"Parlour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stood a little while waiting, and there was no sound (for the door into the King's parlour was now shut again), he turned to the other door to go out; for he had delivered his message, and there was no more ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... have been the quite unliterary and unromantic diary of any—say, Mr. James Simpson of any house number in any respectable side street in Regents Park, or St. Johns Wood or Hampstead. One can easily imagine him, sitting in his small, comfortable parlour and bending over his blotting-pad in unilluminated cheerful absorption after his day's work. It can also without any special intellectual effort be imagined that the record might have begun with some such ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... windows, an' it seemed like as if there did oughter be some rent to pay, though the Landlord was a reel gent and never pressed for it. There might be people 'oo lived among flowers in the sunlight, an', so to say, rented the parlour floor, but not me. I 'ad the upper floor, an' breaved the light o' the moon. As for flowers—bless you, I'd never 'ardly seen a flower stuck proper to the ground until a year ago. Well, dearie, I use to make believe as 'ow ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... shall have to forgive him for turning into a lady every woman who was not middle-aged. Du Maurier's picture of Society was largely falsified by his inability to appreciate variety in feminine genius. But we are quite prepared to believe that his treatment of the dainty parlour-maid, for instance, helped to confirm that tradition of refinement in table service which is the pleasant feature of English home life. All the servants shown in his pictures are ladies, and this before the fashion had ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... Her parents were a branch of the de Choiseuls, and their prejudices were even stronger than those of my father. Little did they think what was passing in the minds of their children. Many a time when they were mourning a French victory in the parlour we were both capering with joy in the garden. There was a little window, all choked round with laurel bushes, in the corner of the bare brick house, and there we used to meet at night, the dearer to each ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chairs in the parlour and real Brussels," she anticipated. Peter affected to think it unlikely that she could be spared by the highly mythical person who was to carry her off to keep house for himself. Somehow Peter could ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... iron her own gown. No, ma'am, please to ring the bell when you require anything; otherwise you will ruin my servants.' Much ashamed of my ignorance on this higher plane of English custom," continues the Idealist, "I crept back to my parlour and laughed heartily as I looked round the dirty, wretchedly furnished room, and reflected on the abyss set by prejudice between the ground-floor and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... household was thrown into consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason, so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should have ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... of Uncas, did he?" resumed the trapper, without regarding the slight interruptions of the bee-hunter, which amounted to no more than a sort of by-play. "And what thought he and said he of the lad, in his parlour, with the comforts and ease of the settlements ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... progress of science and to smile at the crudity of its early experiments and theories. In Bolt Court we pause to see a great man die. Here especially Dr. Johnson's figure ever stands like a statue, and we shall find his black servant at the door and his dependents wrangling in the front parlour. Burke and Boswell are on their way to call, and Reynolds is taking coach in the adjoining street. Nor is even Shoe Lane without its associations, for at the north-east end the corpse of poor, dishonoured Chatterton lies still ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... better man might have been envious: this was Abraham Cowley, an old college friend of the duke's. Cowley was the son of a grocer, and owed his entrance into academic life to having been a King's Scholar at Westminster. One day he happened to take up from his mother's parlour window a copy of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.' He eagerly perused the delightful volume, though he was then only twelve years old: and this impulse being given to his mind, became at fifteen a reciter of verses. His 'Poetical Blossoms,' published whilst ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Tuesday morning, Booth elected to chaff his friend on the progress of his campaign. They were seated opposite to each other in the almost empty parlour car. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... watched for his advantages, and pressed the Abbe with increasing success in proportion as he was more disturbed by passion. The conversation grew warmer, and was broken off by M. de Foncemagne's rising from table and passing into the parlour, where no one was tempted ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... that's the fun of it. That's what made him so excited. He was in the parlour all the time I was playing. But we might as well have ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... panes and glowed in the heart of green bottle-glass. Out in the street men shouldered past her, talking blithely; and in distant kitchens cups clinked and ware clattered, and every house—every house from garret to parlour, seemed to her a home happy and gleeful. A home; and her home! She stood at the thought and cursed them; cursed them, and like the echo of her whispered words the solemn boom of a cannon ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the turnkey's. First house there,' said Tip, pointing out the doorway into which she had retired. 'First house, sky parlour. She pays twice as much for it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the governor, poor ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... October day, 1882, behind the grating of the Carmel, I saw my beloved Pauline, now become Sister Agnes of Jesus. Oh, how much I suffered in that parlour! As I am writing the story of my soul, it seems to me that I ought to tell you everything. Well, I acknowledge that I hardly counted the first pains of this parting, in comparison with those which followed. I, who had been accustomed to talk with my little Mother ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... consulting room, while, of the other two, one served as a sleeping apartment for himself and his pupil, Mr Richard Maitland, the third being sacred to Polly Nevis, a sturdy and willing, but somewhat untidy person, who discharged the united functions of parlour maid, housemaid, chamber maid, cook, and scullery maid to ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... a negotiation with Johnny, the host, who, to our great joy, took up a candle, and led the way into a sort of back parlour, with a promise that we should have our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... each took a hand. Malvina was still standing where the Professor had left her. It was very absurd, but the Professor felt frightened. He went into the kitchen, where it was light and cheerful, and started Mrs. Muldoon on Home Rule. When he returned to the parlour Malvina was gone. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... "Cruithne," with his seven sons, and the Picts? Were they of Gothic descent and tongue, as Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck maintained in rather a notorious dispute in the parlour at Monkbarns? or were they "genuine Celtic," as Sir Arthur Wardour argued so stoutly on the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... I must have a corner, must we not? So when my brother's friends are in the parlour he allows us to sit in his room. 'Tis a great favour, I can tell you; the ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... purpose, and turned again on her fascinated auditor. "Do ye no hear me, tawpie? Do ye no hear what I'm tellin' ye? Will I have to shoo ye in to him? If I come to attend to ye, mistress!" And the maid fled the kitchen, which had become practically dangerous, to attend on Innes' wants in the front parlour. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from a web perfecting press, yet it is only a country newspaper, and knowing this we refuse to put on city airs. Of course we print the afternoon Associated Press report on the first page, under formal heads and with some pretence of dignity, but that first page is the parlour of the paper, as it is of most of its contemporaries, and in the other pages they and we go around in our shirt sleeves, calling people by their first names; teasing the boys and girls good-naturedly; tickling the pompous ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... that period of my residence in London. The front parlour was my sitting-room. Very small, very low in the ceiling, very poorly furnished—but, oh, so neat! I looked into the passage to see which of Lady Verinder's servants had asked for me. It was the young footman, Samuel—a civil fresh-coloured person, with a teachable look ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... I'll lose none. I tell ye again, ye'll go quickest by going leisurely. Come in... take a chair..." He threw open the door of a parlour. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... 'ere most awful go." We are both going mad with the strain of the situation, when in walks the engineer's brother from the Eclaireur. He seems intensely surprised to find me sitting in his friend the planter's parlour after my grim and retiring conduct on the Eclaireur on my voyage up. But the planter tells him all, sousing him in torrents of words, full of the violence of an outbreak of pent-up emotion. I do ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... bar, opened the gate, which admitted them through an archway into a square court, surrounded by buildings. Opposite to the arch was another door, which the serving-man in like manner unlocked, and thus introduced them into a stone-paved parlour, where there was but little furniture, and that of the rudest and most ancient fashion. The windows were tall and ample, reaching almost to the roof of the room, which was composed of black oak; those opening to the quadrangle were obscured by the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... which impelled me was a hidden, obscure necessity, a completely masked and unaccountable phenomenon. Or perhaps some idle and frivolous magician (there must be magicians in London) had cast a spell over me through his parlour window as I explored the maze of streets east and west in solitary leisurely walks without chart and compass. Till I began to write that novel I had written nothing but letters, and not very many of these. I never made a ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... both leaders in social life, one of them a physician, who had suddenly lost every spear of hair. I was invited by the unfortunate physician and his wife to dine with them. And, in his own home, I noticed in their parlour a portrait of him before his experience. He had been blessed with magnificently thick black hair, a handsome face, adorned with a full beard and moustache. It was an April evening and the weather was quite warm, and after dinner the doctor removed his wig, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... stout figure of Maria Ivanovna into a tiny parlour, and from the next room came the screams of a baby, sounding cross and peevish, which filled him with disgust. They cut ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... boats and barges, and by a road below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, wagons, and horsemen constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after Titian, etc., but when I gave them this air of barbarous basreliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... their foreparts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale's valet had always a better wig ready, with which he met Johnson at the parlour door when dinner was announced, and as he went up stairs to bed, the same man ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... a Northern burr which made, Herrick glance curiously at her, came bustling into the flagged passage to greet them, and when she had taken their order for tea she ushered them into the parlour ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... outside of the walls. The best room had a carpet, that covered two-thirds of the entire dimensions of the floor, even in my boyhood, and there were oil-cloths in most of the better passages. The buffet in the dining-room, or smallest parlour, was particularly admired; and I question if there be, at this hour, a handsomer in the county. The rooms were well-sized, and of fair dimensions, the larger parlours embracing the whole depth of the house, with ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the day the Gardens (probably so styled on account of the complete absence of horticultural embellishments) are as silent as the tomb; there is no sign of life except in the mornings, when a solemn butler or a uniformed parlour-maid appears for a moment at the door like some creature of the sea coming up ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... fast disappearing. One of my near relatives was locked into a first floor parlour in Whitechapel, without hat or shoes, to prevent his going to hear Mr. Whitefield; but, at the risk of being turned out of doors by his parents, he escaped out of the window, by clinging to the rain water-pipe, and enjoyed the public ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... arrived here safe. It is a wonderful place, a small city of palaces amidst hills, rocks, and woods, and is full of fine people. Please to carry upstairs and lock in the drawer the little paper sack of letters in the parlour; lock it up with the bank book, and put this along with it—also be sure to keep the window of my room fastened and the door locked, and keep the key in your pocket. ...
— Letters to his mother, Ann Borrow - and Other Correspondents • George Borrow
... in the little parlour when Miss Coleman came down does not belong to my story, which is all about Diamond. If he had known that Miss Coleman thought Mr. Evans was dead, perhaps he would have managed differently. There was a ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... caught hold of the railing of the stoop, and dragging himself to his feet, limped into the parlour. "It's an age since we've sung any of our duets, Phil," he called; "let's have some now. Nora, play 'O wert thou in the cauld blast,'—that's one of our favourites." And in a minute or two they were singing away with all ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... tells us this story in the late autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to have meaning looks of their own, our limbs grow quiet, and our brains begin to work. The moors beyond the window ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... people feel that there had always been Conneely's Hotel in Killesky. If the old people remembered Julia Dowd's little public-house with its thatched roof, the low ceiling and the fire of turf to which you could draw a chair while you had your drink, the little parlour beyond which was reserved for customers of a superior station, they ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... without fear of soiling it. A strong deal table, two wooden-seated chairs, and a small easy couch, which had been removed from one of the bedrooms upstairs, were all the movables which this room contained. The other front room had been fitted up as a parlour; but what might be the style of its furniture was now unknown, for no eye had beheld the contents of that room for nearly seventeen years, during which it had been hermetically sealed, even to the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... told me the following story, although a joke against himself. He and Corney Grain were sharing a cottage on the river. A man called early one morning to discuss affairs, and was talking to Corney in the parlour, which was on the ground floor. The window was open. The other entertainer—the man who told me the story—was dressing in the room above. Thinking he recognised the voice of the visitor below, he leant out of his bedroom window to hear better. He leant too far, ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... thought I heard something fall in the parlour, and the passage-door being directly after shut to in a still manner. I loaded the pistols, thinking that thieves had broken into the house, and pushed up the sash to shoot ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... small beer, but golden Rodney—might draw forth an ode from a teetotal Chancellor of the Exchequer. August winds up in a blaze of gladness for the reaper. On ordinary evenings he sits stolidly in the dingy parlour and consumes mysterious malt liquor to an accompaniment of grumbling and solemn puffing of acrid tobacco, but the harvest supper is a wildly luxurious affair which lasts until eleven o'clock. Are there not songs too? The village tenor explains—with a ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... took off his heavy shoes, stole past the back door, and so round the clerk's house to the front. Very softly indeed went he, creeping by the wall, and emerging at last round the angle, by the window of the best parlour. Here, most excessively to Mr. Pike's consternation, he came upon a lady doing exactly what he had come to do—namely, stealthily listening at the window to anything there ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to such persons as these, who are in America spoken of as the "parlour socialists," it would not only be impossible to tell what socialism actually was, but what it was or was not would be immaterial to any practical man. As a matter of fact, however, between socialism of this negligible kind—this sheet-lightning ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... up into the manager's parlour. It might have been a court of justice, or a dentist's surgery, or the cabinet of an insurance doctor, or the room at Fontainebleau where Napoleon signed his abdication—anything but the thing it was. Happily Mr Lovatt had a manner which ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... all the chilly discomfort of the farmhouse parlour, unused, save on state occasions—a funereal gloom which no sunlight could pierce, a mustiness which savoured almost of the grave. One by one they obeyed the stern forefinger of Gideon Strong, and took their seats on comfortless ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... this gap the Romans passed from their moored fleets to the fortified settlements above. It was at one time possible to descend by another opening higher up the cliff to a ledge called "Puck Church Parlour." This is now inaccessible except to seabirds. The well-known view of the "Seven Sisters" is taken hereabouts and the disused "Belle Tout" lighthouse stands up well on the western slopes of Beachy Head, looking no distance ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... place, very courteously wrote to me asking me to make his house my headquarters. I found my way through queer passages to a cheery little hall where my host met me, and taking me into a pleasant little parlour, enlivened by flowers, and a merrily blazing fire, presented me to ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... dear," interrogated Mr Potts, humbly, as soon as the door was closed. But Mrs Potts made no reply, until she had led her husband to such a distance from the parlour as she imagined would prevent Mr Rainscourt from being roused by the high pitch to which she intended to ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... this intense cold, to which many Canadians and others have occasionally recourse, is—at least to my feelings it always appeared—infinitely worse than the disease. On entering, for instance, the small parlour of a little inn, a number of strong, able-bodied fellows are discovered holding their hands a few inches before their faces, and sitting in silence immediately in front of a stove of such excruciating power, that it really feels as if it would roast ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... mud-stained cloak, 'Twas he! Our Ocean-Shepherd! Walter Raleigh! He brushed me passing, and with one vigorous thrust Opened the door and entered. At his heels I followed—into the Mermaid!—through three yards Of pitch-black gloom, then into an old inn-parlour Swimming with faces in a mist of smoke That up-curled, blue, from long Winchester pipes, While—like some rare old picture, in a dream Recalled—quietly listening, laughing, watching, Pale on that old black oaken wainscot floated One bearded oval face, young, with deep eyes, Whom Raleigh ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... so much depended. Lord Egremont called at Carew's house on his way, and Haydon, who saw him go in, relates that 'Dear Mary and I were walking on the leads, and agreed that it would not be quite right to look too happy, being without a sixpence; so we came in, I to the parlour to look through the blinds, and she to the nursery.' Happily, the patron was favourably impressed by the picture, and promised to give L600 for it when it was finished. In order to pay his models Haydon was obliged to pawn one of his two lay-figures, since he could not ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... that she might sleep under the influence of an anodyne. Poor Tom! it was not the reception he had figured to himself, and after he had laid her down, and left her to Cora and to Katty to be undressed, he returned to the parlour, and stood over the sinking wood-fire in dejection and dreariness of heart—wrung by the sufferings he had witnessed, with the bitter words (too late) echoing in his brain, and with the still more cruel thought—had ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gladly enough. She could not bear to think she had hurt any one's feelings, even any one she did not particularly like. Mrs. Bennett led the way into her parlour, where Penelope had never been before. It held all the treasures she was most proud of, and the window was full of geraniums, fuchsias, and hanging baskets of 'Mothers of Thousands,' blocking out most of the light. While ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... The little parlour at "Lawn Cottage," the name of their new home, soon became the scene of frequent reunions among choice spirits, whose aspirations went higher and deeper than the external and visible. In closing around Mr. Markland, they seemed to shut him out, ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... need never hope to get on, if you are the least anxious that the drawing you are actually at work upon should look nice when it is done. All you have to care about is to make it right, and to learn as much in doing it as possible. So then, though when you are sitting in your friend's parlour, or in your own, and have nothing else to do, you may draw any thing that is there, for practice; even the fire-irons or the pattern on the carpet: be sure that it is for practice, and not because it is a beloved carpet, nor a ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Heston, in the little square parlour of a country inn where the floor was only polished boards, and where long wooden trestles ran on two sides of ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... shops almost generally exhibit displays of articles calculated for the approaching period, unexampled in brilliancy, taste and costliness, and including nearly every item suitable to the drawing room, the parlour, or the boudoir. The local papers contain numerous advertising announcements of "Valentines;" the walls are occupied with printed placards of a similar character, and the city crier, by means of a loud bell and an equally sonorous voice, proclaims the particular ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... safe from being hounded down for the rest of his life, when I saw a woman walking on the beach ahead of me. I came up with her before long, and as I passed her she turned her head and I saw she was one of two girls that we had seen in the landlady's parlour one afternoon. The landlady was a good, decent Scotch woman, and had taken a fancy to both of us (particularly to Jim—as usual). She thought—she was that simple—that we were up-country squatters from some far-back place, or overseers. Something in the sheep or cattle line ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... They went into a parlour with its window open, upon the window-sill a pigeon mourning among pots of wallflowers and southernwood that filled the entering air with sweetness. A room with thin-legged chairs, with cupboards whose lozens gave view ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... are almost invariably heroes to them. It was, therefore, excessively discomposing to her that, during the following week, in the very height of apparently cloudless domestic tranquillity, the housemaid and the parlour-maid should in one black hour successively demand an audience, and successively, in the floods of tears proper to such occasions, give warning. Inquiry as to their reasons was fruitless. They were unhappy: one said she ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... stone, though some people would say that my present manner of travelling is much the most preferable, riding as I now do, instead of leading my horse; receiving the homage of ostlers instead of their familiar nods; sitting down to dinner in the parlour of the best inn I can find, instead of passing the brightest part of the day in the kitchen of a village alehouse; carrying on my argument after dinner on the subject of the corn-laws with the best commercial gentlemen on the road, instead of being glad, whilst sipping a pint ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... puzzled and pleased with such a place. In the front window a stout old lady in black with an elaborate cap sat doing a large piece of needlework. She had a kind of comfortable Puritanism about her; and might have been (perhaps she was) the original Mrs. Grundy. A little more withdrawn into the parlour sat a tall, strong, and serious girl, with a face of beautiful honesty and a pair of scissors stuck in her belt, doing a small piece of needlework. Two feet behind them sat a hulking labourer with a humorous face like wood painted ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... agitation as the raindrops smote the little pools between the cobbles and ricochetted with a multitudinous hiss. Now and again a gust of wind swept across, and the rain rattled against the windows. On the opposite side of the square one of the houses gaped curiously, with bedroom and parlour exposed to view, as though some one had snatched away the walls and laid the scene for one of those Palais Royal farces in which the characters pursue a complicated domestic intrigue on two floors at once. That house, with its bed exposed to the rain dripping ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the precedence to one or the other, we will descend from the elevation of Northwood, amidst the din of music from the Club House, and the hum of promenaders on the beach, and ensconce ourselves in the snug parlour of "mine host" Paddy White, whom we used to denominate the Falstaff of the island. Though from the land of shillelaghs and whiskey, Paddy is entirely devoid of that gunpowder temperament which characterizes his country; and his genuine humour, ample obesity, and originality ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... deuise, carried him away into another house a little way off from the great hall of the Paracoussy, and continued their weepings and mournings by the space of two long houres: in which meane while the Indians ceased not to drinke Cassine, but with such silence that one word was not heard in the parlour. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... these simple democratic cars are inscribed with the word "White," whereby nine million people are excluded. But to this original even-handed treatment there was speedily added a more sumptuous type of car, the parlour car, accessible to extra dollars; and then came special types of train, all made up of parlour cars and observation cars and the like. In England nearly every train remains still first, second and third, or first and third. And now, quite outdistancing the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... persuaded to receive more than a small portion of the manuscripts. He gathered them in his hand, and prepared to redescend the perilous stairs. He walked as lightly as possible, dreading that every creak would bring Mrs. Wilson from her parlour. A few more steps, and he would be in the passage. A smell of dust, sounds of children crying, children talking in the kitchen! A few more steps, and, with his eyes on the parlour door, Hubert had reached the rug at the foot of the stairs. He hastened along, the passage. Mrs. Wilson ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... provident supply. But all the answer she got from the offended Jamie was a bitter rejoinder, "Weel, then, neist time they sall get nane ava!" On another occasion a family from a distance had called whilst my uncle and aunt were out of the house. Jamie came into the parlour to deliver the cards, or to announce that they had called. My aunt, somewhat vexed at not having been in the way, inquired what message Mr. and Mrs. Innes had left, as she had expected one. "No; no message." She returned to the charge, and asked again if they had not told him anything ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of her basket strewed about the table, and looking more like home than anything since I left it. She is small, with black eyes and hair, a very pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile, and, when she ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... down the treasure. With a cloth he dusted the feathers and tenderly wiped the eyes. "A first-class animal for fifty cents," he said—"and durable. He'll last a lifetime if you be careful of him—keep him in the parlour just to ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... long Parliament began, 1641, the Sceptre fell out of the figure of King Charles in wood, in Sir Thomas Trenchard's hall at Wullich, in Dorset, as they were at dinner in the parlour: ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... language which are used by the terrestrial animals of this kingdom. He desired the ostler to take his horse in tow, and bring him to his moorings in a safe riding. He ordered the waiter, who showed them into a parlour, to bear a hand, ship his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against the frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in when it was ajar. She saw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were the custards on a side-table; it was too much. She slipped in and went toward the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... epoch in their young lives; they both remembered the date was the eighteenth of October. He pointed to the silver calendar on the chimney-piece, to which the parlour-maid attended. "This is the eighteenth again," Ted said. "There aren't two eighteenths of October in ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... happy childhood. From the time that he was three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread and batter in his hand. A very clever woman, who then lived in the house as parlour-maid, told how he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking his walk, when he ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... a fine town with ships in the bay, And I wish from my heart it's there I was to-day; I wish from my heart I was far away from here, Sitting in my parlour ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... possibility of getting his Royal Highness to sign such a document, but as he himself was leaving the country for good at any rate, he did not mind adding a little forgery to his other necessary arrangements. Paper and seal were easily accessible in the parlour, where the Duke often kept Eben waiting for hours. He was an expert in other people's penmanship, and the princely scrawl would not present the least difficulty to him. Still, in case of accident, it would be as well to keep back the document till the last ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... time Miss Whichello was seated in a little private parlour off the bar, illuminated by an oil-lamp. This Bell turned up, and then she noticed that her visitor looked anxious and ill at ease. Once or twice she attempted to speak, but closed her mouth again. Bell wondered ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the family arrived, Mary and Alice and their brother Mark, a young man of thirty, who looked hard-working and reticent, and had large moustachios. They stopped almost on the threshold as they perceived there were strangers in the parlour, then they recognised their long-lost sister; but, embarrassed by the presence of the strange gentleman, as well as by the startling fact of her presence, they stood hesitant and rather shame-faced. Cleo smiled at them encouragingly, whereupon her sisters came tripping over and ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... parlour favours Ij sombre labourer realisation odour honour fulness commonweal bo Amyntas Becke Blackstable Castilian D'you d'you de Dona Farrowham Howlett lol Losas Lucido Monnickendam one's Ously Sodina Tercanbury ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... hold her hand as they parted at the parlour door, but she drew her fingers out of his clasp and said, "Good-night; thank you," as if he had been one of her mother's ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... "Carmen rented her back parlour this afternoon," he was saying—Carmen being their own moniker for their landlady Miss Carmelita Sisson. "To a female. What do you know about it? Carmen hates 'em round the house. Too nosey, she says. But the room's been vacant since spring, and roomers in summertime are as ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... Works, but contracted his Talent, and by the help of a very fine Diamond which he wore on his little Finger, was a considerable Poet upon Glass. He had a very good Epigrammatick Wit; and there was not a Parlour or Tavern Window where he visited or dined ... which did not receive some Sketches or Memorials of it. It was his Misfortune at last to lose his Genius and his Ring to a Sharper at Play; and he has not attempted to ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... playfellows come along, For if my mother sees me at the gate, She'll cause my blood to fall." She show'd me an apple as green as grass, She show'd me a gay gold ring, She show'd me a cherry as red as blood, And so she entic'd me in. She took me in the parlour, She took me in the kitchen, And there I saw my own dear nurse A picking of a chicken. She laid me down to sleep, With a Bible at my head, and a Testament at my feet; And if my playfellows come to quere for me, Tell them ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... her sister's lifetime. I held up a screen, and did not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise very offensive; but now that she was left alone, she seemed quite horrified when I begged her to remain with me in the warm dining-parlour, and enjoy her orange as she liked best. And so it was in everything. Miss Jenkyns's rules were made more stringent than ever, because the framer of them was gone where there could be no appeal. In all things else Miss Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... gentleman very fairly, if she betook herself to the house which he would be the least desirous of entering of any in the county. So she got a little bedroom for herself behind the sitting-room, and just over the little back parlour of the chemist, with whom they were to lodge. There was somewhat of a savour of senna softened by peppermint about the place; but, on the whole, the ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Lord, what shall we do? There's my brother Foresight and Sir Sampson coming. Sister, do you take Miss down into the parlour, and I'll carry Mr Benjamin into my chamber, for they must not know that they are fallen out. Come, sir, will you venture yourself with me? ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps scudding away like mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the table-legs, playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug and ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... medallion portrait of Oberlin bears the touching inscription that for fifty-nine years he was "the father of this parish." Then we drove back as we had come, stopping at Foudai to rest the horse and drink tea. We were served in a cool little parlour opening on to a garden, and, so tempting looked the tiny inn that we regretted we could not stay there a week. A pleasant pastoral country rather than romantic or picturesque is the Ban de la Roche, but close at hand is the lofty Donon, which may be climbed from Rothau or Foudai, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... lamps, and is horrified to learn that they are seldom, if ever, prosecuted. He is shocked at the cabins, and the rocks, and the beggar children, and the lack of trees; at the lack of logic, also, and the lack of shoes; at the prevalence of the brogue; above all, at the presence of the pig in the parlour. He is outraged at the weather, and he minds getting wet the more because he hates Irish whisky. He keeps a little notebook, and he can hardly wait for dinner to be over, he is so anxious to send a communication (probably signed 'Veritas') to ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... either, if they don't enclose their cards. Nearly every day there is a guessing match in the back parlour. It's poor form to send ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... shall be very please to acomodate you for a fortnight. You can have a good sized bedroom, parlour and dining room for 3 guineas per week including everything else. I shall expect ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... said till they went down into the parlour. Though it was only eleven o'clock, Miss Harold was putting on her bonnet to go away: and there was a plate of bread ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... supplied by the crass stupidity of the EMPEROR'S minions. Even when full credit is given to Brent for letting his bath overflow so as to flood the public salon and render it untenable, it was surely unwise of Mrs. Sanderson to offer her private parlour for the use of the boarders on the very day set apart for the execution of her plans which were centred in this room. It was also gross carelessness on the part of her son, when he had Brent, with hands up, at his mercy, to place his own revolver on the table and to use, in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... him back the conveyance, 'just clap in the words, "and Thimble," will you be so good; and I'll have the two mottoes painted up in the parlour ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... of its beauty, Civilised Man sweeps it out of existence. It is the fate everywhere of lyre-birds, of humming-birds, of birds of Paradise, marvellous things that Man may destroy and can never create. They make poor parlour ornaments and but ugly adornments for silly women. The world is the poorer and we none the richer. The same fate is overtaking all the loveliest spots on the earth. There are rare places which Primitive Man only approaches on special occasions, with sacred awe, counting their beauty inviolable ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... laid on the parlour table—ham, sardines, a whole pound of butter, and such a large johnny cake that it looked like an advertisement for somebody's baking-powder. But the Primus stove roared so loudly that it was useless to try to talk above ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... patient, cheerful, vigorous, healing ways of the great Scotch doctor, who limps around on his broken leg to minister to the needs of other folk. I see the little group of nurses and physicians gathered on Sunday evening in the doctor's parlour for an hour of serious, friendly talk, hopeful and happy. And there, amid the murmur of Abana's rills, and close to the confused and glittering mystery of the Orient, I hear the music of a ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... hurried her on till she reached a door opening into the Mother's reception-room. Catching the child to her heart, she kissed her twice, lifted the dead darlings from her apron, and, pushing her gently into the small parlour, closed the door. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which, after He had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... who arrived in his own car, was shown by the manservant into the waiting-room and then into the parlour, where the mother superior came to him at once. Without delay or preamble of any sort he put his questions to her, in the presence of Don ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... his plate, and, by way of experiment, touched its tail with his finger. To his horror, it was immediately transmuted from an admirably fried brook trout into a gold-fish, though not one of those gold-fishes which people often keep in glass globes, as ornaments for the parlour. No; but it was really a metallic fish, and looked as if it had been very cunningly made by the nicest goldsmith in the world. Its little bones were now golden wires; its fins and tail were thin plates of gold; and there were the marks of the fork in it, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... will not spread through the house; it is a bad time for fever.' I see he does not like that, he frowns, he mutters maledictions. I profess myself ready to conduct him through my poor premises; I lead him through the parlour, which he had not sense to admire, to the kitchen, to our own apartment, my cherished one. All the time my heart flutters like a wounded dove. I cry in my soul, 'All depends on the wit of that child. If she had but gone with Prudencia to ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... at all! What I do I'd as lief do in your own royal parlour! (Blows whistle; two dark-skinned men come in with vessels.) Give me here those ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... says the local medical officer, "can keep a pig in the parlour if they keep it clean." The necessity of keeping the parlour clean for the sake of its guest will be easily understood by those who appreciate the fastidious taste ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... she had always retired to her room in the loft after supper on Sunday to wrestle with her labours; but as her mother grew into years, the girl had adopted the habit of working in the parlour. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... that evening. Ethne went into her farm-house and sat down in the parlour. She felt cold that summer evening and had the fire lighted. She sat gazing into the bright coals with that stillness of attitude which was a sure sign with her of tense emotion. The moment so eagerly looked for had ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... that had turned the cellar, with its mud floor, into a dormitory capable of giving bed space to twenty or twenty-five Galicians, and still left room for the tin stove on which to cook their stews. Upon his advice, too, the partitions by which the cottage had been divided into kitchen, parlour, and bed rooms, were with one exception removed as unnecessary and interfering unduly with the most economic use of valuable floor space. Upon the floor of the main room, some sixteen feet by twelve, under Rosenblatt's manipulation, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... bachelor dinner-parties to hard-drinking young men, for whom Anty was well contented to cook; and when they—as they often, from the effect of their potations, were perforce obliged to do—stayed the night at Dunmore House, Anty never showed herself in the breakfast parlour, but boiled the eggs, made the tea, and took her own ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... hear of a button being sewn on a glove, because it was a work neither of necessity nor of piety, And strictly prohibited her servants from amusing themselves, or indeed doing anything at all except dusting the drawing-rooms, cleaning the boots and shoes, cooking the parlour dinner, waiting generally on the family, and making the beds. But BLAKE even went further than that, and said that people should do their own works of necessity, and not delegate them to persons in a menial situation, So he wouldn't allow his servants to do so much as even answer a bell. ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... consisted of two parts: in one was the parlour and beside it old Zhmuhin's bedroom, both stuffy rooms with low ceilings and multitudes of flies and wasps, and in the other was the kitchen in which the cooking and washing was done and the labourers had their meals; here geese and turkey-hens ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... woman smiled discreetly and showed her into a large parlour, the door of which she ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... contents had been carried. He also inquired where the key had been found. The habitual frankness of Deerslayer prevented any prevarication, and the conference soon terminated by the return of the two to the outer room, or that which served for the double purpose of parlour ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... tools being made, I daily carried on my business; eighteen days I allowed for enlarging my cave, that it might serve me, not only for a warehouse, but kitchen, parlour, and cellar. I commonly lay in the tent, unless the weather was rainy that I could not lie dry. So wet would it be at certain seasons, that I was obliged to cover all within the pale with long poles, in the form of rafters, leaning against the rock, and loaded them with flags and ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... a hill, and the stable is in the garret. There is a broad stone staircase on the outside of the house, by which you enter into the several apartments. The kitchen is at the bottom of the hill, a bedchamber above that, the parlour (where we dined) is the third storey, and on the top of the hill ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... every night to foregather in some hotel's parlour with his crony, the mate of the barque Cicero, lying on the other side of the Circular Quay. Late at night I would hear from afar their stumbling footsteps and their voices raised in endless argument. The mate of the Cicero was seeing his friend on board. They would ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... his counting-house Counting out his money; The queen was in the parlour Eating bread ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... one of those persons who talk with cheerfulness of that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not drag you to behold. You, who do not even know its situation on the map, probably denounce sensational descriptions, stretching your limbs the while in your pleasant parlour on Beretania Street. When I was pulled ashore there one early morning, there sat with me in the boat two sisters, bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. One of these wept silently; ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... recognised the different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr. Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated in this ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Corcoran's house. Donal and his wife seated in two comfortable armchairs by the parlour fire. The parlour is well furnished, and Kitty is busy dusting, as visitors are expected. Donal is a man of about fifty-six years, and his wife is a little younger. Donal is reading a copy of the Galway Examiner, and his wife is ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... his dignity. The dignity was suffering a good deal; was it right, he asked himself, that he, the man of the house, should have the menial task of watching jam while Julia talked business with some one in the parlour? He did not know what business this person had come on; he had seen him arrive a few minutes back, had even heard his name—Mr. Alexander Cross—but that was all he knew about him; Julia had taken ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... time I heard the window below us open softly, and I knew the burglar was entering the parlour from the side porch. I counted twenty, which I had figured would be the time required for him to reach the dining-room, and then, when I was sure he must have seen the silver shining in the glass case, I slowly pulled on the steel cable and raised case and silver to the hall above. ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... next to mine, were evidently held in great esteem, and my hostess displayed them with the reverent pride of a good New England woman showing her parlour. There were three of them, opening one into the other. In each there was the invariable platform covered by rugs, and big Chinese vases ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... her guide into a parlour, redolent of stale cigar smoke, with oilcloth on the floor and varnished walls, an abode even more horrible than Hassan's lair. Joseph closed the door carefully behind him, and made no apology for his dishabille. He simply ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a servant. Never was an Englishman more at home than when he took his ease in his inn. Even men of fortune, who might in their own mansions have enjoyed every luxury, were often in the habit of passing their evenings in the parlour of some neighbouring house of public entertainment. They seem to have thought that comfort and freedom could in no other place be enjoyed with equal perfection. This feeling continued during many generations ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... moment she had lifted the latch at a small cottage and entered. It was a little better than a workman's house, but not much; there were two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs, and that was all. To the front of the little house was the tiny parlour, at the back an equally tiny kitchen. Upstairs was a bedroom for Ruth and a bedroom for her grandparents. Mr. and Mrs. Craven did not keep any servants. The moment Ruth entered now her grandmother put her head out of the ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... pleasant evening was to sit in the bar-parlour of the Sun Inn and drink interminable hot rums. He had fixed up a room for himself at the inn and offered Boundary a share, but the colonel preferred to sleep alone. He secured lodgings in the town, and making an excuse to the captain returned to his room early. He had purchased all the newspapers ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... Dolly very much. I think it was overhearing me singing one of the hymns that made Uncle John take notice of me at last. He used to shut himself in his study, and I scarcely ever saw him from one week's end to the other; but one day as he was going up-stairs I had been singing, and he came into the parlour, and, taking me on his knee, asked me to sing the hymn over again. I was a little nervous at first, but grandmamma had always told me to do the best I could when asked to repeat or sing a hymn, and I did so now. I suppose the words of the hymn pleased him, ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples
... water, and some biscuits. I had been seated a very short time only, when the quick, consequential step, and sharp, cracked voice of Dr Lee sounded along the passage; and after a momentary pause at the bar, his round, smirking, good-humoured, knavish face looked in at the parlour-door, where, seeing me alone, he winked with uncommon expression, and said aloud: 'A prime fire in the smoking-room, I see; I shall treat myself to a whiff there presently.' This said, the shining face vanished, in order, I doubted not, that its owner might confer ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... said; 'it's time to begin thinking of tea.' Whereupon they rose to their feet and walked a long way into the country in search of an inn, and finding one they had tea in a garden, and afterwards they dined in a sanded parlour and enjoyed the cold beef, although they could not disguise from themselves the fact that it was a little tough. But what matter the food? It was the close intimacy and atmosphere of the day that mattered to them, and they returned to Leamington thinking of the day that had gone by, a ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... party in a parlour? Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,— Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, But, as you by their faces see, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... a greater air of comfort than Owen expected to find. In the oak panelled parlour into which Mr Fluke led him a cheerful fire burned brightly, although the spring was well advanced, while a white cloth was spread ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... thing, but in you; and until you understand this, you will keep gaping and shrinking, and saying, 'It is impossible.' Some folk, when looking out of a three or four storey window, feel as if they were going to fall. This is their own fault, not the fault of the window, for that is just like a parlour window, where they have no sensation of the sort. A man sits peaceably enough on the top of a tall, three-legged stool, and could hitch himself round and round, and then get up and stand upon it erect for half a day, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... appearance at Tyburn a lesson in elegance, but he thieved, as none ever thieved before or since, with no other accomplice than a singing-bird. Thus he would play outside a house, wherein he espied a sideboard of plate, and at last, bidding his playmate flutter through an open window into the parlour, he would follow upon the excuse of recovery, and, once admitted, would carry off as much silver as he could conceal. None other ever attempted so graceful an artifice, and yet Audrey's journey to Tyburn is even more memorable than the story ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... my horse; another showed me across the broad hall, with its hunting whips and trophies on the wall, to the parlour, and there I awaited the coming of the Tory maid. And as I sat there, gently stroking the toe of my boot with my whip, and thinking of that night at the inn, of that soft "Thank you" on the old south road, I heard the soft swish of ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... farther. I chanced to pick up the Tales of a Traveller some years ago with a view to an anthology of prose narrative, and the book flew up and struck me: Billy Bones, his chest, the company in the parlour, the whole inner spirit, and a good deal of the material detail of my first chapters—all were there, all were the property of Washington Irving. But I had no guess of it then as I sat writing by the fireside, in what seemed the spring-tides of a somewhat pedestrian inspiration; nor yet ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... freely of these comestibles, we made the adjournment to a luxuriously upholstered parlour, circled with plush-seated chairs and adorned with countless mirrors, and there we began to beg the question at issue, to-whit, "To what extent has Ibsen (if any) contributed towards the cause of Female Emancipation?" which was opened by a weedy, tall male gentleman, with ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... got into a taxi and drove to Shepherd Street, Mayfair. He sent up his card by the parlour maid with the request that Miss Craven would grant him an interview. He was asked to wait and was kept waiting the best part of three quarters of an hour while Auriole completed her toilet. When at last she entered she did not show the least enthusiasm for his presence but asked ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... we'l withdraw into the Parlour: And if these honest Friends will be pleased to drink what our House affords, they ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... seamen, to whom I gave a gratuity, and I was met by Mr. Trevannion, who showed me into a large and well-furnished bed-room, which he told me was in future to be considered as my own. I passed away the afternoon in arranging my clothes, and did not go down to the parlour till supper-time, where I found Miss Trevannion, who congratulated me upon my having changed my occupation to one more worthy of me. I made a suitable reply, and we sat down to supper. Having described this first great event in my life, I shall ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... a collector seeks include objects of utility and ornament. Many of them are associated with household work, and quite a number of one-time kitchen and culinary utensils, as well as those which were once cherished in the best parlour or withdrawing-room, are found places among such curios. During the last few years domestic architecture has passed through several stages of advancement. The stiff and formal Georgian houses, the painful Victorian villas, and some of the earlier attempts ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar's Head, a little man with a red nose, and an oilskin hat. When I came away he was sitting there still!—not a man LIKE him, but the same man—with the nose of immortal redness and the hat of an undying glaze! Crayon, while there, was on terms of intimacy with ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... the light of candles placed in floating nutshells. Even the practice of leaping through the fire survives in a modified form, for in northern Germany it is not uncommon for people on St. Martin's Day or Eve to jump over lighted candles set on the parlour floor.{83} In the fifteenth century the Martinmas fires were so many that the festival actually got the name of ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles |
