"Matronly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never occurred to him to doubt his own intuition, until suddenly he heard his own name quite near, and turning quickly, he saw a stout matronly woman of forty years or thereabouts standing ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... had been sung, there was no one to speak for them the usual thanks for these kindnesses, and just as this came painfully to the sensibilities of the thoughtful, Barton uncovered his head and said the few needed words in a clear, steady voice, with such grace, that matronly women would gladly have kissed him; and young maidens noticed, what they had observed before, that there was something of nameless attraction ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... find that Candida has just come in, and is looking at them with an amused maternal indulgence which is her characteristic expression. She is a woman of 33, well built, well nourished, likely, one guesses, to become matronly later on, but now quite at her best, with the double charm of youth and motherhood. Her ways are those of a woman who has found that she can always manage people by engaging their affection, and who does so frankly and instinctively without the smallest scruple. ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... so happen. On the contrary, the dislike which Lady O'Shane took at sight to both the mother and daughter—to the daughter instinctively, at sight of her youth and beauty; to the mother reflectively, on account of her matronly dress and dignified deportment, in too striking contrast to her own frippery appearance— increased every day, and every hour, when she saw the attentions, the adoration, that Sir Ulick paid to Miss Annaly, and the deference and respect he showed to Lady Annaly, all for ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... colossal statues which now flank the central doorway. War is represented by a stalwart gymnast with a profuse development of muscle and a benign expression of countenance, partially encased in ancient Roman armor, while Peace is a matronly dame, somewhat advanced in life and heavy in flesh, who carries an olive branch as if she desired to use ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... baby. The infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth, I suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning with pain. The queen—her name was Metanira—was desirous of finding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect coming up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind that here was the very person whom she needed. So Queen Metanira ran to the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... in her beauty now that more than made up for the loss. She wore a fragrant great bunch of violets at her breast, and under the sweeping brim of her hat her beautiful eyes were as deeply blue as the flowers. She seemed full of a new wifely and matronly charm to-day, and it was quite in key with the pose that old Mrs. Gregory and young Charles should be constantly in her neighborhood. Her relatives with her, her babies safe at home, young Mrs. Gregory was the personification of domestic ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... The young Paulina opened her veins with her husband, the philosopher, Seneca; Mallonia preferred to die in torments rather than give herself up to the odious he-goat of Capri. Who does not admire the noble independence, the conjugal love, and the matronly virtues of Agrippina, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... we have spoken only of young ladies, a more matronly style being expected from their chaperons. For instance, caps at the opera or concerts, a charming variety of which were seen at Miss Wilson's November opening. Turc satins, velvets, and brocades are to those in place ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... of cats, although I admit they are well enough in their place, and I can worry along comfortably with a nice, matronly old tabby who can take care of herself and be of some use in the world. As for Ismay, she ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of emigrants beggars description. Their dress was as varied as pieces in a crazy quilt. Here was a matronly dame in clean apparel, but without shoes; her husband perhaps lacked both shoes and hat. Youngsters of all sizes were running about with scarcely enough clothing to cover their nakedness. Some suits and dresses were so patched that it was impossible to tell what was the original cloth. ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... draughtsmanship, depicting the Miracles of the Redemption, Moses burying the Egyptian, and sundry other passages of the text. In one a king was praying in the Temple to an exploding bomb intended to represent the Shechinah or divine glory. In another, Sarah attired in a matronly cap and a fashionable jacket and skirt, was standing behind the door of the tent, a solid detached villa on the brink of a lake, whereon ships and gondolas floated, what time Abraham welcomed the three celestial messengers, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... her; rather in the belief that it was some wretched mother from Acredale who had learned of their presence and hoped to get aid for an imprisoned son, husband, or brother. But when she saw the kind, matronly face of Mrs. Raines beaming with the delight of bearing good news, she sank into a chair, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... it is," said Mrs. Bradley, greatly amused, "and pray sit still and take some refreshment. You'll make yourself ill after your exertions," she added, with a charming assumption of matronly solicitude. ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... still quite a high voltage sparkle in the trustin' blue eyes and the cheek dimples was still doin' business. But she was carryin' more or less excess weight for her height and there was the beginnings of a double chin. Besides, she always dressed quiet and sort of matronly. ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... song and in caressing these feathered pets, in feeding them and in teaching them pretty tricks and games. I recall those pleasant boyhood days when a pet crow, and a flock of pigeons, and two baby hawks afforded me rapture and solicitude combined. Then followed an experience with a matronly hen and ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... inherited his mother's repulsion towards me, and roared doubly at the sight of me. My mother held that he was the victim of Selina's dissipations and mismanagement of herself and him, and gave many matronly groans at his treatment by the smart, flighty nurse, who waged one continual warfare ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... house. The parlour-maid showed him into the hideously furnished and daub-hung dining-room. The Viennese horrors of plaster stags, gnomes and rabbits stared fatuously on the hearth. No fire was in the grate. Very soon Jane entered, tidy, almost matronly in buxom primness, her hair as faultless as if it had come out of a convoluted mould, her grave eyes full of light. She gave him her ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... something matronly about his linen or his socks, and put down his newspaper with a smile; but, to his astonishment, she ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... ridings were spring and fall, occupying about two months each term. In each courthouse town was a tavern or two. These houses of entertainment were not then dignified with the sonorous title of hotel. The proprietors were usually jolly good fellows, or some staid matronly lady, in black gown and blue cap, and they all looked forward with anxious delight to the coming of court week. Every preparation was made for the judge and lawyers. Beds were aired and the bugs hunted out. Saturday previous to the coming Monday was a busy day ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... at last marry, Natalya—as everybody called the old clo'-woman—was not over-pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. But when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's critical maternity was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had not a true Jewish air. There was in the very cut of ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... is usually peculiar to youth! how well the now dull gold of her thick tresses harmonized with the faint flush on the almost unwrinkled face! and how dignified was the bearing of her figure, still slender, in spite of her matronly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a charming picture by Garofalo, Joseph is caressing the Child, while Mary—a rather full figure, calm, matronly, and dignified, as is usual with Garofalo—sits by, holding a book in her hand, from which she has just raised her ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... next day Lightmark had the privilege of a confidential interview with the mother of his adored. Mrs. Sylvester had fully armed herself for the occasion, and presented an edifying example of matronly affection ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Washington was, in many respects, a remarkable woman. Her influence over her son in early life we have already had occasion to notice. In her last days she presents a true picture of matronly dignity. Mr. Custis states that she was continually visited and solaced, in the retirement of her declining years, by her children and numerous grandchildren. Her daughter, Mrs. Lewis, repeatedly and earnestly solicited her to remove to her house and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Harcourt could not see his wife as she made this speech, for she looked so lovely in her matronly dignity that Michael and Audrey exchanged an admiring glance. But the climax of their success was felt to be reached when ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... son's wife (a matronly dame of about sixty), was adverse to such interviews, as, to use her expression, "they brought the old man back to this world again, when he should be pondering on the next," and that she was grieved at the recital of them; indeed, she several ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... Bradford's well pleased voice, "let me bring you to the notice of Mistress Southworth, in whose matronly company ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... now also. Madam Routh went off on a party to the Notch, with some New York friends, taking with her one or two of the younger pupils, for whom she felt most constant responsibility. The elder girls were domesticated and acquainted now at Outledge; there were several matronly ladies with whom the whole party was sufficiently associated in daily intercourse for all the air of chaperonage that might be needed; and one assistant pupil, whom, to be sure, the young ladies themselves ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in chewing the buttons off his coat. The parrot had driven the raven nearly crazy by turning upside down and staring at him for fifteen minutes of insulting silence. Mrs Gummidge was engaged in a matronly and sedate toilet, interrupting herself now and then to bestow a critical glance upon the parrot. She heartily approved of his attitude toward the raven, and although the old cynic cared nothing for Mrs Gummidge's opinion, he found a sour ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... increasing her income by occasionally going out on the streets in the evenings. She haunts a quiet side street which is one of the approaches to a large city railway terminus. She is a comfortable, almost matronly-looking woman, quietly dressed in a way that is only noticeable from the skirts being rather short. If spoken to she may remark that she is "waiting for a lady friend," talks in an affected way about the weather, and parenthetically introduces ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had been different—if she had died ripe in years, after a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? I think not. I believe that in all the world there never was ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... voice Mrs. Sennacherib appeared—a large woman of matronly figure but dejected aspect. She had been comely, but thirty years of protest and resignation had lifted the inner ends of her eyebrows and depressed the corners of her mouth until, even in her most cheerful moments, she had a look of meek submission ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... the voice of the raven heard by the river bank. Lit-lit grows matronly day by day and is very happy. Also, there are sisters to the sons of John Fox's first wife who lies buried in a tree. Old Snettishane is no longer a visitor at the Fort, and spends long hours raising a thin, aged voice against the filial ingratitude of children in general and of his daughter ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... better pleased to act as faithful and provident stewards of the bounty of Heaven, than, like greedy whirlpools, to absorb every thing within their reach. He contrasted their circumspect liberality with her thoughtless waste; the matronly sobriety and tempered magnificence of their attire with her new fangled fickleness and wanton costliness; their modest dignified courtesy with her wayward perverseness; their gravity with her lightness, in acting at court-revels and maskings, familiar with every gallant, and accepting praise from ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... said Margaret, with a matronly air. "They're just a couple of children. I keep them out of mischief as well as I can, but it's ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... two characters of such winning modesty and grace, such confiding truth and frankness, such simplicity and artlessness, such cheerfulness and pleasantness, such native good sense and Christian discretion, such sincerity, gentleness, and tenderness, that nothing could be more delightful. The matronly virtues of Christiana, and the maidenly qualities of Mercy, are alike pleasing and appropriate. There is a mixture of timidity and frankness in Mercy, which is as sweet in itself as it is artlessly and unconsciously drawn; and in Christiana we discover the very ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... affectionate pensiveness far lovelier than her last year's bloom, and yet there was something painful in that beauty—it was too like the fragility of the flower fading under one hour's sunshine; and there was a sadness in seeing the matronly stamp on a face so young that it should have shown only girlhood's freedom from care. Arthur indeed was boasting of the return of the colour, which spread and deepened as he drew attention to it; but ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a handsome, impulsive, kind-hearted woman of forty five; her arched, dark eye-brows and a wonderful natural complexion gave her a fictitious air of youth—slightly discounted by a comfortable and matronly figure. Some declared that her round face, short nose, and large eyes produced a resemblance to a well-to-do pussy cat, but this was the voice of envy. She had a clever maid, dressed well, and with the exception of the loss of her husband, had never known a care; there was scarcely a line ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... clothes were red dresses, made of good heavy cloth, and strongly trimmed with braid of a glistening black. They had stiff, red felt hats, trimmed with black velvet ribbon, and a bird. The mother dressed matronly, in a bonnet and in black, always sat between her two big daughters, firm, directing, ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... stout and matronly, held a fat and placid year-old baby on her lap with one arm, while with the other hand she lunged out intermittently to pick up a much-chewed rubber dog cast upon the floor by the infant. "Oh, now I remember; they're at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... a crowd was collected opposite the residence of the Princess of Cumberland, when the captive heroine condescended to shew herself at the window.—She is of matronly appearance, and was well dressed.—The mobility received her with due respect; the lady made her obeisance, and the assemblage retired, on ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... elders &c (veteran) 130; firstling; doyen, father; primogeniture. [Science of old age.] geriatrics, nostology^. V. be aged &c adj.; grow old, get old &c adj.; age; decline, wane, dodder; senesce. Adj. aged; old &c 124; elderly, geriatric, senile; matronly, anile^; in years; ripe, mellow, run to seed, declining, waning, past one's prime; gray, gray-headed; hoar, hoary; venerable, time-worn, antiquated, passe, effete, decrepit, superannuated; advanced in life, advanced in years; stricken in years; wrinkled, marked withthe ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... about the city for some hours, he turned into a park to rest. As he approached his usual bench, sacred to him because Ida and he in the old days had often sat there, he was annoyed to see it already occupied by a pleasant-faced, matronly looking German woman, who was complacently listening to the chatter of a couple of small children. Randall threw himself upon the unoccupied end of the bench, rather hoping that his gloomy and preoccupied air might ...
— Lost - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... invention has been lavished, that Giotto's rendering of it cannot but be felt to be barren. It is, in fact, perhaps the least powerful of all the series; and its effect is further marred by what Lord Lindsay has partly noted, the appearance—perhaps accidental, but if so, exceedingly unskilful—of matronly corpulence in the figure of the Madonna. The unfortunate failure in the representation of the legs and chests of the camels, and the awkwardness of the attempt to render the action of kneeling in the foremost king, put the whole composition into the class—not in itself an uninteresting one—of ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... not belie its nick-name, and it is said that the matronly ladies, all over forty, who cook for the rotund priests, are the cordons bleus of Italy. The restaurant of the Hotel Brun is the one where the passing Anglo-Saxon generally takes his meals and a chat with the proprietor, who is generally addressed ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... The face was a little like Ermengarde's, but the eyes which looked down now at the two children had Marjorie's expression in them. There were other portraits of Mrs. Wilton in the house, later and more matronly portraits; but Marjorie liked this the best—the girlish mother seemed in touch ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... suspected nothing as to Burgo or as to any other special peril, whose whole disposition was void of suspicion, whose dry nature realized neither the delights nor the dangers of love, acknowledged that Glencora was young. He especially wished that she should be discreet and matronly; he feared no lovers, but he feared that she might do silly things,—that she would catch cold,—and not know how to live a life becoming the wife of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... so. You see, this place, so pre-eminently healthy during eight months of the year, is rather too much exposed and too bleak in the depth of winter to suit my wife. She begins to cough already. And as Claudia really does need a matronly friend near her, and as the judge is very anxious for us to come, I think all interests will be best served ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... sere trees all round, their rough gardens of bright dahlias and chrysanthemums draggled by the autumn rains—in these there are, do not doubt it, still Nencias: magnificent creatures, fit models for Amazons, only just a trifle too full-blown and matronly; but with real Amazonian limbs, firm and delicate, under their red and purple striped print frocks; creatures with heads set on necks like towers or columns, necks firm in broad, well-fleshed chest as branches in a tree's trunk; great penthouses of reddish yellow or lustreless black crimped ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... next station the adjoining compartment was suddenly invaded by a portly female of the matronly type, with a rubicund countenance and a bonnet in a dismantled and lopsided condition, who was bundled through the doorway by the impetuosity of a porter, and occupied a seat in immediate opposition ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... bright eyes. He is in every way as large as most children are at two years. His supreme delight is to tease A. by making believe strike her or in some other real boy's hateful way. She and he play together on the grass-plat, and I feel quite matronly as I sit watching them with their balls and wheel-barrows and whatnots. This little scamp has, I fear, broken my constitution to pieces. It makes me crawl all over when I think of you three fagging all day at such dull and unprofitable labor. But I am sure Providence will do what ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... matronly bosom of Sister Agnes the girl told her story,—the story of her love, of her suffering, of her hopes, of her ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... chamber, in the presence of a large audience which included many ladies, the newspapers stating that it had rather the appearance of a social gathering than an arraignment of criminals. Of those on trial one paper said: "The majority of these law-breakers were elderly, matronly-looking women with thoughtful faces, just the sort one would like to see in charge of one's sick-room, considerate, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the bank of golden-rod, like a wave of sunshine, behind the Pulpit Stone, the nameless colour seen on a fir wood in a ruddy sunset. I can see Uncle Alec's tired, brilliant, blue eyes, Aunt Janet's wholesome, matronly face, Uncle Roger's sweeping blond beard and red cheeks, and Aunt Olivia's full-blown beauty. Two voices ring out for me above all others in the music that echoes through the halls of recollection. Cecily's sweet and silvery, and Uncle Alec's fine tenor. "If you're ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rest if they could not eat, hoping that when they moved from their chairs they would find the temperature lower within the house walls than outside them. Mavis gave little oppressed sighs as she fanned her jolly round face and broad matronly chest with a copy of the Courier. Ethel, who to-night seemed an extraordinarily cumbrous awkward creature, flumped the dishes down on the table and shuffled away on her big flat feet. Norah glided to and fro, now here, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... whose blazing logs sent out rather an unnecessary amount of heat, but that was no matter-supper was needed, and to have it, it had to be cooked. This apartment was the family bedroom, parlor, library and kitchen, all in one. The matronly little wife of the Colonel moved hither and thither and in and out with her pots and pans in her hands', happiness in her heart and a world of admiration of her husband in her eyes. And when at last she had spread the cloth and loaded it with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... restless expression, produced by a perpetual labour to make conquests, which was, at one time, always to be traced upon her features, had now vanished entirely. In its place there was a touch of matronly care and affection, more natural, and far more pleasing. She, too, was sitting by the side of her child, driving away the flies from the little thing, who was sleeping in a berth. Adeline Taylor had married well, in the best sense of the word. Not that she deserved much credit for doing so, since ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Vanderclump, his eyes fixed all the while upon the supper-table—he sat down to it. "My goot girls!" said he, soon after, "you may go down; I do not want you; you need not wait." The two timid, gentle creatures instantly obeyed. More than an hour elapsed, and then Mr. Vanderclump's bell rang. The two matronly maidens were very busily employed in making a new cap. Betty rose at once; but suddenly recollecting that she had been trying on her new and unfinished cap, and had then only a small brown cotton skull-cap on her head, she raised both her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... great dignity, concealed the joy and pride that swelled his heart. Magdalena was superb in her matronly beauty and her diamonds. Talizac was excessively pale, his worn face telling the story of his excesses and the excitement of the previous night. Francine's flight, which he believed to have been arranged by the man and woman whom he had employed as his tools, had driven ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... proportion; whether by nature, or owing to her mental disease, it seemed as though she had escaped the effects of time, and had she concealed her hair with a veil she might easily have passed for a woman still young. Mary Carvel had been beautiful, and was beautiful still in a matronly, old-fashioned way; Hermione was beautiful after another and a smaller manner, slender and delicate and lovely; but Madame Patoff belonged to a very different category. She was on a grander scale, and in her dark eyes there was room for deeper feeling ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... A highly respectable matronly duck introduces into the poultry-yard a brood which she has just hatched. She has had a deal of trouble with one egg, much larger than the rest, and which after all produced a very "ugly duck," who gives the name, and is the hero of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... him a free confession. Gratitude and admiration would have made him capable of such frankness. But in the face of this newspaper-reading woman (yes, he had unaccountably felt it jar upon him that a lady should be reading a newspaper), under her matronly smile, he could do no more than plump out his 'quite sure'. To Lady Whitelaw it sounded altogether too curt; she was conscious of her position as patroness, and had in fact thought it likely that the young man would be ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... know what you're talking about," answered Dorothy, with a fruitless effort to appear matronly and dignified. "If by 'uncle' you mean Uncle Ebeneezer, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... brow, and sat down, while he composed himself to rest. She was a lady of about fifty, with bands of silver hair smoothed over her calm forehead, and in appearance not unlike her son. But there was something very sweet and matronly about her look, and it was impossible to see her without feeling the respect and honour which was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... their happiness in Mozartian strains (the melody copied from the second part of the music with which Papageno sets the blackamoors to dancing in "Die Zauberflote"), the orchestra talks of the matronly renunciation of the princess, enthusiastic Straussians of a musical parallel with the quintet from Wagner's "Meistersinger," and the opera comes to an end after three and one-half hours of more or less unintelligible dialogue poised ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Lady Fulkeward—a change, sudden, mysterious and amazing to many of her former distinguished friends with "pedigrees." In her husband's lifetime her hair had been a soft silver-gray; her face pale, refined and serious; her form full and matronly; her step sober and discreet; but two years after the death of the kindly and noble old lord who had cherished her as the apple of his eye and up to the last moment of his breath had thought her the most beautiful woman in England, she appeared with golden tresses, a peach-bloom complexion, and ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... should go to Mrs. Smith's seminary. Accordingly, a short time before the commencement of the next term, she accompanied her there; was so pleased with Mrs. Smith's bland politeness toward herself, and her affectionate, almost matronly manner toward her daughter, that she came away relieved of all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... interest in you, my poor boy," continued Fay, with quite a matronly air. "I can not allow you to make yourself so captivating to our country girls. What will Dora think if you go down to the vicarage every morning with that plausible little story that no one believes? I am ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... wore black silk over grey damask, trimmed with gold lace and pink rosettes, and Spanish mantillas. The gentlemen were in black velvet, with a Spanish order embroidered in red silk on coat and cloak, grey silk stockings, and black velvet hats with red and yellow feathers. In this quadrille were the matronly beauties Lady Canning, Lady ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... looking for visitors already at eleven o'clock. Quick, Madame Camilla, tell my maid to arrange every thing in the dressing- room. Please see to it yourself that I may find there an elegant, rich, and not too matronly, morning costume." ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... there came to the Indian village, in which he dwelt at the time with his still pretty though matronly wife Brighteyes, one of the agents of a man whose business it was to collect wild animals for the menageries of the United States and elsewhere. Probably this man was an ancestor of Barnum, for he possessed a mind which seemed to be capable of conceiving anything and sticking ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... was addressed as Mrs., not Miss, More; and she seems to have insisted on this, which I think was a weakness, since the dignity of her character, her fame and high social position, needed no conventional crutch to make her appear more matronly. As a mere fashionable woman of society, her name would never have descended to our times; as a moralist she is immortal, so far as any writer can be. As an author, I do not regard her as a great original ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... a typical one of such communities at that period; horny-handed farmers with long shaggy beards and unkempt hair, dressed in ill-fitting black suits; matronly looking farmers' wives in their Sunday best; rosy-cheeked daughters full of fun and vivacity and chattering like magpies; tall, lank, awkward, bashful sons, and red-haired, black-haired, and tow-headed urchins of both sexes, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... you ought not to go beyond the park or garden without some discreet, matronly person like me to accompany you, and keep off all intruders. She descried Mr. Hatfield hurrying past the park-gates, and forthwith despatched me with instructions to seek you up and to take care of you, and likewise ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... the winter there arrived at the parsonage the new mistress,—in the person of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of the incumbent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of his father before him,—every inch a Johns. No light cause ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... gray and her magnificent figure somewhat matronly, but there were no other signs of autumn; her beautiful white skin was still as delicate as a baby's, her jet-black eyes as bright and full, her teeth just as they were ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Conny, her elder sister, who by virtue of her seniority and the fact of her having reached the mature age of ten was rather prone to giving herself certain matronly airs of superiority over the others, which they put up with in all good faith, albeit they were most amusing to outside onlookers. "You are always imagining something terrible is going to befall everybody, instead of hoping for the ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... been for years a figure of mystery. She had not seen her for many years, and she had, remembered a thin, girlish figure, tragic-eyed, which eternally stood by a window in her room, looking out. But here was a matronly woman, her face framed with soft, dark hair, with eyes like her father's, with Howard Cardew's ease of manner, too, but with a strange passivity, either of repression or of fires early burned out and ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... entering, dressed for dinner and lit by the effulgence of her most radiant manner. Most people considered Flavia handsome, and there was no gainsaying that she carried her five-and-thirty years splendidly. Her figure had never grown matronly, and her face was of the sort that does not show wear. Its blond tints were as fresh and enduring as enamel—and quite as hard. Its usual expression was one of tense, often strained, animation, which compressed her lips nervously. A perfect scream of animation, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... olives and bread before him; and so stood at the table while he ate, gravely recovering one by one the features of his face, smiling, preoccupied with her pleasure and unconscious of the cooing child. For with matronly composure she had eased my gentleman as soon as she ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... of this mysterious little being, and the family soon returned from Church. The father was a fine, old-fashioned yeoman, the son had the style of a modern farmer, and the wife was so quiet, sensible, and matronly as to be almost ladylike. Her two little girls were dressed as well as Essie and Ellie, but all were essentially commonplace. They were very kind and friendly, anxious that Allen should stay as long as was good for him, as well as pressing in their hospitality to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this frame of spirit the whole day: calm, kind attentive—half matronly, and half girlish. The three who had been longest acquainted with her expected every instant to see her capricious spirit break out in some whimsical change or sportive vagary. But their fears were quite unnecessary. Undine continued ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... his difficult and vexatious office fell upon the lieutenant-governor, William Dummer. When he first met the Council in his new capacity, a whimsical scene took place. Here, among the rest, was the aged, matronly countenance of the worthy Samuel Sewall, deeply impressed with the dignity and importance of his position as senior member of the Board. At his best he never had the faintest sense of humor or perception of the ludicrous, and being now perhaps touched with dotage, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... Evelyn drove over to Ion next morning and found Zoe attending to her housekeeping cares with a pretty matronly air that became her well; Aunt Dicey receiving her orders with the look and manner of one who is humoring a child, for such she considered the ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... old days. He did not dance and he stood about rather awkwardly. It must have been a great affliction, but he bore it with exemplary fortitude. Once or twice I saw Mrs. Bradlaugh there. She had a full-blown matronly figure. Miss Alice and Miss Hypatia came frequently. They were not then living in the enervating air of London, and they looked extremely robust. I also remember the boy Charles, of whom Mr. Bradlaugh seemed very proud. He was a remarkably bright lad, and full ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... of an overpowering irritation. These old wives' tales! These matronly saws! How stupid they were! How meaningless, foundationless and sickening! She did not reply to Mrs. Amber's question, but stirred restlessly in her chair, ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... for having parted company with his brother, and never having so much as thought of him as in peril, while absorbed in care for Abenali. So the three set out together, when no doubt the sober, solid appearance which Randall's double suit of apparel and black gown gave him, together with his wife's matronly and respectable look, were no small protection to Ambrose, for men-at-arms were prowling about the streets, looking hungry to pick up straggling victims, and one actually stopped Randall to interrogate him as to who the youth was, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... delicacy have gone, and few were the maids, and fewer still the housewives, who had not benefited by her counsel. She fixed that eye benevolently upon Loveday now; the lady stately in her black silk, the locket containing the hair of her departed parent, one-time a canon of Exeter, lying upon her matronly bosom; the girl awkward in her homespun wrapper, her feet fearful of standing upon the ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... hostelry of Mr Pritchard without meeting any adventure worthy of being marked down. I went into the little parlour, and, ringing the bell, was presently waited upon by Mrs Pritchard, a nice matronly woman, whom I had not before seen, of whom I inquired what I could have ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... little person gave her the go-by. As the wife of the deputy sergeant-major, she felt herself at last on firm solid ground. She carried her head high in the barrack-yard, and ordered her house with a fine matronly dignity. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... that I should have some understanding on these matters—had, in the course of his explanations, directed my attention to a peculiarity I had frequently remarked among many of the females;—principally those of a mature age and rather matronly appearance. This consisted in having the right hand and the left foot most elaborately tattooed; whilst the rest of the body was wholly free from the operation of the art, with the exception of the minutely dotted lips and slight marks on the shoulders, to which I have previously ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... trying for these seven years; but alas! his beauty is at the fall of the leaf; Lord March,(148) Mr. Whitehead, a pretty Miss Beauclerc, and a very foolish Miss Sparre. These two damsels were trusted by their mothers for the first time of their lives to the matronly care of Lady Caroline. As we sailed up the mall with all our colours flying, Lord Petersham,(149) with his hose and legs twisted to every point of crossness, strode by us on the outside, and repassed again on the return. At the end of' the mall she called to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... first resented, are gradually accepted as a matter of course. Once the descent is begun, the journey is completed by outsiders, until the girls become corrupt and unscrupulous, with a knowledge of the ways of the world that would surprise many a matronly head. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... and supporting her bowl of bread and milk. The renaissance of the high-chair was responsible for a curious surge of emotion through Joel's consciousness. Persis herself had once occupied that chair and for a moment his sister's matronly figure at the head of the table was singularly suggestive of his mother. He dropped into his place with a ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... delicacy is her conjugal and matronly character discriminated! Her love for her husband is as deep as Juliet's for her lover, but without any of that headlong vehemence, that fluttering amid hope, fear, and transport—that giddy intoxication of heart and sense, which ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... to as her superior in understanding and in knowledge of the world, whom, therefore, she leaned to for protection. On the other hand, she was also a mother. Whilst, therefore, to her child she supported the matronly part of guide, and the air of an experienced person; to me she wore, ingenuously and without disguise, the part of a child herself, with all the giddy hopes and unchastised imaginings of that buoyant ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... for. She was sure of it when he appeared. The way they all rushed at him with little shrieks of laughter, talking together, excited as girls! "Though they're all years older than I am!" Ethel angrily exclaimed, as she sat there matronly and severe. She eyed her husband narrowly, and at first with keen satisfaction she saw how annoyed and embarrassed he was. But the moments passed, and he grew relieved, more easy and more natural, his voice taking on its usual tone, ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... to do to watch over the different works. Smiling and merry as she used to be, a change had come over her, and she seemed already dignified and matronly. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... garb. Then there was a Southern woman who had built up an industry manufacturing babies' shoes. This photograph, too, Missy studied without enthusiasm: the shoemaker was undeniably middle-aged and matronly in appearance; nor did the metier of her achievement appeal. Making babies' shoes, somehow, savoured too much of darning stockings. (Oh, bother! there was that basket of stockings mother had said ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... her head. She now assumed her most matronly air, and did mysterious things with a perforated silver ball. I was given to understand I had offended, by a severe compression of her lips, which, however, was not as effective as it might have been. They twitched ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... itself and another or two just outside it, all become, in a strong, fine sense and high degree, ladies' men? It was good for them spiritually, and good for their field artillery evolutions, to be watched by maidenly and matronly eyes. Quite as good was it, too, for their occasional heavy-gun practice with two or three huge, new-cast, big-breeched "hell-hounds," as Charlie and others called them, whose tapering black snouts lay out on the parapet's ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... who was then accounted an old man, being between forty-five and fifty, stopped on his way down the aisle where Ellen waited for her mother, busy in matronly conclave, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... to know Mrs. Vansittart at a period in her life when, as a young married woman, she regarded all her juniors with a matronly goodwill, none the less active that it was so exceedingly new. She had in those days given much good advice, which Cornish had respectfully heard. Fate had brought them together at the rare moment and in almost the sole circumstances that allow ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... now and whom she had married, for of course she had married. Did she too live somewhere down there in the valley, the matronly, contented mother of lads and lassies? He could see her old home also, not so far from his own, just across a green meadow by way of a footpath and stile and through the firs beyond it. How often ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and eyes, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... with Lord Denyer; but she caught the look at last, and rose, as if moved by the same machinery which impelled her hostess, and then, graceful as a swan sailing with the current, she drifted down the room to the distant door, and headed the stately procession of matronly velvet and diamonds, herself at once the most regal and the most graceful figure in that bevy ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... been prudent," she observed, looking most bewitchingly beautiful in her effort to look matronly ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... conversation could be intellectual and serious as well as jovial and witty, who had a liberal education, and was considered wealthy—one of those well-poised, steady characters who look upon matrimony and life with practical views and social matronly instincts. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... babies born upon it. Twelfth or thirteenth hand, a vagabond, botched bedstead, type of all the furniture in Ginx's rooms, and in numberless houses through the vast city. Its dimensions were 4 feet 6 inches by 6 feet. When Ginx, who was a stout navvy, and Mrs. Ginx, who was, you may conceive, a matronly woman, were in it, there was little vacant space about them. Yet, as they were forced to find resting-places for all the children, it not seldom happened that at least one infant was perilously wedged ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... hag-procuress who pimps like Umm Kulsum,[FN341] for mere pleasure, in the luxury of sin, are drawn with an experienced and loving hand. Yet not the less do we meet with examples of the dutiful daughter, the model lover matronly in her affection, the devoted wife, the perfect mother, the saintly devotee, the learned preacher, Univira the chaste widow and the self-sacrificing heroic woman. If we find (vol. iii. 216) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... awaiting him; the table exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly air that he could hardly realize the scene of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... together in Norwood, where, if their short day had been chequered and broken, the evening at least promised to be sweet and mellow. In person Mrs. Hay Denver was tall and stout, with a bright, round, ruddy-cheeked face still pretty, with a gracious, matronly comeliness. Her whole life was a round of devotion and of love, which was divided between her husband and her ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... prettiness had developed into matronly comeliness. Her fair complexion and pink cheeks had lost none of their freshness. Her smooth auburn hair was as soft and bright as it had been when she had braided it preparatory to a Barlingford tea-party in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... house went on with an illumination that fairly startled the guests, the host proposed a cheer for the boys which found an eager and unanimous response. Mr. Hooper attempted to make a speech, with his matronly and contented wife laughing and making sly digs at his effort, ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... "What's that?" said one well-educated clerical visitor to his matronly wife. She read it out, pronouncing it thusly, "Return of Percy Fone." "What!" exclaimed the Clergyman. Then, taking the Catalogue into his own hands, he read "Return of Persephone." "It's pronounced," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... footsteps approaching, I looked up and saw an aged man walking towards me, accompanied by a woman of gentle and matronly appearance who supported him on her arm. The looks of both these personages were kindly, and inspired confidence at a glance,— and I watched them coming with a kind of hope that perhaps they might explain my present dilemma. I was particularly attracted by the venerable and ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... spent his money on a mere impulse of mischief-making. He would be counting upon something more tangible than revenge—something that could be counted and weighed and converted into a bank-balance. He smiled when he reached this conclusion—greatly surprising and confusing a matronly lady into whose correct face he chanced to be looking at the instant—and turning slowly, continued ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic |
