"Old woman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but walked ahead, whilst Pierre also made up his mind to descend from the carriage in order to see what a suburban osteria was like. Prada was known at this place, and an old woman, tall, withered, but looking quite queenly in her wretched garments, had at once presented herself. On the last occasion when the Count had called she had managed to find half a dozen eggs. This time ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... omens you have mentioned are founded on reason; but how can you explain such absurdities as Friday being an unlucky day, the terror of spilling salt, or meeting an old woman? I knew a man of very high dignity, who was exceedingly moved by these omens, and who never went out shooting without a bittern's claw fastened to his button-hole by a riband, which he thought ensured ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... "I wonder if that old woman knows anything?" said Calton to himself, as he, resumed his seat. "She may have overheard some conversation between Whyte and his mistress, and intends to divulge it. Well, I'm afraid when Fitzgerald does confess, I shall know ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... a carriage ready, and, jumping in, we were at the wayside inn by midnight and terrified the old woman half out of her wits in arousing her out of bed. After a while she gathered them sufficiently to show us that you had six hours the start of us. The boy who carried your bag could give us no points, but we concluded you intended taking the branch line at Fermoy for Dublin. We drove right on, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... look at them closely we see that they represent the three ages of womanhood: there is a maiden, a matron, and an old woman. The nearest figure, standing at the right, is the eldest of the three. She cannot bear the strain of stooping long at a time, and bends stiffly and painfully to her task. Next her is a solidly built ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... in red-faced jackets and red trousers, and top-boots with heavy fringes of leathern strings. Yet it must have been he who made us aware of a high-walled inclosure where soldiers found worthy of death by court martial could be conveniently shot; though I think we discovered for ourselves the old woman curled up out of the wind in a sentry-box, and sweetly asleep there while the boys were playing marbles on the smooth ground before it. I must not omit the peanut-boaster in front of the palace; it was in ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... old woman," I remember he had called her on that occasion, and had made no further ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... older and more shrivelled on account of the war, but still as sweet and lucid and subtle as ever. His voice sounded more than ever like a kind old woman's. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... (discovered preparing parcels). Old and unloved!—yes, the longer I live, the more plainly do I perceive that I am not a popular old woman. Have I not acquired the reputation in the county of being a witch? My neighbour, Sir VEVEY LONG, asked me publicly only the other day "when I would like my broom ordered," and that minx, Lady VIOLET POWDRAY, has pointedly mentioned old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... easy to see that for years the Baron's life has been a mere rising up and going to bed again, day after day, without a thought beyond that of piling up coppers. He eats the same food as his two servants, a Provencal lad and the old woman who used to wait on his wife. The ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... done, and quickly,' thought I, and I started to get up. But hark! I heard some one in the hall softly slip a key in the lock of my door, and turn it with a creaking sound. The next moment a very odd figure came into the room. 'Twas a little old woman, and as she glided toward me I sank back on the couch quivering with terror! On, on, she came, and ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... it should be,' said George, touching his hat at each greeting, and raising it to an old woman who ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... dying, and one came on his bed, and he cried out to it, 'Get out of that, you unnatural animal!' and it left him. Fallen angels they are, and after the fall God said, 'Let there be Hell,' and there it was in a moment." An old woman who was sitting by the fire joined in as he said this with "God save us, it's a pity He said the word, and there might have been no Hell the day," but the seer did not notice her words. He went on, "And then he asked the devil what would he take for ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... gift-bringer.{69} In Sicily the days for gifts and the supposed bringers vary; sometimes, as we have already seen, it is the dead who bring them, on All Souls' Eve; sometimes it is la Vecchia di Natali—the Christmas old woman—who comes with them on Christmas Eve; sometimes they are brought by the old woman Strina—note the derivation from strenae—at the New Year; sometimes by the ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... "There is Victoria Dare always telling me I ought to do something; and Mr. Schneidekoupon too; just as though I could do anything. Madeleine has done nothing but get into mischief here. Half the people think her worldly and ambitious. Only last night that spiteful old woman, Mrs. Clinton, said to me: 'Your sister is quite spoiled by Washington. She is more wild for power than any human being I ever saw.' I was dreadfully angry and told her she was quite mistaken—Madeleine was not the least spoiled. But I couldn't ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... amusement of—not only her friends, but very many who were not her friends. No doubt she was fond of Lords and Countesses, and worked very hard to get round her all the rank and fashion of the day. It must be acknowledged that she was a worldly old woman. But no more good-natured old woman lived in London, and everybody liked to be asked to her garden-parties. On this occasion there was to be a considerable infusion of royal blood,—German, Belgian, French, Spanish, and of native growth. Everybody who was asked would go, and everybody had ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... I was once in a mixed assembly that was full of noise and mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into several who were present, insomuch that one or two of the ladies were going to leave the room; but a friend of mine taking notice that one of our female companions was ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... remember when I courted Trypheny, we were engaged some time before mother Kenipe knew anything about it, and when she found it out she was quite put out because I dident go to her first. So when I made up my mind about Melissy, thinks me, I'll dew it right this time and speak to the old woman first——" ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... "I will, Miss," the old woman said respectfully, and as she stole up the back stairway on her errand, Honor returned as softly to the library, where she stood by the ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... more time than the ants did to draw the bread and butter— all about industry, and what not; a long story, partly her own, partly borrowed from Solomon; but it was labour in vain. I could not understand why, because ants like bread and butter, I must like my book. She was an excellent old woman; but nevertheless, many a time did I have a fellow-feeling with the boy in the caricature print, who is sitting with his old grandmother and the cat, and says, "I wish one of us three were dead. It an't I—and it an't ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the mahogany drawers? The little gilt letters! Ol Amjig, and Snap! I can remember it all—bright and shining—like a Dutch picture. Real! And yesterday. And here we are in a dream. You a man—and me an old woman, George. And poor little Teddy, who used to rush about and talk—making that ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... you are a soldier, I take it, from your havin' been to school at West Point. Maybe you'll never have to use your learning, but if you do, stick to the old flag. Don't you go against that, and if an old woman's prayers for your safety can do any good, be ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... whom the cura lives like a sultan. This might often be so of the native priests; but at the houses of numerous Spanish priests whose guest I have been, I have never once happened to see anything objectionable in this regard. Their servants were only men, and perhaps an old woman or two. Ribabeneyra asserts: [131] "The Indians, who observe how the discalced friars maintain their chastity, have come in their thoughts to the conclusion that they are not men ... and although the devil has endeavored ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... felt thoroughly helpless. There seemed to be nothing that he could do. He began to be faint, and his head ached. One o'clock found him on Nassau Street, near the corner of Fulton. There was a stand for the sale of cakes and pies located here, presided over by an old woman, of somewhat ample dimensions. This stall had a fascination for poor Ben. He had such a craving for food that he could not take his eyes off the tempting pile of cakes which were heaped up before him. It seemed to him that he should be perfectly happy if he could ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... out with Lavretsky's servant to open the stable and coach-house doors. In his stead appeared an old woman, almost as old as himself, her hair covered by a handkerchief, which came down to her very eyebrows. Her head shook and her eyes seemed dim; but they wore, also, an expression of zealous obedience, habitual and implicit, and, at ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... mistake for women not to dress well. I'm an old woman now, but I always try to look my best. Reggie has never seen me in a ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... father, we shall never have done with nursery biography. A gentleman's grandmother may delight in fond recapitulation of her darling's boyish frolics and early genius; but shall we weary our kind readers by this infantile prattle, and set down the revered British public for an old woman? Only to two or three persons in all the world are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting: to the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him; to himself always ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Abby and Marie! The latter told all about her early childhood with the good old woman whom she called Mere Jeanne, and explained how she came to have the Lady, and to play as she did. The Countess, it appeared, lived up at the castle; a great lady, oh, but very great, and beautiful as the angels. She was ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... whimsically. "I'm an ungrateful, bad-tempered old woman, I guess, for they're doing it because it's the only thing they can do, since I put my foot down on all this bombarding and burning good powder just to ease their minds. They've got to do something, I suppose, or they'd all burst. And I don't know but what it's a ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... say, the old woman dropped the subject to bustle about her kitchen and prepare a special supper for Bet and her chums, a ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... as Paul's boat rounded the point, and a young girl with a small creel or fish basket at her back was seen lightly tripping down the pathway, followed by an old woman, who, though she supported her steps with a staff, also carried a creel of the ordinary size. She wore a large broad-brimmed black hat, and a gaily-coloured calico jacket over her winsey skirt; an apron, and shoes ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... is a correspondence more like an amorous than a state correspondence. What is this man so eager about, what in such a rage about, that he cannot endure the smallest delay of the post with common patience? Why, lest this old woman (who is not his mother, and with whom he had no other tie of blood) should not be made mistress of himself and the whole country! However, in a very few months afterwards he himself is appointed by Mr. Hastings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... guess at its contents," said he, and he really attached no importance to its publication. But a few days later he had a proof of the bad effect which its appearance had produced, for all this venom against him had so poisoned the mind of a poor old woman of sixty-three, an authoress, that on Lord Byron entering Madame de Stael's drawing-room one afternoon, she fainted, or feigned to do so. Poor soul! a writer of novels herself, and probably most partial to such reading, she ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... within you door," he said — "an old woman, her two sons and two daughters. But they are all dead and cold. I misdoubt me if we find one alive ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... An old woman then appeared on the scene who waved a bunch of five hens, to be sacrificed, whirling them over and among the performers who were then sitting or standing. The hens were killed in the usual way by cutting the artery ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... others, most of them being black; while under the north, both birds and beasts are mostly white. There are also great numbers of large and terrible snakes, which are said to have destroyed a whole army of one of the Incas, that was marching this way: Yet, according to report, an old woman did so enchant them, that they became quite harmless and gentle, insomuch that they would allow people to sit upon them. It is reported that, from Tumbez to Chili, there are no peacocks, hens, cocks, nor any eagles, hawks, kites, or other ravenous birds; but there are many ducks, geese, herns, pigeons, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... door prevents reply. Molly cries out, "Come in," and, turning, finds herself face to face with a fine old woman, who stands erect, and firm, in spite of her many years, in the doorway. She is clad in a sombre gown of brown silk, and has an old-fashioned chain round her neck that hangs far below her waist, which is by no means the most ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... years, he loved traffic. His first transaction was getting a penny for a horse-shoe which he had found. Discovering that for a half-penny he got six marbles, but for a penny fourteen, he bought pennyworths and sold them in half-pennyworths to his companions, thus realising a profit. Meeting an old woman with a basket of cucumbers, he bought them, and by selling them again, realised ninepence. Truly in his case the boy was father to the man. But, what was notable in him, he would give away his accumulated profits all at once, in the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... unpleasantly. She kept the frown in its place and stared from under it, examining her features closely, fancying herself really an old woman, her whimsical fascination dead in its decaying home, her powers faded if not fled for ever. She might do what she liked then. It would all be of no use. Even the voice would be cracked and thin, unresponsive, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... ladies, good-by." And the last glimpse the two receding friends had of the old woman, she was still profoundly bowing and courtesying in acknowledgment of ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... not yet such a love of wisdom as to be able to bear with folly. The foolish and weak are the most easily disgusted with folly and weakness which is not of their own sort, and are the last to make allowances for them. To spend also the evening with the softly smiling old woman, who would not go across the grass after such a rain the night before, was a thing not to be contemplated. Juliet borrowed a pair of galoshes, and insisted on going to the chapel. In vain the rector and his wife dissuaded her. Neither Helen nor ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... there," replied an old woman, pointing at a little cottage with a thatched roof. "The doctor has had ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... were loaded with pinks and roses by the good woman's bounty (for they did not gather one without her permission), they took their leave with the utmost civility, and Miss Jenny handsomely rewarded the old woman for her good cheer. Mrs. Nelly herself was so pleased with their regular and inoffensive behaviour, that she could not help telling Miss Jenny, that she, and all her companions, had, indeed, behaved as well as if their governess had been with them: on which Miss Jenny (as they were walking ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... are two texts available for this ballad, of which the second one, here given, was said to have been taken down from the singing of an old woman by James Telfer of Liddesdale, and was so printed in Richardson's Borderers' Table Book (1846). It preserves almost the whole of the other version, taken from Robert White's papers, who recorded it in 1829; but it obviously bears marks ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... it mean, good Lord!" faltered the old woman, running out of the drawing-room; and comprehending nothing, she fell on the spot at Anna Sergyevna's feet, in the passage, and began kissing her garments like ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... Indians whom we met casually on the Namakagun, had nothing whatever on them, but the auzeaun. They put on a blanket, when expecting a stranger. The females have a petticoat and breastpiece. When we passed the Woodpecker Chiefs party, an old woman, without upperments, who had been poling up one of the canoes, hastily landed, and hid herself in the bushes, when her exclamation of Nyau! Nyau! revealed her position as we passed. Two young married women ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... she will be satisfied to bury herself out here, with an infirm old woman for a companion? Here she must have an early breakfast, trudge through rain and cold into town; teach stupid little brats till evening; then listen to others equally stupid; thrum over music lessons, and, at last, tired out, drag herself back here about dark, when it is too ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... old woman should forgive likewise!" cried Miss Thusa, looking as benignantly as she could look upon the boy. "You are right, you are right, but her heart don't bleed ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... wood," said she, "and thou shalt find a house and an old woman sitting in it: she will offer thee meat and drink, but thou must take none; if thou eatest or drinkest thou fallest into a deep sleep, and canst not set me free at all. In the garden behind the house is a big heap of tan, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... old woman had remained motionless and weeping violently. Her tears Warner did not seem to notice; he pushed her gently into the room, and began deliberately, and without uttering a syllable, to cut the picture ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with his journey, he was shading himself from the heat of the mid-day sun, under the arching branches of a Banana tree, meditating on the object of his pursuit, he perceived an old woman hideously deformed approaching him; by her stoop, and the wrinkles of her visage, she seemed at least five hundred years old; and the spotted toad was not more freckled than was her skin. "Ah! Prince Bonbenin-bonbobbin-bonbobbinet," cried the creature, "what has led you so many thousand ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... chastise a child. The tables were turned. The poor woman cowered under the stick which, figuratively, was constantly held over her. She was scarcely forty-two years old, and already had the stammerings of terror, and vague, pitiful looks of an old woman in her dotage. Her son continued to stab her with his piercing glances, hoping that she would run away when her courage was exhausted. The unfortunate woman suffered terribly from shame, restrained desire and enforced ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... many live beyond the top of it now, and men and women go by to their work, children to school or play. Not one of the children I see from the window to-day is known to me, and most of the men and women I only recognize by their likeness to their parents. That sweet-faced old woman with the shawl on her shoulders may be one of the girls who was playing at the game of palaulays when Jamie stole into Thrums for the last time; the man who is leaning on the commonty gate gathering breath for the last quarter of the brae ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... the law: that is the English phrase. In England they venerate so many laws, that they never repeal any. They save themselves from the consequences of their veneration by never putting them into execution. An old law falls into disuse like an old woman, and they never think of killing either one or the other. They cease to make use of them; that is all. Both are at liberty to consider themselves still young and beautiful. They may fancy that they are as they were. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... I saw you, I knew something pleasant had happened to me," said Jane Ames. "You don't mind having an old woman for an ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of age he slew a wolf which threatened to attack the herds committed to his charge. Although brutal, headstrong, and passionate, he early exhibited a love of justice, and a disposition to protect the weak, especially women. He put to death a slave who beat an old woman, his slave and companion; and this action, although at first misunderstood, eventually gained the admiration of King Zoheir, who treated Antar with distinction, because of his nobility of character. In consequence of this action, which had been so much applauded by King Zoheir, the ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... inhabitants of the town were reduced to great straits for food, when orders were issued that everyone should surrender what he had into a common fund, to be doled out in equal portions to all. As none complied with this order, a domiciliary visit was made to every house, when an old woman was found to have a pig, likewise a sack of barley meal. The Sieur des Baux ordered the pig to be given a feed and then to be thrown over the precipice. When the besiegers found that the besieged had a pig so well nourished they thought ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... "That old woman," said the doctor, "wasn't neglected. She had a bottle by her, when she died, that I sent out to her less than a week before, and she hadn't the half of it drunk. What's more, I wouldn't have minded a bit ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... much amused at an old woman who had been driven from her home by marauders. She had piled such goods and chattels as she could handle into an ox cart and drove past the grey battle lines, hurrying as fast as she could Southward. Her wrinkled old face beamed with joy at the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... slumber had fallen upon the city, Cuthbert was startled by hearing his door open. Rising to his feet, he saw a black slave, and an old woman beside him. The latter ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... must, except children, pay three rin at the Sanzu-no- Kawa, "The River of the Three Roads." When souls have reached that river, they find there the Old Woman of the Three Roads, Sodzu-Baba, waiting for them: she lives on the banks of that river, with her husband, Ten Datsu-Ba. And if the Old Woman is not paid the sum of three rin, she takes away the clothes of the dead, and hangs them upon ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... who died at the age of seventy, long bedridden. Yes, and did not Colonel de Rochas in turn hypnotize this shade of Jean-Claude Bourdon, so that he adventured farther back into time, through infancy and birth and the dark of the unborn, until he found again light and life when, as a wicked old woman, he had been ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... to inner room on the left, and a door to open air on the right. Window at back and a frame with a half-finished piece of tapestry. There are also a large press and heavy oak chest near the back wall. The place is neat and clean but bare. Lavarcham, woman of fifty, is working at tapestry frame. Old Woman comes in from left. OLD WOMAN. She hasn't come yet, is it, and it falling to the night? LAVARCHAM. She has not. . . (Con- cealing her anxiety.) It's dark with the clouds are coming from the west and south, but ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... not trouble himself to get up, when I looked in, but stretched himself in his bed,—it was high noon,—responding to my sniff of disgust that it was "sehr schoen! ein bischen kalt, aber was!" His neighbor, a white-haired old woman, begged, trembling, not to be put out. She would not know where to go. It was out of one of these houses that Fritz Meyer, the murderer, went to rob the poor box in the Redemptorist Church, the night when he killed policeman Smith. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... enough, with Missie a-makin' as much of yer as if good fresh beef weren't tenpence a pound, and yer mouth warn't large enough to take in a hundredweight; but that ain't the way with the rest of us—no, my old woman, not by a cable's-length; we're afloat on a rum job, old lady; and some of us won't go for to pipe when it's the day for payin' off—not by a long way. So you hear; and don't get answerin' of me, for what I spoke's logic, and there's ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... speak of Puritanism from the inside. In that domestic circle which took him to hear Moody and Sankey, in that domestic circle which was teetotal even when it was intoxicated, in that atmosphere and society Shaw might even have met the monstrous mother in The Devil's Disciple, the horrible old woman who declares that she has hardened her heart to hate her children, because the heart of man is desperately wicked, the old ghoul who has made one of her children an imbecile and the other an outcast. Such types do occur in small societies drunk with ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... (which is the Russian for old man, starouka being old woman). "He is quite a ridiculous 'old man,' and quite the nicest, quietest, cleverest old dog I have ever come across. He looks in face as though he knew all the wickedness of all the world and all its cares, and as if he were bored to death by them."[290] He ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the professor enthusiastically. "We'll start and—No, we won't. Egypt is my motto, and much as I should like to have you for a companion, no, sir, no. As the old woman said, 'Wild horses sha'n't drag me from my original plans and unfinished work.' I must get back to the sand. I'd give ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... But they are better than the Poles, in the Halsted Street district, or the Russians in another West Side district. And we have a brick building, not rooms rented in a wooden house. And the principal is an old woman, too fat to climb all the stairs to my room. So I am left alone to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Old Woman. Tace in your teeth, and taceas also, begging-box! Who put the halter round his waist to keep it off his neck,—who? Get behind your screen, sirrah! Am I not a burgher's wife? Am I not in the nave? Am I not on my own ground? Have I brought up eleven children, without ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... now sailing in an opposite direction from the steamer, and the floor of the sea became alternately clear and opaque. As for the bee, having sucked its fill of honey, it visited the teasle and thence made a straight line to Mrs. Pascoe's patch, once more directing the tourists' gaze to the old woman's print dress and white apron, for she had come to the door of the cottage and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... natur' yet, altogether, I see, Don Wan," answered Spike, chuckling and winking. "As you and I are not only good friends, but what a body may call old friends, I'll let you into a secret in this affair, well knowing that you'll not betray it. It's quite true that the old woman thinks her niece is a pulmonary, as they call it, and that this v'y'ge is recommended for her, but the gal is as healthy ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... without Elitha, when up the road and toward the Fort came a stout little old woman in brown. On one arm she carried a basket, and from the hand of the other hung a small covered tin pail. Her apron was almost as long as her dress skirt, which reached below her ankles, yet was short enough to show brown stockings above her low shoes. Two ends ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... she could not quite determine whether she would forgive him or not. These pictures comforted her even while they saddened her, and she went about her work, feeling that it was now her life's work, and that she was in reality an old, old woman. The rest, she was sure, was but a ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were hanged and burned. The last victim executed in Scotland, perished in 1722. "She was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her. She had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet—a circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her daughter into a pony and getting ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... old Woman, as I've heard say, The frost froze her water-pipes fast one day; The frost froze her water-pipes fast at first, Till a thaw came at last, and the water-pipes burst. By came the Company, greedy of gain, And it cut her water all off at the main, It cut her water off ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... at length exclaimed the old painter with energy, after gazing for some time at the gradual appearance of an old woman's lean and winkled features, dried up and yellow as if one of the dead, and yet lighted up by a pair of dark deep-set eyes, which seemed to blaze with supernatural life and lustre. At each touch of the artist, this mummy-like and unearthly visage was brought out into sharper and more disgusting relief, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... from the other side of the pane. Stransom lingered long enough to suspend, in a vision, a string of pearls about the white neck of Mary Antrim, and then was kept an instant longer by the sound of a voice he knew. Next him was a mumbling old woman, and beyond the old woman a gentleman with a lady on his arm. It was from him, from Paul Creston, the voice had proceeded: he was talking with the lady of some precious object in the window. Stransom had no sooner recognised him than ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... this nightmare and waken, and find myself once more a happy girl by the Neckar-side. They were long in unbarring the door at which Amante had knocked: at length, an old feeble voice inquired who was there, and what was sought? Amante answered shelter from the storm for two women; but the old woman replied, with suspicious hesitation, that she was sure it was a man who was asking for shelter, and that she could not let us in. But at length she satisfied herself, and unbarred the heavy door, and admitted us. She was not an unkindly woman; but her thoughts all travelled in one circle, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... The old woman said no more, but went muttering homeward, not all convinced that Noll was not teaching the children ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... way in the world and to live in independence, but the particular profession for which Florence was clearly marked out both by her instincts and her capacities was at that time a peculiarly disreputable one. A 'nurse' meant then a coarse old woman, always ignorant, usually dirty, often brutal, a Mrs. Gamp, in bunched-up sordid garments, tippling at the brandy bottle or indulging in worse irregularities. The nurses in the hospitals were especially notorious for immoral conduct; sobriety was almost unknown among them; and they could ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... Minister by never making any most distant allusion to public affairs. It might be doubted whether she even knew that the man who paid her so much honour was the Head of the British Government as well as the Duke of Omnium. She was a tall, thin, shrivelled-up old woman,—not very old, fifty perhaps, but looking at least ten years more,—very melancholy, and sometimes very cross. She had been notably religious, but that was gradually wearing off as she advanced in years. The rigid strictness of Sabbatarian practice requires the full energy of middle ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... dawn of adolescence she had passed through a long period of abject superstition, largely through the influence of a servant. All the old woman's signs were very dominant in her life. She even invented methods of divination, as, "if the boards do not creak when I walk across the room I shall get through my lessons without trouble." She always ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... will not harm you, my Lady," said she, with a meaning smile, "if you will accept the opinion of an old woman, who learned the ways of men when she was the Charming Josephine! You must not conclude that because the Chevalier Intendant admires, or even loves Angelique des Meloises, he is going to marry her. That is not the fashion of these times. Men love beauty, and marry ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... police and his men. The heat was excessive, the horses were bathed in sweat, the horsemen covered with dust, and the party seemed on its return from an important expedition. A man left the escort, and asked an old woman who was spinning at her door if there was not an inn in the place. The woman and her children showed him a bush hanging over a door at the end of the only street in the village, and the escort recommenced its march at a walk. There was noticed, among the mounted men, a young man of distinguished ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... attended it. While thus in his physician's hands, he was, of course, confined to his chamber. Philip, in ridicule, called it "being in the straw." He asked some one who appeared at his court, having recently arrived from Normandy, whether the old woman of England was still in the straw. Some miserable tale-bearer, such as every where infest society at the present day, who delight in quoting to one friend what they think will excite their anger against another, repeated these words to William. ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... most beautiful toes I have ever seen!" cried Antoinette in imbecile admiration. She has bewitched that old woman already. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... a wife, one child, and Aunt Betty, the old colored woman who had brought him up. She was the only mother he knew, for his own mother had died when he was an infant, and her dying request had been that mamma Betty, the old woman, should bring up this boy, who was an only child; and when Mr. Brown got married he took Aunt Betty into his family and told her she need not do any work only what she chose to do, and that he would take care of her the balance ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... Elizabeth again. "I shall feel the separation very deeply, but it must be, you know. They have waited so long for each other, that I should be a very wicked selfish old woman to throw any obstacle, even so slight a one as my own discomfort, in their ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his face. "It's not for sale. Seven figures wouldn't touch it." He looked at it lovingly before he put it up, and then added: "Well, there's a figure for each, Rodney, and a big nest-egg for the old woman besides. There's nothing like it, old man. You'd better come in." And he put his hand ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of awe and detestation. If a person is wounded by a machine, or otherwise, a crowd of all his fellow workmen gather around him, and look on the poor fellow bleeding; half a dozen or more will start out on a run in different directions to hunt a doctor, or some old woman who has a reputation for stopping bleeding by sympathy, either of whom they are likely to find "not at home." In the meantime the vital fluid trickles away; nobody knows what to do; everybody does something, but none the ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... of what you are telling me, old woman?" Hulot was saying to Barbette, who had sought him out as soon as ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... peart-like. Wal, in the fust place I kin take ye home with me, an' my old woman'll keep ye fer the night, an' I guess ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... about the woods. He went for an outing into the wilderness, and got lost. He wandered all day until he was very tired and hungry. The sun was low when he came to a little pathway. He followed it, and it led to a small log cabin. When he knocked, an old woman opened the door. He said, "Please, Ma'am, I am lost and very hungry, will you ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... old-fashioned cloaks, that to converse with them would have been like shouting across the gulf between our age and Queen Elizabeth's. So I passed into the quadrangle, and found it quite solitary, except that a plain and neat old woman happened to be crossing it, with an aspect of business and carefulness that bespoke her a woman of this world, and not merely a shadow of the past. Asking her if I could come in, she answered very readily and civilly that I might, and said that I was free ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... of Punch's promising contributors fated to an early death. He began with a few initials—a couple of "A's" were his first little feat, one of them made out of an old woman and a bathing machine. Then came "socials" up to 1865, which attracted attention for their grace, in spite of their lack of backbone; but after a variety of work, including drawings for the "Argosy" ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... any of the tragedies of life before and this one smote her to the core of her heart. The thought of the poor mother going down into the valley of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby, with no one near but this abominable old woman, hurt her terribly. If she had only come a little sooner! Yet what could she have done—what could she do now? She didn't know, but she must do something. She hated babies—but she simply could not go away and leave that poor little creature with Mrs. Conover—who was applying herself ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "The old woman only laughed and removed her veil. She showed me an old wizened face in which there was not a remnant of good looks—a face worn and wrinkled with hard living and ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... intelligence received in Pera of this occurrence was the appearance in the streets of the unfortunate lad's mother tearing her grey hair, and rushing distractedly from the scene of bloodshed. The poor old woman, when assured of her boy's fate, returned and sat in grief by the corpse, from ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various
... character was very bad; he had been indicted and punished in the Old Bailey, in London, for beating an old woman, and was, all his life, drunken and quarrelsome. Yet such a man came over to be the guardian of a people who knew not when they were to be tomahawked by the savages or driven into further exile by the zealots who were disturbed at the ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... letter-head festooned with about twenty-five names, all of them millionaires. Why don't these men contribute the money direct? Then they could save the postage. This letter is printed, not typewritten. They must have sent out thousands about this poor old woman. Surely some millionaire could give up one monkey dinner and endow the ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... by the brook, in the shadow of the ash-trees, an old woman was sitting. She was called "Old Mary Ann" throughout the whole neighborhood. Her big basket, the weight of which had become a little heavy, she had put down beside her. She was on her way back from La Tour, the little old town, with ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... type prevails among the people in middle life, and carries along into old age but little change; and old age is common there. Nearly every house has its old man or old woman, or both. Everybody, father and mother, and frequently grandfather and grandmother, is still on hand, looking as brisk and moving about as lively as the newer generations. After they pass their forty years, they never seem to grow any older for the next twenty or thirty, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... opened instantly, and allowed the new-corners to see an old woman and an old lamp, both of which trembled. The old woman was bent double, clad in tatters, with a shaking head, pierced with two small eyes, and coiffed with a dish clout; wrinkled everywhere, on hands and face and neck; ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... her and loved her. She was by birth a lady; she had been well educated, and, like her mistress, she was devoutly and evangelically pious. She was also very handsome, and this you may well believe, for, as you know, she was handsome as an old woman, stately and erect, with beautiful, undimmed eyes. When Evelina Walsh, the eldest daughter, was about one and twenty, Charles Fysshe, the young heir to the Fysshe property, came to stay with her brother, and Phyllis soon discovered, or thought she discovered, that he was in love with ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... good understanding between our ancestors and their savage neighbors was liable to occasional interruptions, and I have heard my grandmother, who was a very wise old woman, and well versed in the history of these parts, tell a long story of a winter's evening, about a battle between the New-Amsterdammers and the Indians, which was known by the name of the Peach War, and which took place near a peach orchard, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... copses flash by. Here we overtake some emigrants, then an etape.... We meet tramps with pots on their back; these gentry promenade all over the plain of Siberia without hindrance. One time they will murder some poor old woman to take her petticoat for their leg-wrappers; at another they will strip from the verst post the metal plate with the number on it—it might be useful; at another will smash the head of some beggar or knock out the ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... to the old woman, and, as he pressed hers, he let a well-filled purse slip into it. He cut off her expressions of gratitude by a short nod of the head, and waved her toward the door. The castellan's wife withdrew, and, absorbed in deep thought, Count Schwarzenberg remained alone in ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Moise, laughing, "you'll talk just like my old woman about tan hides. Those business is not ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough |
