"Old lady" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... asked the boy, as his companion gazed around her. "Now then, missis," he said to the attendant, with the air of an old frequenter of the place, "coffee and wittles for two—hot. Here, sit down in this corner, old lady, where you can take in the beauties o' the ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. She has taken the three children to an old lady of high rank, the patroness of some orphan asylums, whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the old lady by depositing a sum of money with her to provide for the three children of Katerina Ivanovna ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... from wounds received in that bloody fight. On the night of the battle, cows, sheep, poultry, and fences disappeared before our cold and hungry troops. But since then, though the house was in the neighborhood of several camps, the old lady and her daughters, who alone were at home, had been undisturbed, except by the small ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... longer girlish. It was said that she often wrote State papers from her father's dictation, and was allowed to read all the books in his library. At the receptions—where the situation was saved by the presence of a very decrepit old lady (a relation of the Corbelans), quite deaf and motionless in an armchair—Antonia could hold her own in a discussion with two or three men at a time. Obviously she was not the girl to be content with peeping through a barred window at a cloaked figure of a lover ensconced in a doorway opposite—which ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... laughed unceasingly, whether we were whirling round in a circle or whether we stood still to watch an old lady whose painful movements with her feet showed the difficulty she had in walking. Finally Sonetchka nearly died of merriment when I jumped half-way to the ceiling ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... was all eagerness to brave the first dragon in his way—the certain opposition of this proud old lady at Castle Dare. No doubt she would stand aghast at the mere mention of such a thing; perhaps in her sudden indignation she might utter sharp words that would rankle afterwards in the memory. In any case he knew ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... reply; all that evening she was even more cheerful than usual. When we played cards with her aunt and I lost she was merciless in her scorn, saying that I knew nothing of the game, and she bet against me with so much success that she won all I had in my purse. When the old lady retired, she stepped out on the balcony and I followed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... occupation. And sometimes, if papa and mamma were not in the way to keep them on their good behaviour, the misses would titter a little. The old Laird of Duchran would also have his occasional jest, and the old lady her remark. Even the Baron could not refrain; but here Rose escaped every embarrassment but that of conjecture, for his wit was usually couched in a Latin quotation. The very footmen sometimes grinned too ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... take any notice of the broad hint given in that last P.S. The letter will be quite as much as she can bear without a visit from Tommy," answered Mrs. Jo, remembering that the old lady usually took to her bed after a visitation from her ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... He watched the old lady out of the corners of his eyes. She searched her record case and arose triumphant. The well-hated, jangling prelude filled the room. Martin dropped his book and accomplished a swift ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the head,—a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her de ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... after such meetings, were very drunk. The car broke down. The other women were hurt, and the men could not help them. Marshall arrived at the moment, mended the car, left the drunken men to find their way home as best they could, put the old lady upon it and walked home at its side with Kathleen O'Neil, who had no fancy for again mounting. Kathleen was very grateful, and so was her aunt and cousin, and asked him to come again another day. That of course he did, not only once, but very often. One of the men who had ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... Master of the Treasury proved to be a garrulous old lady who evidently prided herself on knowing everything that was taking place about her. Jennie and she became quite confidential over their goblets of tea, a beverage of which the old lady seemed inordinately fond. As the conversation between them drifted on, Jennie saw that here was a person who ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... son!" said Calvin. "A friend is a friend, in pants or tails! Now let's see where the boys be. I must wipe my feet good, though, or I shall have the old lady after me!" ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... blessing, now was wit, And God's good Providence, a lucky hit. Things change their titles, as our manners turn; His counting-house employed the Sunday morn; Seldom at church ('twas such a busy life), But duly sent his family and wife. There (so the devil ordained) one Christmas tide My good old lady catched a cold and died. A nymph of quality admires our knight; He marries, bows at court, and grows polite: Leaves the dull cits, and joins (to please the fair) The well bred c*ck**ds in St. James's air; First, for his son a gay commission buys, Who drinks and fights, and in a duel ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... if the phrase may pass) to please Mrs. Grundy, as well as the higher Pallas—a tendency which does a little to excuse those who insult the poor old soul without occasion; and who, indeed, are sometimes thought to be grimacing at the Divine Wisdom, when they are only teasing the old lady. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... The Past has not laid its venerable hands upon us in consecration, conveying to us that mysterious influence whose force is in its continuity. We are to Europe as the Church of England to her of Rome. The latter old lady may be the Scarlet Woman, or the Beast with ten horns, if you will, but hers are all the heirlooms, hers that vast spiritual estate of tradition, nowhere yet everywhere, whose revenues are none the less fruitful for being levied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... There was an Old Lady of Chertsey, Who made a remarkable curtsey; She twirled round and round, Till she sunk underground, Which distressed all the ...
— Book of Nonsense • Edward Lear
... waved his hand with an air of finality—"in the shop what you says goes, but in this here home I take my orders from the old lady. See?" ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... heard the old lady Eastman say, that the next time she sees her minister, she is going to lecture him for getting that low-down, vulgar man in the pulpit. Why, his talk was awful. Mrs. Reamy and Mrs. Roberts said they would have both got up in church and walked ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... teetered up to her wobbly as time and tried to suck and she butted him again and nocked him down and father grabed her by the back of the neck with one hand and by the end of her back with the other and sed now old lady you will do one of 2 things in about 2 minits. eether nurse this lamn or go down to butcher Haleys. so i poked the lamns nose under the sheep and in a minit it was sucking like a good one and wigling its ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... half a bottle of the "Golden Medical Discovery" I felt much better and by the time I had taken all, I could eat three hearty meals per day and had not felt so well for a long time. Soon after I was called to do a job some miles from home, and one night the old lady there was speaking about her daughter, (Mrs. Brooks) who had been under the doctor's care for five months and did not get any better, and I learned by asking a few questions that she had no appetite, and no ambition to do anything. Then I told her what the "Golden ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... old lady said to Ralph, after Peggy Falstar had taken her into her confidence, "these people are much like others, only they have the rough bark on. They are a great deal more vital—the bark has, somehow, kept the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... disliked to entertain the old lady had it not been for her predilection for occult matters. Her visit to their home coincided with her course of Clairvoyant Sittings and her class of ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... stayed in her mind. Now the meaning flashed clearly into her thought, and she was pleased to think that she had just now been the one who knew most about traveling. She wished so much that she could have been of more use to the old lady, but after all she seemed to have a good little journey, and Betty hoped that she could remember all about this droll companion when she was writing, at her own ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Mrs. de Vaux was unaffectedly pleased to see her eldest son. She was a fine, white-haired old lady, dignified and handsome, but with very few soft lines ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... responsibilities of authorship. Until well into the eighteenth century, Mrs. Grundy scowled out of countenance any intrepid female who threatened to invade the sacred domain. In 1778, however, Miss Fanny Burney braved the old lady's wrath, published Evelina, and became the pioneer of a new epoch. One of these days, perhaps on the bi-centenary of that event, the army of women who wield the pen will erect a statue to the memory of that courageous and brilliant pathfinder. ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... that she herself had been scolded all day on account of the headache. And so Pedro just grinned at her in his exasperating furrin way, and played on until he got good and ready to go. Then he went, and the old lady sat down and wrote that letter, and gave it to ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... only know so much of Mademoiselle Marguerite's past life as she may choose to tell you," continued the obdurate old lady. "You heard Madame Vantrasson's ignoble allegations. It has been said that she was the mistress, not the daughter, of the Count de Chalusse. Who knows what vile accusations you may be forced to meet? And what is your refuge, if doubts should ever assail you? Mademoiselle Marguerite's ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... difficulties, showed me on its breast a splendid jewel, which a doting grandmother thought more likely to benefit her soul if given to the Bambino, than if turned into money to give her grandchildren education and prospects in life. The same old lady left her vineyard, not to these children, but to her confessor, a well-endowed Monsignor, who occasionally asks this youth, his godson, to dinner! Children so placed are not quite such devotees to Catholicism as the new proselytes of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... asked Elliot, after a moment, "that the poor old lady is up there and nobody is going to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... two ways of increasing his fortune, which might have occurred to people of less foresight than the counsellors we have mentioned. One of these was, the prospect of his succeeding to an old lady, a distant relation, who was known to be possessed of a very large sum in the stocks: but in this their hopes were disappointed; for the young man was so untoward in his disposition, that, notwithstanding the ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... "I suppose so—dear old lady! it isn't any use. I knew we should have nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... dear. Such a one never contradicts you, but gains upon you, not by a fulsome way of commending you in broad terms, but liking whatever you propose or utter; at the same time is ready to beg your pardon, and gainsay you if you chance to speak ill of yourself. An old lady is very seldom without such a companion as this, who can recite the names of all her lovers, and the matches refused by her in the days when she minded such vanities—as she is pleased to call them, tho she so ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... was alone; and how acutely she now felt the strength of that support which, from unreflecting fear rather than any reasonable motive, she had thrust aside! She looked around her, almost hoping to see him. But there was no one there ... no one except an old lady in black, standing beside ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... mademoiselle," said Agricola to Angela; "but the presence of this old lady reminded me of a circumstance, which, unfortunately, I cannot tell you, for it is a secret that does not ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... announced that the justification of art was its power of promoting good actions. As if actions were ends in themselves! There is neither virtue nor vice in running: but to run with good tidings is commendable, to run away with an old lady's purse is not. There is no merit in shouting: but to speak up for truth and justice is well, to deafen the world with charlatanry is damnable. Always it is the end in view that gives value to action; and, ultimately, the end of all good actions must be to create or encourage or make possible good ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... historic name of the Miss C—— A——'s of Balnamoon. At table I was exceedingly funny, and entertained the company with tales of geese and bubbly-jocks. I was great in the expression of my terror for these bipeds, and suddenly this horrid, severe, and eminently matronly old lady put up a pair of gold eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in silence, and pronounced in a clangorous voice her verdict. "You give me very much the effect of a coward, Mr. Stevenson!" I had very nearly left two vices behind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ever known to have been perpetrated in the house, report said it was haunted. Undoubtedly, noises were heard in the lower part of the mansion. Night after night unearthly sounds arose after the domestics had retired to their chambers. At last the old lady, determined to resist this invasion of her domestic peace, told her servants to arm themselves with such weapons as they could obtain, she herself sitting up with a brace of loaded pistols before her. This proceeding had the desired effect. The ghostly visitants, if such they ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... recollection of the placid-faced lady who had died whilst he was at school; he had never associated in his mind this serene old lady, who had passed away only a few hours before her beloved husband, with the Annie for whom he had searched. It made him gasp—then he came to earth quickly as he realized that his success had come with the knowledge of his wife's financial ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... is your little girl, is it? Why, Benjamin, she is taller than I am! My dear, I am very glad to see you; very glad, indeed. Father says you are his girl; but you must be mine, too, and learn to love the old lady just ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... "A proud old lady, sick these many years, and, ever since we've been here, confined to her room. I've only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Old lady's dress seventy or eighty years ago. Brown brocade gown, with a nice lawn handkerchief and apron,—short sleeves, with a little ruffle, just below the elbow,—black mittens,—a lawn cap, with rich lace border,—a black velvet hood on the back of the head, tied with black ribbon under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... and a Scotch lassie, a servant, were very good indeed. We also saw a picture of an old woman, a local celebrity, about a hundred years old, which was considered to be an excellent likeness, and showed the old lady's eyes so sunk in her head as to be scarcely visible. We considered that we had here found one of Nature's artists, who would probably have made a name for himself if given the advantages so many have who lack the ability, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... part of the world seem intended for ornament only,—nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they're used. The old lady upstairs must be either deaf or dotty.' He went out into the road to see if she still was there. 'She's looking at me as calmly as you please,—what does she think we're doing here, I wonder; playing a tune on her front door by way of a little amusement?—Madam!' ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Victoria ever planted that in the world, do you, Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away diggin' holes with a spade, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... doorbells were tied in towels, and the whole street in front of the house was thickly strewn with straw. At ten the household was already dispersed, and preparing for sleep. Only the nurse sat silently at the head of the old lady's bed. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... alarm. Dr. Buxton, prescription book in hand, gazed at her quizzically over his old-fashioned spectacles; seeing which, Helen laughed heartily. At that moment her aunt entered the room—a pleasant-faced but rather prim old lady, of whom it had been said by some one competent to judge, that her inquisitiveness was so overwhelming and so important that it took the shape of pity in one direction, patriotism in another, and benevolence in another, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... in one of the outlying streets of the government town of O—— (it was in the year 1842) two women were sitting at an open window; one was about fifty, the other an old lady of seventy. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... old lady; 'but don't be soft-hearted and weak, Mary. It is not what I expect of you, as a sensible woman, to be harbouring a mere vagrant whom you know nothing about, and ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... important as the success which he had achieved at the Ecole de Droit. He began to ask his aunt about those relations; some of the old ties might still hold good. After much shaking of the branches of the family tree, the old lady came to the conclusion that of all persons who could be useful to her nephew among the selfish genus of rich relations, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was the least likely to refuse. To this lady, therefore, she wrote in the old-fashioned style, recommending Eugene to ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... old lady wot was sick," he explained. "I jess read that order and got the suit-case, and he went off in a hurry. I'm mighty sorry I let him have the bag. But he had the order, all signed," and the porter ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... walked alone down the hall—yet, no, not all the way alone. A little wrinkled hand was laid upon her gloved one, and a little old lady, her true friend, the minister's wife, walked down the stairs with the bride arm in arm. Marcia's heart fluttered back to warmth again and was glad for her friend, yet all she had said was: "My dear!" but there was that in her touch and the tone of her ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Tremblaye, with two little peasant girls to wait on her; and the La Tremblayes, with whom M. Laferte was not on speaking terms, were always coming into the village to see her and bring her fruit and flowers and game. She was a most accomplished old lady, and an excellent musician, and had ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... more," he was told. "I've figured everything down to a fraction, and expect to proceed by clock-work. We want to be well over the line before the moon peeps up. After that we can loaf a bit, and let the old lady get a little way above the horizon. That's so we may have the benefit of her light ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... at the window but his fingers made no sound, he tried to shout but his cries were only strangled whispers and the old lady sat and rocked and talked to the big gray cat and ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... there ain't much dyin' about your aunt. 'Lor!' she says, 'as if I'd leave you to go muddlin' along alone!' That's what she says. She's got a tongue, 'as your aunt. But it took 'er 'air off—and arst though I might, she's never cared for the wig I got 'er—orf the old lady what was ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... a trifling observation, as it will serve to sum up our present subject. An old lady with a comfortable but absorbed expression sat nearly opposite to me in a railway carriage. Whilst I was looking at her, I saw that her depressores anguli oris became very slightly, yet decidedly, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... tide, together with the swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river as smooth as we can for you. We'll get a plane and plane down the waves!" The joke may not read very brilliantly; but I make bold to record it as the only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... got outside the gate I rushed after her to tell her that it seemed impossible,—that I knew they didn't want an old lady like me, however willing, an old lady very unsteady on her feet, absolutely ignorant of the simplest rules of "first aid to the wounded," that they needed skilled and tried people, that we not only could not lend efficient aid, but should be a nuisance, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... saw two albinos in this village, one an old woman with greyish eyes, and the other young, who ran away from fright, and concealed herself in a hut, and would not show again although beads were offered as an inducement for one moment's peep. The old lady's skin was of an unwholesome fleshy-pink hue, and her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were a light yellowish white. This march was shortened by two pagazis falling sick. I surmised this illness to be in consequence of their having gorged too much beef, to which they replied that everybody is ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... know," said the old lady half aloud, "whether I am doing right or not. The Count begged me to look out for his son, and I have tried to do this. I have now accepted a new duty from the Vicomte, and for three days and nights I have been watching over this poor young girl. This ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... Conyers replied. "Our dear old lady friend Thomson isn't here to worry so I think we can make you free of the ship. Come along down and try a cocktail. Mind your heads. We're not on a battleship, you know. You will find my quarters a little ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... old lady who had soft white hair and sweet blue eyes, and wore handsome lace caps with peachy ribbons in them; and she usually sat in a high-backed arm-chair either at the fire or the window in her own room with Nurse Nancy attending on her. For Madam was very delicate, and since she had been left ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... heavy heart and an anxious mind. The third lady was a German girl from Baden, who had lived in New Orleans for three years, and was now on her way to Cincinnati to see her brother. We had also the boat's washer-woman, an old lady from New England, who sat in the ladies' cabin with as much composure as if she thought herself quite as good as any of the rest. Such is American society! So terribly afraid are they of anything that looks like aristocracy, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... retaining nothing but white garments for himself and his family. His wife protested vehemently, especially when Pistzoff forbade her to touch meat, on account of the suffering endured by animals when their lives are taken from them. The old lady did not share his tastes, and firmly upheld a contrary opinion, declaring that animals went gladly to their death! Pistzoff then fetched a fowl, ordered his wife to hold it, and procured a hatchet with which to kill it. ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... which can be made are governed so largely by arbitrary action on the part of the Bank of England, it is a question whether the gold auction can be said to be "free." Suppose, for instance, that the "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" decides that enough gold has been taken by foreign bidders and that exports had better be checked. Instantly the bank rate goes up, making it harder for the representatives of the foreign banks to bid. Should the rise in the rate not be sufficient to affect the ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... Elliot won't have anyone coming. She's an old lady and very infirm, and she can't bear to see strangers about the place. At one time she'd let people look round with a guide, but she found them so bothersome she stopped it. One day some Americans came and peeped through ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... after, in the year of Grace 1155, there might have been seen sitting, side by side and hand in hand, upon a sunny bench on the Bruneswald slope, in the low December sun, an old knight and an old lady, the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Felix and me from our godmother, aunt Lindsay. She is not really our aunt, though we call her so, and I'm named Nancy after her; but she knew dear mamma when she was a girl, and she is the only person except mamma that we ever heard call papa "Jack." Aunt Lindsay is quite an old lady, and she's very eccentric. She lives in a big old house in Boston, and very seldom comes to New York; but twice a year, on our birthday and at Christmas, she sends us a letter and a present,—generally a book,—and Fee and I have to write and thank ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... the young lady look out of the window the old lady knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and looked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the faggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and blowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she and I, and I talked to her and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... cellar steps sits Mrs. Jerry Dustin, sorting onion sets and seed potatoes. She is a little, rounded old lady with silvery hair, the softest, smoothest, fairest of complexions, forget-me-not eyes and a smile that is as gladdening as a golden daffodil. Few people know that she has in her heart a longing to see the world, a longing so intense, a life-long wanderlust so great that had she been a man ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... Philadelphia, whilst I was at school, heard me mention Colonel Walton—a most distinguished, religious old lady—and said to me, "Henry, my son, you should be ashamed to speak of that old villain or confess that you ever knew him," proceeding to give me his awful, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... they arrived that very morning: where the first thing he did, was to go to the nunnery of St Austin, to inquire for the fair Calista; but instead of encountering the kind, the impatient, the brave Calista, he was addressed to, by the old Lady Abbess, in so rough a manner, that he no longer doubted, upon what terms he stood there, though he wondered how they should know his story with Calista: when to put him out of doubt, she assured him, he should never more behold the face of her injured niece; for ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... while trying to follow the most direct road into Lapeer, and which an old lady said was good "excepting one hill, which isn't very steep," we came to a hill which was not steep, but sand, deep, bottomless, yellow sand. Again and again the machine tried to scale that hill; it was impossible. There was nothing to do but turn ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... of her whatever, he was not going to waste time in arguing—bullying was more in his line. "Now then, come along. If you makes any noise, I'll turn the p'lice on the old lady there, for harbouring thieves and receiving stolen property. Stop it now!" as Huldah wrenched herself away. "P'raps that'll teach you," and he caught her a heavy blow ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and without more ceremony I adjourned to the further part of the room, and commenced disrobing. Doffing my boots, waistcoat, and cravat, and placing my watch and purse under the pillow, I gave a moment's thought to what a certain not very old lady, whom I had left at home, might say when she heard of my lodging with a grass-widow and three young girls, and sprung into bed. There I removed my undermentionables, which were still too damp to sleep in, and in about two minutes and thirty ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wig over one ear and a bouquet of artificial flowers under glass as her contribution. With her came Grandma Hopkins, whose name was the only nimble thing about her;—ponderous and elephantine, she had once, in calling upon a fragile little old lady, stumbled in the doorway and fallen upon her hostess, whose brittle bones had snapped under the strain. Polly and Dorcas constituted themselves a committee to look out for the elderly ones, taking great pains to keep Grandma Hopkins in open spaces where a fall would do little damage. ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... rather fat old lady—the presidente's wife—and seemed greatly impressed by any statistics translated into Visayan for her information. Speaking Spanish but indifferently, she made up for her linguistic deficiencies by a pair of eyes which let nothing escape them; and she stared at us continually ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... the potatoes raw! Then he tried another dish and found nice green peas, but hard as little bullets. They were raw, too! Not even the bread had been cooked; it was a soft, sticky mass of dough. His mother, who is a jolly old lady, fairly shook with laughter when she told me about it. She said she never again had to tell him to ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her—at least, as much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the role of her son's warmest admirer and ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... of this witness was also taken prisoner with her husband and her maid, but was separated from him, and she saw other ladies made to walk before the soldiers with their hands above their heads. One, an old lady of 85, (name given,) was dragged from her cellar and taken with them to the station. They were kept there all night, but set free in the morning, Thursday, but shortly afterward sent to Tirlemont on foot. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... provisions, and spend the whole day at their devotions. Now the old woman spends her Sunday penny. At the back of the chapel there is a large room where a person is employed to boil the kettle and supply cups of tea at a halfpenny each. Here the old lady makes herself very comfortable, and waits till service begins again. Halfpenny a cup would not, of course, pay the cost of the materials, but these are found by some earnest member of the body, some farmer or tradesman's wife, who feels it a good ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... there is proof of reptiles finding their way back to their homes from a considerable distance, and recognition of persons is indubitable. Gilbert White remarks of his tortoise: "Whenever the good old lady came in sight who had waited on it for more than thirty years, it always hobbled with awkward alacrity towards its benefactress, while to strangers it was altogether inattentive." Of definite learning there are a ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... received, and about which he is often chaffed by General Polk, was when an old lady told him he ought really to "leave off fighting at his age." "Indeed, madam," replied Hardee, "and how old do you take me for?" "Why, about the same age as myself—seventy-five." The chagrin of the ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... company near the front, broken suddenly by an old lady who leaned lovingly toward her chubby-faced grandson, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... literature, music, and pictures, and learned much that was worth knowing. But I came away unsatisfied, and rather dazed. On my way back—it was a singularly warm, clear evening in February—I turned in to see an old lady who lives near me. She was sitting wrapped up at her wide-open window, looking at the light that was still left in the south-west. I said, of course, that I hoped she would not take cold. 'Oh no,' she replied, 'I often sit here, and so long ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... weeks in the town, my time being divided between my dear Dubois and an old lady of eighty-five who interested me greatly by her knowledge of chemistry. She had been intimately connected with the celebrated Boerhaave, and she shewed me a plate of gold he had transmuted in her presence from copper. I believed as ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... couldn't rest till I'd opened mine. [Enter from the kitchen FRAU QUIXANO, defending herself with excited gesticulation. She is an old lady with a black wig, but her appearance is dignified, venerable even, in no way comic. She speaks Yiddish exclusively, that being largely the language ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... approach of the superphysical, I always cross myself," an old lady once remarked to me; and this is what many people do; indeed, the sign of the cross is the most common mode of warding off evil. Whether it is really efficacious is doubtful. I, for my part, make use of the sign, involuntarily rather than otherwise, because the custom is innate in me, and ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... Rex, with an air of pride. "He was transported in the Malabar under the name of Rufus Dawes. You remember him. It is a long story. The particulars weren't numerous, and if the old lady had been half sharp she would have bowled me out. But the fact was she wanted to find the fellow alive, and was willing to take a good deal on trust. I'll tell you all about it another time. I think ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... jigger of secretiveness, and in order to gain his own point the religion of the owner does not prevent him from prevarication. In "Margaret Ogilvie," that exquisite tribute to his mother by Barrie, the author shows us a most religious woman who was well up to the head of the Sapphira class. The old lady had been reading a certain book, and there was no reason why she should conceal the fact. The son suddenly enters and finds the mother sitting quietly looking out of the window. She was suspiciously quiet. The son questions her ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Then an old lady began abusing me for having deserted him, "and he so young, a mere child," etc., until I fairly ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... mantilla and extracted two hairpins from it despite the resistance of the soft white hands. Then she twisted up the heavy plait that hung to her waist, threw back her mantilla and stood laughing before the old lady. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... and well-merited term of imprisonment for criminal libel. She had cunningly, by straightforward and unscrupulous lying, prejudiced the principal mother and boss woman of the pa against the teacher and his wife; as a natural result of which the old lady, who, like the rest, was very ignorant and ungrateful, "turned nasty" and kept the children from school. The teacher lost his temper, so the children were rounded up and hurried down to school immediately; with ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... it was more than he could stand when her severely questioning glance fell upon him. Without losing an ace of his dignified solemnity of demeanor, he turned his back abruptly on the old lady, and stalked slowly and majestically down the path and out the gate. We hoped we had rid ourselves of him, but we found him waiting for us when we had made our formal adieus to madame. Just before we reached Pierre Chouteau's ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... as they were alone, the old lady and her old companion set off, and she said to him in a ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Giwbs, an ex-slave, resides at 707 Lindsey Avenue, Portsmouth, Virginia. The old lady marveled at the great change that has been made in the clothings, habits and living conditions of the Negro since she was a child. She described the clothing of the slaves in a calm manner, "All of de cloth during slavery time was made on de loom. My mastah had three slaves ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the note, an' there's the shillin'. An' if you're back in two hours you shall have a pint o' beer.' Ichabod took the note and the shilling, and clattered off with a ludicrous show of despatch, and the old lady returned to her sitting-room to await the result of his message. It came in less than the appointed time, and disappointed her terribly. Ichabod had ascertained that Dick had started half an hour before his arrival at the farm for Birmingham, ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... friend in me," were the last words of the grandmother to her granddaughter on her death-bed. The old lady spoke truly, and Aurore was very soon to prove this. By a clause in her will, Madame Dupin de Francueil left the guardianship of Aurore to a cousin, Rene de Villeneuve. It was scarcely likely, though, that Sophie-Victoire should consent to her own rights being frustrated by ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... us turn all the women and children, save the old lady's attendants, out of the castle, they would only be a trouble to us. Then we must examine the store of provisions, plant sentries and cut away that bridge, or, at any rate, cut away so much of it that a blow or two with an axe will suffice to send it down. We must not forget ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... morning Bellarmine breakfasted with her in presence of her aunt, whom he sufficiently informed of his passion for Leonora. He was no sooner withdrawn than the old lady began to advise her niece on this occasion. "You see, child," says she, "what fortune hath thrown in your way; and I hope you will not withstand your own preferment." Leonora, sighing, begged her not to mention any such thing, when she knew her engagements to Horatio. "Engagements to a fig!" ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... the way, that I was no longer living in my former quarters. As soon as I resigned my commission, I took rooms with an old lady, the widow of a government clerk. My landlady's servant waited upon me, for I had moved into her rooms simply because on my return from the duel I had sent Afanasy back to the regiment, as I felt ashamed to look him in ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and about half were married. Our youngest benedict was not more than eighteen years of age, and his salary only 45 pounds a year. On this modest income for a time the young couple lived. It was a runaway match; on the girl's part an elopement from school. They lived in apartments, kept by an old lady, a widow who, being a woman, loved a bit of romance, and was very kind to them. He was a manly young fellow, a sportsman and renowned at cricket, and she was amiable and pretty, a little blonde beauty. The ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... ombre. But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that she appeared in low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an opinion of her ruins had she), wore long gloves, and raddled her cheeks with Martin's classic rouge. An appalling amiability in her wrinkles, a prodigious brightness in the old lady's eyes, a profound dignity in her whole person, together with the triple barbed wit of her tongue, and an infallible memory in her head, made of her a real power in the land. The whole Cabinet ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Frenchwoman of rank it has since been my good fortune to become sufficiently acquainted with to take the liberty. The answer has been uniform. Such things are sometimes done, but rarely; and even then it is usual to have the service in a private room. One old lady, a woman perfectly competent to decide on such a point, told me frankly:—"We never do it, except by way of a frolic, or when in a humour which induces people to do many other silly and unbecoming things. Why should we go to the restaurateurs ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... breakfast-time yet, for Mrs. Crisparkle—mother, not wife of the Reverend Septimus—was only just down, and waiting for the urn. Indeed, the Reverend Septimus left off at this very moment to take the pretty old lady's entering face between his boxing-gloves and kiss it. Having done so with tenderness, the Reverend Septimus turned to again, countering with his left, and putting in his ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... scream, and a breathless "Lawk-a-mussy me!" as he tapped at his mother's window, assured him that the old lady was alive and well, and he continued on his way until he brought up at a small but pretty house ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... first place I told the old lady who rented me my room that I could not pay her until I got work, and I gave her my blankets as security. There remained only the problem of food. This I solved by buying every day or so five cents' worth of stale bread, which I ate in my room, washing it down with pure spring water. A little imagination ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... in the palace. So she roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning away very busily. 'Why, how now, good mother,' said the princess; 'what are you doing there?' 'Spinning,' said the old lady, and nodded her head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. 'How prettily that little thing turns round!' ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... such voluminous letters that the rise in the price of paper was accounted for, Laurie said. The second year began rather soberly, for their prospects did not brighten, and Aunt March died suddenly. But when their first sorrow was over—for they loved the old lady in spite of her sharp tongue—they found they had cause for rejoicing, for she had left Plumfield to Jo, which made all sorts of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... kindly family, where, in return for taking care of an old lady, I received room and board and two dollars a week. Four hours of my day were left ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... no solution to this problem and, although he urged the Widow Pipkin to think of a way, as his "missus needed the medicine something orful," that kind-hearted old lady could suggest nothing more to the point than going at once with a mustard poultice ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... gone up to London to do some shopping, and when Mollie came downstairs next morning she found Grannie installed in the drawing-room, instead of in the morning-room as usual, with another old lady who had come ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... Sir Geraint into a room in which sat an old lady in a faded velvet gown. She was the earl's wife. By her side stood Enid in a faded silk gown. She was as beautiful as her voice was sweet, and after watching her, Sir ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... word I wish you would hold your tongues about it; at any rate till my back is turned," said the old lady. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... two winters ago in New York. This won't be the original company, of course." The year that Hattie came back wearing a set of skunk everyone thought it was lynx until Hattie drew attention to what she called the "brown tone" in it. After that Old Lady Heinz got her old skunk furs out of the moth balls and tobacco and newspapers that had preserved them, and her daughter cut them up into bands for the bottom of her skirt, and the cuffs of her coat. When Kiser & Bloch had their fall and spring openings the town came ostensibly to see the new ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... off on our shopping expedition, she demurred at taking a hansom, although she loves driving in them; but she said 'buses were so much more amusing. "People in 'buses say such funny things," she said, and so they do. The old lady in particular who, when the horse got his leg over the trace without hurting himself or any one else, got up and announced to the 'bus in general: "There, I always did say I hated horses and dogs," and sat down again. I loved her for that and for other things ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... a woman, would venture to express a sentiment, if not to propose a toast. This was of course received with a shout of joy, which effectually quenched Mr Smart. In a sweet tremulous little voice the old lady said, "let us wish, with all our hearts, that health, happiness, charity, and truth may dwell as long as it shall stand, under the roof-tree of ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... was awful. She was a wonderful woman—one of the old type. She had no notion of admitting the outside world into her affairs, or of discussing her inmost feelings with any one. A woman of dauntless courage, old Lady Louisa; and if some people thought her hard it was not to be wondered at; she was a bit hard, but it was merely a sort of armour she put on in self-defence. She fought every inch of the way—every inch. She never lost patience, even after hope was gone. Everything ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... was Juanito the cardinal's nephew. He often walked in the cloister, hoping for an opportunity to talk with Leocadia, the beautiful daughter of the Virgin's sacristan. From the parents he had nothing to fear, but the future warrior had a certain dread of Tomasa, as the old lady looked on these visits with an evil eye, and threatened to make them known to ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... old lady is up to. She's a wonder, and no mistake. Only I think it was stingy of her not to let you ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... their father had been on the coast a few weeks before, engaged in the eeling industry. Being a good man, but partially full, he had mingled himself in the flowing tide and got drowned. Finally, after several days' search, the neighbors came in sadly and told the old lady thai they had found all that was mortal of James, and there were two eels in the remains. They asked for further instructions as to deceased. The old lady swabbed out her weeping eyes, braced herself against ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... old lady—an old Countess—in Dresden. She had been a friend of my father's. My father was dead; I was very much alone. My brother was wandering about the world in a ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... next week Lady Macleod still came almost daily to Queen Anne Street, but nothing further was said between her and Miss Vavasor as to the Swiss tour; nor were any questions asked about Mr Grey's opinion on the subject. The old lady of course discovered that there was no quarrel, or, as she believed, any probability of a quarrel; and with that she was obliged to be contented. Nor did she again on this occasion attempt to take Alice to Lady Midlothian's. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... talking to Miss Burford when Sheba came into the kitchen. He was a great comfort and aid to Miss Burford, and in a genteel way the old lady found him a resource in the matters of companionship and conversation. Her life was too pinched and narrow to allow her even the simpler pleasure of social intercourse, and Matt's journeys into the world, and his small adventures, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of a dispute was not always referred to professional judges. A very interesting example occurs,(222) when the eldest member of the family and kinatti aplisu, "the family of his son," act as judges. The plaintiff is an old lady, who had been married, and had a daughter married. These facts are not rehearsed in the tablet itself, which concerns a division of property, but are collected from a number of tablets, spread over some sixty years. The way ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... Sir William took Coach with his Sister, for the old Lady's Enchanted Castle, taking only one Trunk of hers with them for the present, promising her to send her other Things to her the next Day. The young Lady was very joyfully and respectfully received by her Brother's venerable Acquaintance, who was mightily charm'd with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Old lady Chia then smiled. "You don't know her," she observed. "This is a cunning vixen, who has made quite a name in this establishment! In Nanking, she went by the appellation of vixen, and if you simply call her Feng Vixen, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a lovely old lady," Beth seeing a chance broke in, by way of consolation; she threw down her story book to join in the discussion and ...
— The Quest of Happy Hearts • Kathleen Hay
... until his ears touched his coat collar. "Gettin' cold. Fall's here. Nope, not the harem. My old lady." ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... townsmen wrote asking him to present a copy to the local library of his native town, which gave Campbell an opportunity to square accounts with them for their past neglect of him, for he curtly replied to their request that "they could purchase the book from any bookseller." An old lady of the town relating some gossip about the Campbell family said, "They meant John for the Church, but he went to London and got on very well." Such was the good lady's idea of the relative positions of minister of a Scottish parish ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... refuse to admit them as evidence of any external truth. I suppose it is because we MUST act somehow, rightly or wrongly; and there are a great many things which we need not believe unless we choose. As for this old lady, she lived long—long enough, like most of us, to do evil; unlike most of us, long enough to witness some of the results of that evil. To say that, is to say that the last years of her life must have been weighted heavily ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... ladies and five noble gentlemen have been interrupted in their travels by heavy rains and great floods, and find themselves together in a hospitable abbey. They while away the time as best they can, and the second day Parlamente says to the old Lady Oisille, "Madame, I wonder that you who have so much experience do not think of some pastime to sweeten the gloom that our long delay here causes us." The other ladies echo her wishes, and all the gentlemen agree with them, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... and they are both good women without a breath against them, and, what in the state of this property is not without importance, very well to do. Jane gets fifty thousand pounds down on the day of her marriage, and as much more, together with the place, upon old Lady Rose's death; while Miss Layard—if she is not quite to the manner born—has the interest in that great colliery and a rather sickly brother. Lastly—and this is strange enough, considering how you treat them—they admire you, or at least Eliza does, for she told ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Ralph, he fell into a sort of terror. He had a guilty feeling that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him beyond recall to Mirandy. He did not see visions of breach-of-promise suits. But he trembled at the thought of an ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... quiet and unknown benevolence. You are in your sphere in this village,—humble though it be,—consoling, relieving, healing the wretched, the destitute, the infirm; and teaching your Evelyn insensibly to imitate your modest and Christian virtues." The good old lady spoke warmly, and with tears in her eyes; her companion placed her ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... lighting of the bar seemed but to emphasize the bleak exterior. Drifts of fog and damp from without mingled with the smoke of shag. The sanded floor was kicked into a muddy morass not unlike the surface of the pavement. An old lady down the street had died from pneumonia the previous evening, and the event supplied a fruitful topic of conversation. The things that one could get! Everywhere were germs eager to destroy one. At any minute the symptoms might break out. And so—one foregathered in a cheerful spot ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... to style Mrs. Meetuck was Meetuck's grandmother. That old lady was an Esquimau, whose age might be algebraically expressed as an unknown quantity. She lived in a boat turned upside down, with a small window in the bottom of it, and a hole in the side for a door. When Captain Ellice and Fred looked in, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... doll, to which the world can tie strings to make me dance to its silly music? Rash! What rashness is there in asking my friend and his father and mother here? My dear Don Teodoro, you will be telling me before long that I should take some broken-down old lady ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Madame d'Arlange's, M. Daburon was sure to find Claire seated beside her grandmother, and it was for that that he called. Whilst listening with an inattentive ear to the old lady's rigmaroles and her interminable anecdotes of the emigration, he gazed upon Claire, as a fanatic upon his idol. Often in his ecstasy he forgot where he was for the moment and became absolutely oblivious of the old lady's presence, although her shrill voice ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Bierce or somebody, years ago, which I cannot put out. No maiden in distress would bother me nowadays, I have read of too many, but some of those first ones I read of still make me feel cold. Yes, a book can leave indelible pictures .... And it can introduce wild ideas. Take a nice old lady for instance, at ease on her porch, and set the ballads of Villon to grinning at her over the hedge, or a deep-growling Veblen to creeping on her, right down the rail,—it's no wonder they frighten her. She doesn't want books to show her the ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr. |
