"Housewifely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the table stood a corpulent Wedgwood pitcher, filled with geraniums and roses, to which the girl's fingers wandered lovingly from time to time, in the effort to coax each blossom into the position in which it would make the bravest show. On one corner, near the waiter, stood a housewifely little basket of keys, through the handle of which was thrust a fresh handkerchief newly ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... Then rosy-cheeked Bertha, whose housewifely care And womanly habits call forth praises rare; Small, winsome maiden, whose large, tender heart, To blame makes thee timid, thy tears ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... Dorothy listened with a flutter beneath the gray gown that could not disguise the pretty girlish outlines of her dainty figure. Dorothy, as well as the other daughters, had been carefully trained in every housewifely art, and though part of her mother's store of linen bleached in Lincolnshire meadows, may have helped to swell her simple outfit, it is probable that she spun and wove much of it herself. A fulling mill, where the cloth made at home was finished and pressed, had been built ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... lived; and the dust, they averred, was all the more disagreeable, because it could not well be other than dead men's almost intangible atoms, resurrected from the adjoining graveyard. As for the cobwebs, they were no signs of housewifely neglect on the part of crusty Hannah, the handmaiden; but the Doctor's scientific material, carefully encouraged and preserved, each filmy thread more valuable to him than so much golden wire. Of all barbarous haunts in Christendom or elsewhere, this ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... down without waiting for her, on the little squat, old-fashioned sofa, and Nan went about the room with her match and dotted it with candles. Raven looked after her in her housewifely progress; he was still concerned, still grave over her leaving his house for this. She had on her walking suit, whatever frills she might have discovered upstairs, and she looked ready for outdoor enterprise. What a hardy child she was, slender and supple, but taut for action in the homespun ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Princess' having dressed herself in mourning at the death of Robespierre. These legislators remind me of one of Swift's female attendants, who, in spite of the literary taste he endeavoured to inspire her with, never could be divested of her original housewifely propensities, but would quit the most curious anecdote, as he expresses it, "to go seek an old rag in a closet." Their projects for the revival of their navy seldom go farther than a transposal in the stripes of the flag, and their vengeance against ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... found their hands very full in the "Thirties." Besides the daily round of housewifely cares, every season brought its special duties. There were wild strawberries and raspberries to be picked and prepared for daily consumption, or to be preserved for winter use. Besides milking, there was the making both of butter and cheese. There was no nurse to take care of the children, no ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... in truth, And there stands its Chatelaine, sweet Sister Ruth, To welcome you, Roger; you'll find a new type In this old-fashioned girl, who in years scarcely ripe, And as childish in heart as she is in her looks, And without worldly learning or knowledge of books, Yet in housewifely wisdom is wise as a sage. She is quite out of step with the girls of her age, For she has no ambition beyond the home sphere. Ruth, here's Roger Montrose, my comrade of ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sought his room. There he found the landlord's daughter before him with the warming-pan. She had spread open the sheets of his bed and was applying the old-fashioned contrivance for the prevention of rheumatism, but it was evident her mind was not on this commendable housewifely task, for she sighed softly ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... back into his shop, turned on all the lights, put the basket of ruddy apples on the counter, straightened the pile of old magazines and pulled out the carom board, the box of chess and checkers. He took a last housewifely look around, then put on his hat and coat and started out. There was pain and anger and a terrible determination in ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... last, dressed in a loose blue dress with a broad lace collar and blond lace in the wide sleeves. And not to seem too much dressed, she had put on a red-flowered apron to give herself a housewifely look. ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... charity visitor could have done the industrial preaching very well, because she did have the industrial virtues and housewifely training. In a generation our experiences have changed, and our views with them; but we still keep on in the old methods, which could be applied when our consciences were in line with them, but which are daily becoming more difficult as we divide up into ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... asleep. In that one a prince of England has sent to ask her in marriage; and her father, little liking to part with her, sends for her to his room to ask her what she would do. He sits, moody and sorrowful; she, standing before him in a plain housewifely dress, talks quietly, going on with ...
— Saint Ursula - Story of Ursula and Dream of Ursula • John Ruskin
... have anything to do," said Anne. "That is, it is nice in a way, but do you know, Perkins, I sometimes just wish there were some rooms to dust or something, but you and the maids keep everything so clean," and Anne sighed a sigh that came from the depths of her housewifely soul. ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... take the antique knocker between her fingers, noting with housewifely approval that it had recently been polished. I have seldom passed a more uncomfortable time of waiting, than that between the resounding clatter of grandmother's knocking reverberating through the empty house, and the patter of feet, the whispering, ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... preparations continued. Frank and Mr. Morton went to the village church, where an appropriate service was held by Reverend Mr. Apthorp. There were but few of the village matrons present. They were mostly detained at home by housewifely cares, which on that day could not well be ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... for Clover? The preserves were almost all made, that was one comfort; but there were the winter clothes to be seen to; Dorry needed new flannels, Elsie's dresses must be altered over for Johnnie,—there were cucumbers to pickle, the coal to order! A host of housewifely cares began to troop through Katy's mind, and a little pucker came into her forehead, and a worried look across the face which had been so bright a few minutes before. Strange to say, it was that little pucker and the look of worry ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Lady Countess was a greater favour to such a household as that of Bridgefield than it would be to a cottage of the present day; Richard was hurrying downstairs, and Susan only tarried to throw off the housewifely apron in which she had been compounding a cooling drink for the poor old lady, and to wash her hands, while Humfrey, rushing up to her, exclaimed "Mother, mother, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its old brocades, its Venetian glass, its Florentine carvings, its sun-dial and its garden, was the best that life could offer him. And I must confess that he seemed to think it very good. He adored Rosalie. When in moments of rebellion against her seeming indifference I hinted that she lacked housewifely qualities he smiled and shifted ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... With wild whoops the boys went off for the dry cedar and the evergreens, while the girls, looking very housewifely with skirts tucked back and sleeves rolled up, began to sweep and otherwise prepare the room ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... mishaps in church and in state, Digest many things as well as good meat; And club each alike that no one may treat. This if you will grant without coach or chair, You may, in a trice, cross the way and be there; For Peg is your neighbour, as well as Delany, A housewifely woman ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... lady reverently raised her blue eyes—true Scottish eyes—limpid and clear as the dew on Scottish heather. Cheerful they were withal, for they soon began to flit hither and thither, following the motions of Jean's "eident hand" with most housewifely care. And Jean herself, a handmaid prim and ancient, but youthful compared to her mistress, seemed to watch the latter's faintest gesture with most affectionate observance. Of all the light traits which reveal character, none is more ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cherished child—and I have always thought that the smile upon their faces was very sweet to see. But in this case there was the same smile upon the woman's face as she looked upon her unholy handiwork, and there was something terrible in the contrast between that look of housewifely satisfaction and the job upon which it was bestowed. Many an evil sight have I seen, but never, as I think, anything so evil as this sight of that beautiful face smiling over the edge of that hideous thing, the living radiant visage above that effigy of death. The black flag covered ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... class. And now Dash and May follow us every where, and are going with us now to the Shaw, or rather to the cottage by the Shaw, to bespeak milk and butter of our little dairy-woman, Hannah Bint—a housewifely occupation, to which we owe some of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... home. I am a little puzzled about Fred. He has written me a great deal lately about a certain Fraeulein Teresa, the daughter of one of his professors, who takes such excellent care of her younger brothers and sisters, and who is such a wonderfully economical, housewifely little body—just a new edition of Werther's Charlotte. I do not think that he really likes her," she continued after musing a little: "he just holds her up as a model for me to copy. I shouldn't wonder if she was only imaginary, to make me feel how ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... quail. In this pattern she had made cooking pots in the golden spring of her wedding year, when the quail went up two and two to their resting places about the foot of Oppapago. In this fashion she made them when, after pillage, it was possible to reinstate the housewifely crafts. Quail ran then in the Black Rock by hundreds,—so you will still find them in fortunate years,—and in the famine time the women cut their long hair to make snares when the flocks came morning and ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... that chance had sent her, in the person of the girl whose coming she had sullenly resented, a very useful buffer against any period of domestic stress. Aunt Margaret had trained Cecilia thoroughly in all housewifely virtues, and her half-French education had given her much that was lacking in the stodgy damsels of Mrs. Rainham's acquaintance. She was quick and courteous and willing; responding, moreover, to the lash of the tongue—after her first wide-eyed stare of utter amazement—exactly as ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... you contrast your own condition, the peace in which you live, the comforts that surround you, the decency of your habitation, when you see your wives, your sisters, and your daughters contributing so materially by the brightness of their appearance, the softness, of their manners, their housewifely qualities, to the pleasantness and cheerfulness of your domestic lives, contrasting as all these do so strikingly with your former surroundings, you will remember that it is to Mr. Duncan you owe this blessed initiation ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... clothes were almost within her reach now, but she must, by being housewifely, show that she ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... Dallas said wickedly, looking at Tom Harbison, who was out of earshot, "Why nine of us? I thought Kit here, otherwise known as Bella, was going to show off her housewifely skill." ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... having discreetly withdrawn, Mrs. Joyce stood alone in her dark doorway to receive her guest, and, through all her flutter of hope, she felt a bitter twinge of housewifely chagrin at being discovered in such miserable quarters. The black earth flooring at her threshold gritted hatefully under her feet, and the gusts whistling through the many chinks of her rough walls seemed to skirl derisively. She was nevertheless resolved to put ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... influential being. Her ancient diffidence before George Cannon had completely gone; she had no qualms, no foreboding, no dubious sensation of weakness. Indeed, she felt herself in one respect his superior, for his confidence in Sarah Gailey's housewifely skill, his conviction that it was unique and would be irreplaceable, struck her as somewhat naif, as being yet another example of the absurd family pride which she and her mother had often noticed in the Five Towns. She was not happy at the prospect of so abruptly ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... just heard of. It is a school where none but the daughters of the German nobility are received, as a rule. They make an exception sometimes in the case of Americans like myself. There they are taught all the housewifely arts that delight a good frau's soul. Don't laugh at me, Lloyd. I'm going to learn how to broil and brew and conduct a well-regulated establishment ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... easily, that I did not take the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's; and instance, for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter, in Antigone; the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and silent; and, finally, the expectation of the resurrection, made clear to the soul ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... because she so strangely reminded him of his own little sisters. She thought herself his little nurse, and missing from his broth the yellow petals that she had been wont to think the charm of tisane, the housewifely little being had trotted off, unseen and unmissed, across the quadrangle, over the embankment, where she had often gathered them, or attended on the 'lessive' on the river's brink; and now she broke forth exultingly, 'Here, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so outrageous a protest offered against domesticity. Yet Brodie's resolution was romantic after its fashion, and was far more respectable than the blackguardism of the French Revolution, which distracted housewifely discontent a year after the Deacon swung. Moreover, it gave occasion for his dandyism and his love of display. If in one incarnation he was the complete gentleman, in another he dressed the part of the perfect scoundrel, and the list of his costumes would have filled ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... himself. On opening it he found a fine pocket-handkerchief neatly hemmed and marked, a pair of nice gloves, a pair of home-knit socks, and a pair of embroidered slippers. Here was no useless fancy trumpery; all were useful articles; and in the old-fashioned, housewifely present Ishmael recognized the thoughtful heart and careful hand of Bee, and grateful, affectionate tears filled his eyes. He went below stairs to a back parlor, where he felt sure he should find Bee presiding over the indoor amusements of her ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... "which term I shall explain in the very words of Littleton: 'It seemeth that this word hotchpot is in English a pudding; for in a pudding is not commonly just one thing alone, but one thing with other things together.' By this housewifely metaphor our ancestors meant to inform us that the lands, both those given in frankmarriage, and those descending in fee-simple, should be mixed and blended together, and then divided in equal ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... Perhaps, in after life she would find his tenderness by losing—or not having—some one else. It was not too bad, for it would be a great pity if there were not such interruptions, but at this instant Linnet's housewifely face was pushed in at the door, and her voice announced: "Dinner in three minutes and a half! Chicken-pie for the first course and some new and delicious ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... linen, with a small check pattern, blue and white, had been imposed on them. Nevertheless, in spite of this enforced simplicity, Raymonde, thanks to her freshness and her active, good-natured, housewifely air, had succeeded in making ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... both girls and boys were sent to dame-schools, where, if girls were not taught much book-learning, they were carefully instructed in all housewifely arts. They learned to cook; and to spin and weave and knit, not only for home wear but for the shops; even little children could spin coarse tow string and knit coarse socks for shop-keepers. Fine knitting was well paid for, and was a matter of much pride to the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... friendly fashion against his legs. They began to talk in the soft light and had forgotten almost that another guest was expected. Margaret hoped fervently that he would not come. She had never looked more lovely than on this afternoon, and she busied herself with the preparations for tea with a housewifely grace that added a peculiar delicacy to her comeliness. The dignity which encompassed the perfection of her beauty was delightfully softened, so that you were reminded of those sweet domestic saints who lighten here and there the ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... she was profiting by her varied experiences, and trying to learn the best way to take care of her father's house and make it a real home for him. Sometimes she felt this responsibility very greatly, and longed for some motherly, housewifely friend to ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... to her housewifely tasks, leaving Bostil thoughtfully stroking the hound and watching the fire. Presently Lucy returned—a different Lucy—one that did not rouse his rider's pride, but thrilled his father's heart. She had been a slim, lithe, supple, disheveled boy, breathing the wild spirit ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... good countenance, fine black hair, and a good figure, and remained humble and submissive in all, the constable's wife desired for him the favour of women and of fortune, not to let his gallantry stand idle, and from a good housewifely idea, she fired his imagination according to her fantasies, by certain small favours and little looks which serpented towards him like biting adders, trifling with the happiness of this young life, like a princess accustomed ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... womanly task to go about in tenement houses in order to nurse the sick, it might be quite as womanly to go through the same district in order to prevent the breeding of so-called "filth diseases." While some of the women enthusiastically approved the slowly changing conditions and saw that their housewifely duties logically extended to the adjacent alleys and streets, they yet were quite certain that "it was not a lady's job." A revelation of this attitude was made one day in a conversation which the inspector heard vigorously carried on in a laundry. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... be obliged to return to town earlier than he thought, she interrupted Amias's clumsy exclamations of regret. "Mr. Herrick has been very good to give us so much of his company," she said cheerfully. "Of course we shall miss him, and so will Babs;" and then in her pretty, housewifely way she set about making arrangements for his comfort, and Malcolm felt inwardly grateful for ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... add the accomplishment of drying to your other housewifely arts, you have given some thought and study to the subject of driers. You now know whether you prefer sun, artificial or fan drying. You have either made or bought some kind of a drier. Little other ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... perturbation, in ill humor with the daft dealings of the world he lived in, Dickie Blue left the soggy road and sad drizzle of the night for the warm, yellow light of Peggy Lacey's kitchen, where pretty Peggy, alone in the housewifely operation, was stowing the clean dishes away. Yet his course was shaped—his reflections were determined; and whatever Peggy Lacey might think to the contrary, as he was no better, after all, than ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... the cheap pieces at the butcher's among a crowd that hawked and spat and made jokes that were not geniality but merely a mental form of hawking and spitting; of the way that in those days her attention used to leap like a lion on the shy beast Beauty hiding in the bush, the housewifely briskness with which her soul took this beauty and simmered it in the pot of meditation into a meal that nourished life for days. At the thought of the premature senility that had robbed her of these accomplishments now that she was seventeen she ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... thread of romance inwoven with the composition of Mirpah Madgin was a very slender one. In so far she belied her own beauty. For a young woman she was strangely practical, and that in a curiously unfeminine way. She was her father's managing clerk and alter ego. The housewifely acts of sewing and cooking she held in utter distaste. For domestic management in any of its forms she had no faculty, unless it were for that portion of it which necessitated a watchful eye upon the purse-strings. Such an eye she had been trained to use since she ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... have touched her closely and somewhat prejudiced her against the neighboring masculinity. The thought that cattle, horses, and "quarter section" would one day be hers did not disturb her calm. As for Mr. Clay, he accepted her as housewifely, though somewhat "interfering," and, being one of "his own womankind," therefore not without some degree ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... strange, sir," said Dame Bottles with some housewifely embarrassment, "that a highwayman of such distinction that he has had written of ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... the sixteenth day of his illness. His wife had watched over him day and night with unspeakable tenderness and devotion, though I fear he never showed her much gratitude in return; he had been too much used to think of woman as mere housewifely slaves. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a fire, sir. We never use the grate, but it's in perfect order, for the first thing I did after I came into the house was to have the chimney swept. It was terribly dirty. It might have set the house on fire." Mrs. Bunting's housewifely instincts were roused. "For the matter of that, you ought to have a fire in ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... cigarettes were consumed, or when her housewifely instinct told Apporo that the dish was properly cooked, back it went into the trough again, and was mashed with the keatukipopoi, the Phallic pounder of stone known to all primitive peoples. A pahake, or wooden bowl ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... wife, in her housewifely role, belongs the care of overseeing or accomplishing with her own hands, the varied duties that go to secure the daily well-being of the home. She must see that the rooms are bright, neat, and cosily arranged; that the meals are appetizingly and punctually served, and be ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... hare, which, when hard pressed by the dogs, turns into a woman. She promises to wed him on his entering into three vows, namely, not to ask his king to a feast without first letting her know (a most housewifely proviso), not to cast up to her in any company that he found her in the form of a hare, and not to leave her in the company of only one man. Both these are West Highland tales; and in the manner of the taboo they closely resemble that given by Map. In an Illyrian story, a Vila is by a youth ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... Her housewifely ways, her pretty anxiety about spending money, amused him tenderly. When she could perform some small service for him, she hummed little hymns to the Virgin. Her ministrations extended to Stocks and the ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... this sudden turn about? I cannot escape the conjecture that here the death of her mother had a decisive influence and with it the necessity to take the place with her father of his wife. Her housewifely activity is noted first to be sure from her twelfth or thirteenth year. Yet I am of the opinion that she had already in her seventh year begun to play this rle—in which year the death of her mother would be placed—only because she was too small it had ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... whole the strain told on Flexinna more than on Brinnaria, who never once shed a tear, attended to her housewifely duties calmly and steadily and talked little. Flexinna fidgeted constantly ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and generally accepted by Frenchmen themselves, or at least by the Parisians of literature and the boulevards, as the national cuisine of France. The charming daughter of my host at St.-Quentin knew better; and she received with a graceful, housewifely satisfaction the neatly-turned compliments which one of the guests was old-fashioned and sensible enough to pay her upon ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... washing, I would ask some good housewifely gentlewoman, if servant-maids wearing printed linens, cottons, and other things of that nature, which require frequent washing, do not, by enhancing the article of soap, add more to housekeeping than the generality of people would imagine? And yet these wretches cry out against great washes, ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... the sick in spirit as well as the sick in body visited Marcia. She abhorred the temptation of the night like the remembrance of a wicked dream, and she went about with a humble and grateful prayer—to something, to some one—in her heart. Her housewifely pride stirred again: that girl should not think she was a slattern; and Miss Strong, when she preceded her small trunk in the course of the forenoon, found the parlor and the guest-chamber, which she was to have, swept, and dusted, and set in perfect order by Marcia's hands. She had worked ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Mrs. Peyton, a few days later, coming hurriedly into Charlotte's own room, where that young woman was busy with various housewifely offices, "I've had a telegram. I'm so upset I don't know what to do. My sister is sick and her husband is away, and she's sent for me. I'm not able to do nursing—I'm not strong enough—but I don't see but that ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... tried, but she suffered so much that it was given up, and she did her lessons at home with her father. Even when he went away, and her mother was called to devote her skill and energy to Soldiers' Aid Societies, Beth went faithfully on by herself and did the best she could. She was a housewifely little creature, and helped Hannah keep home neat and comfortable for the workers, never thinking of any reward but to be loved. Long, quiet days she spent, not lonely nor idle, for her little world was peopled with imaginary friends, and she was by nature a busy bee. There were six dolls ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Mass, but the two distinguished gentlemen expected their friend to arrive at noon, and the dejeuner to be ready quite by then; so she comforted her conscience with a few prayers said on her knees before the picture of the Holy Virgin which hung above her bed, after which she went back to her housewifely duty with a light heart; but not before she had decided an important point in her mind—namely, which of those two handsome gentlemen she liked the best: the dark one with the fiery eyes that expressed such bold admiration ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... marriage. He went home as soon as he had sufficient salary, married her, and brought her out. She was a brilliant dark beauty, who became quickly a motherly, housewifely, common-place person—I should think there had been a poet's love, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... help her wash—a Mrs. Pritchard who cheerfully walked two miles each way—but the temptation to bleach the household linens on the lawn in the hot sunshine appealed powerfully to the housewifely instincts of Winnie, and Mrs. Willis declared that she washed everything she came to, regardless of its state of cleanliness. Certainly one would have thought that her normal wash of light summer dresses for three girls and two women would have contented Winnie, but the combination ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... that since she comes back to us and plainer living. She reads well and is not slow in figures. I shall see that she is instructed in all housewifely ways, but it is ill making headway when the tide runs down ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... know where there'd ha' been victual for us all then," observed Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light. ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... numerous, as they are uncleanly and untrustworthy, and the Venetians prefer to keep them [Footnote: A clerk or employe with a salary of fifty cents a day keeps a maid-servant, that his wife may fulfill to society the important duty of doing nothing.] rather than take part in housewifely duties; and, since they must lavish upon dress and show, to suffer from cold and hunger in their fireless houses and at their meagre boards. In this way the young girls, kept imprisoned from the world, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... deliberation that caused her to recall their wedding-day with a gust of passionate self-reproach. Presently he managed to interrupt, reminding her that her dining-room windows commanded as comprehensive a view of the next house as did the front steps, and after a time her housewifely duty so far prevailed over her indignation at the man's unwholesome stolidity that she followed him down the hall to preside over the meal, not, however, to partake largely ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... dully is that power employed by the mission! Too much concern to make the natives pious, a design in which they all confess defeat, is, I suppose, the explanation of their miserable system. But they might see in the girls' school at Tai-o-hae, under the brisk, housewifely sisters, a different picture of efficiency, and a scene of neatness, airiness, and spirited and mirthful occupation that should shame them into cheerier methods. The sisters themselves lament their failure. They complain ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the preserve-closet for dainties to tempt an unhappy woman's appetite, meanwhile rejoicing with housewifely pride in her well-stocked shelves. That evening, while Alden read the paper, she planned a feast for the next night, and mended, with fairy-like stitches, the fichu of real lace that she usually wore with her ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... and lodgings. If you are willing to let me board here and do odd stitches for the children when they tear their aprons and rub out the knees of their trowsers—just to keep me out of mischief, you understand!—I promise to be as little officious in housewifely concerns as it is in my ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... worthy of Holland. She managed the avalanches of soiled linen and the floods of water that go by the name of "the wash," which was done, according to provincial usage, three times a year. She kept a housewifely eye to the linen, and mended it carefully. Then, desirous of learning little by little the secret of the family property, she acquired the very limited business knowledge which Rouget possessed, and increased it by conversations with the notary of the late doctor, Monsieur Heron. Thus ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... brushed away her tears, and coming to the table with a little housewifely eagerness would not let me wait upon myself, but carved and poured for me, and then sat down opposite me and covered ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... profit by the great boiler steaming on the hob for their women's refreshment of tea. It was about the only servile act which they were required to do for themselves, while they were the servants of others, and they all enjoyed doing it with true housewifely relish. Annie, especially, was an adept at such tea-making, and would propound her theories and circulate specimens of her performance among her companions who profited by her skill, with a glee not far removed from the mirth of the Millar girls ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... good-looking, plump, and calm woman, who was wholly convinced of the justice of the Cadets' cause, was now sitting quietly on the sofa in the Svetilovitch drawing-room, and expounding truths. Notwithstanding her Constitutional Democratic convictions, she was a real priest's spouse, a housewifely, loquacious, timorous creature. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... a new wardrobe throughout is not necessarily followed, of course. It is through the bridegroom's consideration for the bride, and his appreciation of the housewifely duties which she undertakes on his behalf, that he makes those as small as possible at first, knowing that the years will bring her her ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... the class from which soldiers are drawn never attracted me in the very least, and I simply could not have married one, though a paragon of virtue and compendium of housewifely qualities. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... eyes following him, and waved gaily, but she scarcely realized that he had done so. It was rather with the eye of her mind that she was contemplating the dark, quadrangular area outstretched before her. In spirit she was moving to and fro among the statuary, bringing a housewifely order out of the chaos that prevailed,—placing stone ladies draped in stone or otherwise; cherubic babies, destined to perpetual cold water bathing; strange mortuary furniture, in the juxtaposition that would make the most effective background ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... after a careful scrutiny of the polished surface of the mahogany, pulled out a drawer filled to brimming over with linen of various kinds and uses, and began to dive among these with careful housewifely hands to discover their tale. Simultaneously, as she remembered afterwards, there came from the hill leading down from the direction of the station, the sound ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... is the highest grace and gift of God to have an honest, a God-fearing, housewifely consort, &c. But God thrusteth many into the state of matrimony before they be aware and rightly ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... stumbles on a household where the woman does not disdain housewifely work, and specially the practical superintendence of the kitchen, there we may be sure we shall find cheerfulness and content. There seems to be something in the life of a practical housekeeper that answers to the needs of a woman's best nature, and that ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... pipe over his shoulder after her, and winked in a way that, no doubt, meant unutterable things, but which did not convey much to his astonished guest, who sat still and said nothing. Then Bessie rose and bade him good-night in her pleasant voice, and with housewifely care inquired as to whether his room was to his taste, and how many blankets he liked upon his bed, telling him that if he found the odour of the moonflowers which grew near the verandah too strong, he had ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the whole fair cheek and temple to view; fair and delicate in contour, and coloured with the very hues of a perfect physical condition. I think no man but would like to see his future wife present such a picture of womanly beauty and housewifely efficiency as Diana was that day. And the best was, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... that passage, which was wide, and indeed more like a hall in proportion to the cottage, had stood on its end from time immemorial a huge barrel, which Kirsty, with some housewifely intent or other, had lately cleaned out. Setting Davie down, she and Turkey lifted first me and popped me into it, and then Allister, for we caught the design at once. Finally she took up wee Davie, and telling him to lie as still as a mouse, dropped him into our arms. I ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... pillowcases ready made to fit any sized bed or pillow at prices little, if any, greater than the cost of those made at home. Merchants say that they sell one hundred sheets ready made to one by the yard, which speaks well, not for their goods alone, but for the spirit of housewifely economy which maintains that labor saved is time and strength earned. Moreover, the deluded seeker after bed beauty who wastes her precious hours in hemstitching sheets and pillowcases—cotton ones at that—is a reckless spendthrift, and needs a course ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... belonging to Mrs. Mivers to arrange the chattels; and finally, when all was nearly completed, the Avatar of Mrs. Mivers herself, to give the last finish with her own mittened hands and in her own housewifely apron. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dining-room, where Julie, housewifely girl that she was, brewed golden coffee and made toast with no aid ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... call such "Marthas," and make light of the fact that we have loaded ourselves down with such heavy burdens, and take comfort in the thought that one of the women whom Jesus loved was in the same condemnation; but we forget that her anxious housewifely cares were for Jesus. Dare we say ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... lives,—it was the dark figure in a distant prison. This it was that saddened the souls of the two children with a gloom which no sunshine could dispel. When on Fridays Ephraim returned, fatigued and weary from his work, to the home over which Viola presided with such pathetic housewifely care, no smile of welcome was on her face, no greeting on his. Ephraim, 'tis true, told his sister where he had been, and what he had done, but in the simplest words there vibrated that tone of unutterable sadness which has its ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... aesthetical part of man and reduces Nature to a uniform drab would seem to have been Bernard Barton. His verse certainly infringed none of the superstitions of the sect; for from title-page to colophon, there was no sin either in the way of music or color. There was, indeed, a frugal and housewifely Muse, that brewed a cup, neither cheering unduly nor inebriating, out of the emptyings of Wordsworth's teapot. How that little busy B. improved each shining hour, how neatly he laid his wax, it gives us a cold shiver to think of,—ancora ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... wet, and little puddles of water trailed along the carpet as Peterkin carried her into the sitting room, where he was about to lay her down upon the delicate satin couch, when his wife's housewifely instincts were ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... middle of the kitchen, flushing right up to the soft tendrils of hair that curled about her forehead. It was weeks since Dan had offered to relieve her of any of her housewifely tasks, although at one time he had been wont to hurry home, if he could manage to do so, on purpose to help her. Dozens of times they had laid the table together, punctuating the process with jokes and gay little bursts of laughter and an odd kiss or two thrown in to sweeten the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... drop from fatigue, are spent in mending and patching. The day is one long GRIND, without rest or enjoyment, or the pleasure of chance intercourse with cultivated people. The few visitors who have "happened in" are the thrifty wives of prosperous settlers, full of housewifely pride, whose one object seems to be to make Mrs. H. feel her inferiority to themselves. I wish she did take a more genuine interest in the "coming-on" of the last calf, the prospects of the squash crop, and the yield and price of butter; but though she has learned to make ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Woodford would gladly not have been bound to her colander and preserving-pan in her still-room, where her guest's housewifely mind found great scope for inquiry and comment, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first time he would see her at her best; might not her prettiness—bah! the thought disgusted her! That she, a typical, housewifely, modest New England woman should be calculating on her beauty to draw money from a man's pocket, even though that man were her husband, seemed to her immoral. She would plainly and directly ask him to pay the money, and there was the end of it. She opened the front ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... in her eyes, I was heartily welcome to, if I were not too proud to accept them, as, in wearing them, she said, I should make her think that she yet had poor Ted to comfort her, and I would take his vacant place in her heart. The good woman, however, with housewifely care, brought up to the room a large tub with a plentiful supply of hot water and soap, so that I might have "a thorough wash," as she called it, before putting on the clean clothes. Thus, through the kind hospitality of brother and sister alike, before the day was out, I was as ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... breakfast dishes, and set the cabin in order according to her housewifely instincts. Then she curled up in the chair which Bill had painstakingly constructed for her especial comfort with only ax and knife for tools. She was working up a pair of moccasins after an Indian pattern, and she grew wholly absorbed in the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... nearly did when they all came scrambling down the stairs a little later. Such a Christmas had never been known in the Joseph household before. Maggie clasped her doll with shining eyes, Mollie looked at the workbasket that her housewifely little heart had always longed for, studious Jimmy beamed over the books, and Ted and Hal whooped with delight over the skates. And as for the big box of good things, why, everybody appreciated that. That Christmas was one to date ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not thinking about the presents, or the housewifely details of the wedding. Her breath was coming quicker, and the faint blush on her smooth cheeks had deepened to crimson. She knew that a critical moment was approaching. With a steady hand she wrote the last name on her list and drew ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pleasant pastime known as "pottering." The instinct to drive nails, put up shelves, and to improve generally his local habitation is as firmly seated in the masculine nature as housewifely characteristics are ingrained in the feminine soul. Never before having had a home of his own, Harlan was enjoying it ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... suppose you didn't notice the drawers," he added, at her look of inquiry. He went into her room, and pushing aside the valance of the lower berth showed four deep drawers below the bed; the charming snugness of the arrangement brought a light of housewifely joy to the ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... mind so deeply, and the long waiting to see Bodart often robbed her of so much time, that her housewifely and maternal duties suffered, yet her patient husband endured it a long while indulgently. But once, when he summoned up courage and cautiously blamed her, she quietly admitted that he was right, but added that she had never concealed from him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... from the very threshold of Robert Burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling visitors, and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we went into the back-door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen. It showed a deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there were three or four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years old, held a baby in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the people of the house, and gave us what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to welcome us, and housewifely Dutch angels were beating up the fat, white cloud-pillows before tucking them under the horizon out of sight. Even the air seemed to have been washed till it glittered with crystalline clearness that brought ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... some time. It was quite clear that she could not make head or tail of my announcement. She had put some order into the drawing-room by now, her housewifely instincts having got the better of her dismay; and it no longer bore that deserted look, like a furnished house long to let, which I had noticed on my first visit after the catastrophe. But now that I had seen Strickland in Paris it ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... needed to remain single in Stokebridge longer than she chose, for so noteworthy were they for their housewifely qualities that the young pitmen of the villages round thought themselves fortunate indeed if they could get a wife from Stokebridge. Bill Cummings, Fred Wood, and several others of Jack's boy friends, were viewers or under-managers ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... clambered Over his knees, and waged a mimic warfare across them, Made him their battle-ground, and won and lost kingdoms upon him. Airily to and fro, and out of one room to another Passed his cousin, and busied herself with things of the household, Nonchalant, debonair, blithe, with bewitching housewifely importance, Laying the cloth for the supper, and bringing the meal from the kitchen; Fairer than ever she seemed, and more than ever she mocked him, Coming behind his chair, and clasping her fingers together Over his eyes in a girlish caprice, and crying, "Who is it?" ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... will take my finger and the ring in this way, and deck it out with a housewifely touch and a tenderness of expression about his mouth, as sailors do: kiss it, perhaps, with a simple air, as if we were children playing an idle game, and not at the very height of observation and envy by a great crowd saying, "Ah! they are ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the Bishop, to which she had assented but indifferently. She was secretly bound to another, on whose career she had staked all her happiness. Having thus other interests she evinced to-day the ease of one who hazards nothing, and there was no sign of that preoccupation with housewifely contingencies which so often makes the hostess hardly recognizable as the charming woman who graced a friend's home the day before. In marrying Swithin Lady Constantine had played her card,—recklessly, impulsively, ruinously, perhaps; but she had ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... You housewifely good women, who not preside over the confectionary, (henceforth commissioners of the Treasury) be so good as to dispense the sugar-plumbs of the Government with a more impartial and ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... discovered that she was gasping in the dull, chill air. She leaned against the balustrade of the stairs, limp, inert, as if every impetus of vigor had deserted her. But it would never do for her to faint, she reflected. She must act for others, with just judgment, with foresight, with effective housewifely care, and ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... about it: and now both the Sister and the Curate united in telling her that she ought not, as long as it was possible, to give up this means of improving herself, as well as lessening the family burthen. To give up her education now would be to sink into a housewifely drudge, who would hardly be able to maintain herself when the younger ones would be getting out into the world; and as Geraldine must stay at home to be a companion to her mother, there was no need for her being also always in attendance, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... come to love that little room of hers, love it for its dear simplicity, the white muslin curtains, the rag mat, the patch-quilt on the bed; those daily duties of a woman, that she had never done before, that she had at first looked at askance, brought now a sense of keen, housewifely pride; the gentle patience of the Patriarch, his love for her, his simple trust in her had found a quick and instant response in her own heart, and daily her affection for him had grown; and there was Thornton—this man beside her, whose companionship somehow she seemed to crave for, who, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... strong string—one that can't slip," said Ruth, in her thoughtful, housewifely way. "Let me ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... and beyond lay, niched under the grand staircase, a tiny light closet, a passage-room, where my mother put a bed for a man-servant, not liking to leave me entirely alone on the ground floor. It led to a passage to the garden door, also to my mother's den, dedicated to housewifely cares and stores, and ended at the back stairs, descending to the servants' region. This was very old, handsomely vaulted with stone, and, owing to the fall of the ground, had ample space for light on the north side,—where, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boarding-place; but as soon as he mentioned his name, the keepers, male and female, suddenly discovered that they had no rooms. Night was near, and his courage was beginning to fail him, when he at last found a thrifty gentlewoman who gave far more attention to her housewifely cares than to the current news. She readily received the well-dressed stranger, and showed him to his room. Haldane did not hide his name from her, for he resolved to spend the night in the street before dropping a name which now seemed to turn people from him as if contagion ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Kittie complacently, and turning her broom right end up, in a spasm of housewifely care. "You better go to work and do yours over; that's in ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... pretty housewifely bustle which he had admired years ago, rang the bell and made ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... held it up in front of his face, but the most of it being hole, it did not hide the eyes that twinkled so merrily that my housewifely reproof was effectually silenced. I took the sorry remnant and began washing the dishes, mentally resolving, and carrying out my resolution the next day, to send him a respectable dish-cloth. Prosaic, if you will, but does not his own Emerson say ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... scented a fact. 'But what does she lecture you about? The dinner?' she asked, with an irrelevant recollection of Drake's impression of Clarice as one little adapted for housewifely duties, and not rightly to be ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... cheerfully acquiesced in them, and cheered and encouraged her by singing her one of his sweetest songs, telling her how dearly he loved her, how highly he esteemed her, and how truly happy he was that he had so pleasant and agreeable, and at the same time so housewifely, a companion. She appeared quite as well pleased to be appreciated as any wife or housekeeper of my acquaintance, and it made her labour a labour of love. We ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... crockery into the street, delighted at the smashing music which it makes, and stimulated by the approbation of the brothers Ochsenstein, who chuckle at him from over the way. The plates and dishes are flying in this way, when his mother returns: she sees the mischief with a housewifely horror, melting into girlish sympathy, as she hears how heartily the little fellow laughs at his escapade, and how ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... hedge-rows and sunny lanes, not a home such as Blanche's would be, with gorgeous surroundings and liveried servants everywhere, but such a home as makes a man better for living in it; a home where the housewifely Bessie was the presiding goddess, flitting about just as she was doing now, putting away the silver and china, brushing up the hearth, moving a chair here and another there, watering her pots of flowers in the conservatory, tea-roses and carnations and heliotrope ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... came in through the perilous passage of the reef of Bora Bora and dropped anchor off Vaitape village. Bihaura, with housewifely anxiety, could not get ashore too quickly to her house to prepare more abundance for us. While the launch was taking her and Tehei to the little jetty, the sound of music and of singing drifted across the quiet lagoon. Throughout the Society Islands ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... to do about supper?' returned Mollie with housewifely anxiety; 'we have such a nice supper, and Cyril will be so cold and hungry shut up in his room. We have made such a big fire, because he was going to ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devoting myself to Wolf Larsen's command, which was to make her comfortable. I bustled about in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotions for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen's private stores for a bottle of port I knew to be there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... Arghouse, Sir James returned his thanks, but he was going to walk up with Mr. Harold Alison, who was going to show him his workmen's reading-room, cottages, &c. Eustace looked about for someone to whom to resign the reins, but in vain, and we all had to set off, my housewifely mind regretting that time and Eustace had combined to make the luncheon a hot instead ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... meet a worse combination than a fairly spirited horse, a nervous woman, and a large basket of eggs. With housewifely instincts, the woman was sure to ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... her chin softly dropped on her chest, slept in the peace of her housewifely mind, and dreamed of her vegetable garden on the banks of the Loire, where ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... dearth—her wings to bear me up—her anchor wherewith to moor my bark of life wherever cast, and to the poor waif I cherished I owed this immeasurable good. Had Mrs. Clayton anticipated him with her infallible besom—that housewifely detective, that drags more secrets to light than ever did paid policeman—I should never have grasped this talisman of love and hope, never have waked up as I did wake up from that hour to the endurance which immortalizes endeavor, and ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Squire's bed. That was made of a brindle cow-skin with—the horns on. The little girl's fascinated gaze rested on these bristling horns and could not tear itself away. Across the foot of the Squire's bed lay a great iron bar; that was a housewifely scheme of his own to keep the clothes well down at the foot. But Patience's fertile imagination construed it into ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... in some Watteau festival, moss-roses in loosened garlands. Elsewhere a corner seemed to be reserved for the commoner kinds of lily; of a neat pink or white like rocket-flowers, washed clean like porcelain, with housewifely care; while, a little farther again, were others, pressed close together in a floating garden-bed, as though pansies had flown out of a garden like butterflies and were hovering with blue and burnished wings over the transparent shadowiness ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... shown over the flat by Stewart during Marie's temporary exile in the apartment across the hall, was captivated by the comfort of the little suite and by its order. Her housewifely mind, restless with long inactivity in a pension, seized on the bright pans of Marie's kitchen and the promise of the brick-and-sheetiron stove. She disapproved of Stewart, having heard strange stories of him, but there was nothing bacchanal or suspicious about this orderly ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... this sweet incense to a housewifely heart. She was being paid in the coin that women love best, and it was all the more precious to her because she had never expected ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe |
