Her precious coachman is living like a lord on the money you and he took from her. Old Burkenday's housemaid has bought a little home in Edgewater—but not from her wages. The two jobs you now have on hand never will be pulled off. The girl in the Banker Watts case has been cornered and has confessed. She is ready to appear against you. McLennan's wife has had the courage to defy your ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... married or was he still a bachelor? He was a bachelor as before, but there was a difference—he now had a female boarder who paid nothing for her board. The thought was anything but pleasant, but it was the truth. The cook kept house, the housemaid attended to the rooms. Where did Helena come in? She was to develop her individuality! Oh, rubbish! he thought, I am a fool! Supposing his friend had been right? Supposing women always behaved in this silly way under these circumstances? She could ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... wanted them to let the two girls go while I was there, but no, sir! Et says, 'Grandma, you didn't come here to work, you must just rest.' They wouldn't let me do a thing, and that brazen hired girl—the housemaid, they call her—one day even made my bed; and, mind you, George, she put the narrow hem on the sheet to the top, and she wasn't a bit ashamed when I told her. She said she hoped it didn't make me feel that I was standin' on my head all night; and the way that woman hung out the clothes was a perfect ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... something higher she might as well stay on the lower rounds," sneered some one. "They relegate these things better in England. A housemaid's daughter is ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... beam divided the lofty ceiling into two compartments, which were crossed at regular intervals by smaller joists, richly carved, and retaining some traces of gilding. The spaces between had been originally of a deep blue tint, almost lost now under the thick coating of dust and spiders' webs that no housemaid's mop ever invaded. Above the grand old chimney-piece was a noble stag's head, with huge, spreading antlers, and on the walls hung rows of ancient family portraits, so faded and mouldy now that most of the faces had a ghastly ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... brought in by Rosanna Spearman. The girl had come down to breakfast that morning miserably pale and haggard, but sufficiently recovered from her illness of the previous day to do her usual work. Sergeant Cuff looked attentively at our second housemaid—at her face, when she came in; at her crooked shoulder, when ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... approaching to deception." One missed sadly at this point in the later version of this Reading what was included in her first conversation on the doormat as to her requirements for supper enumerated after this fashion, "in tones expressive of faintness," to the housemaid: "I think, young woman, as I could peck a little bit of pickled salmon, with a little sprig of fennel and a sprinkling o' white pepper. I takes new bread, my dear, with jest a little pat o' fredge butter and a mossel o' cheese. With respect to ale, if they draws the Brighton Tipper ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... approval; and the menace at any rate, upon all positive principles, is nothing but big words that can break no bones. As soon as we realise it to be but this, its effect must cease instantly. The power of conscience resides not in what we hear it to be, but in what we believe it to be. A housemaid may be deterred from going to meet her lover in the garden, because a howling ghost is believed to haunt the laurels; but she will go to him fast enough when she discovers that the sounds that alarmed her were not a soul in ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... grave Norman is drawn in. He agrees with Mary that bubbles used to fly over the wall, and that one once went into Mrs. Richardson's garret window, when her housemaid tried to catch it with a pair of tongs, and then ran downstairs screaming that there was a ghost in her room; but that was in Harry's time, the heroic ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... a kaleidoscopic view of Mrs. Klopton in the lower hall, holding out an armful of such traveling impedimenta as she deemed essential, while beside her, Euphemia, the colored housemaid, grinned over a ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fact that he had gone to bed. But old Mac caught the awesome name and glared round, so they hurriedly filled out another for him, from the boss's bottle. Then there was a slight commotion. The housemaid hurried scaredly in to the bar behind and whispered to the boss. She had been startled nearly out of her wits by the Professor suddenly appearing at his bedroom door and calling upon her to have a stiff nobbler of whisky hot sent up to his room. The jackaroo yard-boy, ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... Every English housemaid knows, if every housekeeper does not, that shavings make a most valuable fuel; for lighting fires they are preferable to those faggots, small bundles of which fetch in London, and large provincial towns, what may be considered a high ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... can never assemble more than four or five guests. On your at-home days, we shall put up little placards as they do outside the theatres, 'Drawing-room full,' 'Dining-room full,' 'Room in the Conservatory.' There are two good bedrooms, one large maid's room, and a lumber- room. One cook and one housemaid could run it beautifully. Rent 50 pounds on a three years' lease—with taxes, about 62 pounds. I think it was just built for us. Rupton Hale says that we must be careful not to brush against the walls, and that it would be safer to go outside to sneeze—but ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... sure he must be. He is always thinking of others; and you and I, Mary, must do all we can for him. I shall be housekeeper and cook and all sorts of things, and you shall be chief housemaid, and help me, and we will try and make the house ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... by the window, but it stuck, and to my horror I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the sounds as well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiance of a pretty housemaid I have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got away; this I swear to you. What happened to him after leaving my house you know better than I do, for I haven't seen him since, as you are ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs, supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... in good time, folded up his nightshirt, and made his room so tidy that the housemaid nearly had a surprise-fit when she went in. He crept downstairs like a mouse, and learned his lessons before breakfast. Lucy, on the other hand, got up so late that it was only by dressing hastily that she had time to prepare a thoroughly good booby-trap ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... meditatively, "is the creature with a tail as big as your arm, and a ruff round her neck, and Milly is the pretty little housemaid; I remember and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... you please, I would rather not marry at all. I will serve you here at home like a housemaid. Only make ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... Percival was greatly surprised to find, seated comfortably on the only chair to be seen, no less a person than the worthy Mrs. Mivers. This good lady in her spinster days had earned her own bread by hard work. She had captivated Mr. Mivers when but a simple housemaid in the service of one of his relations. And while this humble condition in her earlier life may account for much in her language and manners which is nowadays inconsonant with the breeding and education that characterize the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... was content with keeping samples of all possible patterns in needlework, beads, bugles, horse-hair, etc., for I could not help feeling troubled sometimes about my future destiny; yet I could not bear the idea of being turned into an Abigail or housemaid, and thought that with the above and such like acquirements, with a little notion of music, I might obtain a place as governess in some family where the want of a knowledge of ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... house. It is true that gentlemen and ladies who have servants do not usually wish to talk about their private matters before all the household, even though the private matters may be known; but this household was unlike all others in that respect. There was not a housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how terrible a reprobate ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... saw Louis come to the door of the saloon, look round with a frown, become very red in the face as he saw several people look at him casually, and beat a hasty retreat. She had a long talk with the thin girl during the evening, learning that she had been under-housemaid in a girls' school; she asked Marcella her name, volunteering the information that she was Phyllis Mayes, only her friends called her Diddy; she seemed to have got over much of her grief at parting with her sister. After a while ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... chiefs—the chief schoolmaster and the chief domestic—the chief masculine and the chief feminine—the chief with the ferula, and the chief with the brimstone and treacle—the master and the matron, each of whom had their appendages—the one in the usher, the other in the assistant housemaid. But of this quartette, the master was not only the most important, but the most worthy of description; and as he will often appear in the pages of my narrative, long after my education was complete, I shall be very particular in my description of Dominie Dobiensis, as he delighted ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... cook got 8 pounds a year, the housemaid 7 pounds, and the nursemaid 6 pounds, paid half-yearly, but the summer half-year was much better paid than the winter, because there was the outwork in the fields, weeding and hoeing turnips and potatoes, and haymaking. The winter work in the house was heavier on account of the fires ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... the housemaid's fancy Lightly turns from pot and pan To the greater necromancy Of a young unmarried man. You can hold her through the winter, And she'll work around and sing, But it's just as good as certain She will ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... as she would have replied to the housemaid (who, indeed, could herself be spied just then, pausing, down the dimness ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... escape from domestic tyranny offered her by a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than any one in the world except her uncle (who was at this time at sea) she went off one morning and was married to him; her only bridesmaid being the housemaid at her aunt's. The consequence was, that Frank and his wife went into lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson refused to see them, and turned away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid; whom they accordingly took into their service. When Captain Wilson returned from his voyage, he was very cordial with the young ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... find that every basin is left by the housemaid with cold water in it, and there it stands waiting at all seasons; but such a thing as warm water is considered positively indecent, and the servant generally looks as if she would fall down with amazement at the mention of such a ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... while, wondering when the Mayor would call him, Tip-Top heard voices on the other side of the wall. He listened closely, and soon found that the housemaid who had driven him away from the Mayor's door was talking to her brother, who had just returned from ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... I could not write a word without one or more blunders in several letters, and a needful epistle became a heap of unsightly blots. This is only exaggeration of a weakness becoming normal with me. I have to write as slow as any little schoolboy. My housemaid was alarmed without my knowing it; but mere rest and sleep in some days removed my wife's alarms. But I still am forced to write very slowly, and cannot help some blunders.... On the morning of the 22nd I called on Jowett, who instantly said, 'Tonight is our Gaudy; ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... when he had gratified his senseless curiosity. Andy withdrew, Furlong retired to rest; and as it was in the grey of an autumnal morning he dressed himself, the paper still remained unobserved: so that the housemaid, on setting the room to rights, found it, and fancying Miss Augusta was the proper person to confide Mr. Furlong's stray papers to, she handed that young lady the manuscript which bore the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... he would follow the vicar, then as if he would not, and in absolute perplexity whither to turn himself, went awkwardly to the door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind him. Before he had receded two yards from the doorstep, Unity and Ann the housemaid came home from their visit ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... you came to me for the 1/2d., and I had no coppers, so we still owe him the 1/2d.; by the way, don't forget to pay him the next time you go. Then there's the baker—no, I paid the baker myself, and I think the housemaid paid the butter-man; but you got in the cheese the day before, and I have a sort of recollection that I may possibly owe you for that, all but a few pence you must have had left of mine, that I told you to take from off the chimney-piece. Well, cook, I think ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... given it with King George III. That monarch made a royal visit to Gloucester, and in his lectures on the "Four Georges" Thackeray says: "One morning, before anybody else was up, the king walked about Gloucester town, pushed over Molly the housemaid with her pail, who was scrubbing the doorsteps, ran up stairs and woke all the equerries in their bedrooms, and then trotted down to the bridge, where by this time a dozen of louts were assembled. 'What! is this Gloucester new bridge?' asked our ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... once, without knowing how it happened, was very rude to them, and gave them notice, a thing she repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing something wrong and very dissatisfied with her. Then she got a housemaid's place in a police-officer's house, but stayed there only three months, for the police officer, a man of fifty, began to torment her, and once, when he was in a specially enterprising mood, she fired up, called him "a fool and old devil," and ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... little plump things, With golden bodies and golden wings,— Mere fins for such solidities— Two cupids, in short, Of the regular sort, But the housemaid ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... servants—troubles of which I knew nothing and which bored me unutterably—and who were as uninterested in all that had filled my life, in theology, in politics, in science, as I was uninterested in the discussions on the housemaid's young man and on the cook's extravagance in using "butter, when dripping would have done perfectly well, my dear"; was it wonderful that I became timid, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... the invitation, the boy was carried into the house accordingly, laid on the housemaid's bed, and attended to by the cook, while the policeman went out ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... with the exception of the space enclosed by this narrow circle, is closed to the footsteps of Tommy; he cannot now visit his sweetheart, his sweetheart must come and visit him. The housemaid from Hammersmith and the typist from Tottenham have to come to their beaux in billets, and as most of the men in our town are single, and nearly all have sweethearts, it is estimated that five or six thousand maidens blush to hear the old, old story ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... respectable people, we often inhabit new dwellings; the housemaid daily cleans them and changes at her will the position of the furniture, which interests us but little, as it is either new or may belong today to Jack, tomorrow to Isaac. Even our very clothes are strange to us; we hardly know how many buttons there ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... sent here for, think'st 'ou?" said Betty the housemaid, who had followed Dick for a bit of gossip and a sort of incipient liking which had not yet issued on his part into any overt acts of courtship and declaration. It was nigh dark, "the light that lovers choose;" and Betty, having disposed herself to the best advantage, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... medicine-tree, reverend precinct, and devout attendants; to be handled by the profane; to cross three seas; to come to land under the foolscap of St. Paul's; to be domesticated within hail of Lillie Bridge; there to be dusted by the British housemaid, and to take perhaps the roar of London for the voice of the outer sea along the reef. Before even we had finished dinner Chench had begun his journey, and one of the newspapers had already placed the box upon my table as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... folded tongue, Its toil completed and its day-song sung. (Thump) That's the morning paper. What a bore That it should be delivered at the door. There ought to be some expeditious way To get it to one. By this long delay The fizz gets off the news (a rap is heard). That's Jane, the housemaid; she's an early bird; She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul. (Gets up and takes it in.) Upon the whole The system's not so bad a one. What's here? Gad, if they've not got after—listen dear (To sleeping wife)—young ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... the milk-truck. Young Redwood at that time weighed fifty-nine and a half pounds, measured forty-eight inches in height, and gripped about sixty pounds. He was carried upstairs to the nursery by the cook and housemaid. After that, discovery was only a question of days. One afternoon Redwood came home from his laboratory to find his unfortunate wife deep in the fascinating pages of The Mighty Atom, and at the sight of him she put the book ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells |
