"Ladylike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was there a Mrs Green, whose husband was first-lieutenant on board a man-of-war on the West Indian Station. Mrs Green was a quiet, ladylike little woman, rather pretty, very silent, and, as one would have thought, hardly adapted for the special intimacy of Mrs Greenow. But Mrs Greenow had found out that she was alone, not very rich, and in want of the solace of society. Therefore she had, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the heavy hammer. It gave her a pleasure akin to her experiments in jewelry, and it must be said the results were better. She used to show her visitors proudly the bit of wall she had laid up herself under the young mason's direction and assert that, instead of bookbinding or jewelry or other ladylike occupations, she meant to set up stone walls about Highcourt for her recreation. The Bellevue people considered her whim a harmless bit of eccentricity in the young mistress of Highcourt, and she was the object of many a good-humored joke about her new method of "beating the unions." Little did ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... got in her word first. "Pretty," she said, "but not in a ministerial way, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't call her ladylike." ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... discrimination and an unbiassed original judgment; at the same time her manner retained the delicate quiet which characterised all that belonged to her. She held her own over against Mr. Eberstein, but she held it with an exquisite poise of ladylike good breeding; and Mr. Eberstein was charmed with her. The talk lasted until it was broken up by Mrs. Eberstein, who declared ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... will be a chaperon, of course, she will permit the young ladies to entertain their friends in a quiet and ladylike manner until the porter starts cleaning up the bar in the morning. The inmates will of course be allowed to sign checks, but from visitors ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... ladylike in her manner, but a little bit drunk. It is singular how drunken people will come hundreds of miles to converse with me. I have often been alluded to as the "drunkard's friend." Men have been known to get intoxicated and come a long ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... shy and ladylike of trees, 50 Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... her, and are proud to have such a mistress. But she is convinced at last, I believe, that she will never get me to do as she pleases; and therefore hates me so heartily, that she can hardly keep her ladylike hands off me. I do not think I have been unreasonable; I have not found it difficult to obey others that were set over me; but when I found almost her every requirement part of a system for reducing me to a slavish obedience, I began to lay down lines of my own. I resolved ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... Mr. Quilty, looking him sternly in the eye, "I hope th' dirty blagyards is caught red-handed and soaked hard for th' shameless and di'bolical atrocity they have perpetuated. For such abandoned miscreants hangin' is too dom ladylike a punishment. I want yez to understand me official sintimints in me official capacity clearly. Yez may quote me exact words if ye ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... sentimental fool of a mother, had none, Oh! she had a vast fund of ordinary commonsense. Of that I can assure you. A bit of hard brain fibre from her father had counteracted any over-sentimental folly in the maternal heritage. And she came back from school a very ladylike little person. If pressed, she could reel off all kinds of artificial scraps of knowledge, like a dear little parrot. But she had never heard of Karl Marx and didn't want to hear. She had a vague notion that International Socialism was a movement in favour of throwing bombs ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... him: "I wonder if she is as bold and forward as Mildred says she is. I wish she hadn't been so familiar with those motormen. That wasn't very ladylike to go up and engage them in conversation. Perhaps Mildred is right. You could hardly expect old Dick Buck's granddaughter to be very refined—but, gee, ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... do that part of the business!" decided Raymonde easily. "We'll stand in the background, and just look ladylike and well-mannered, and all ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... fresh, must have regarded her crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she herself was not a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she had in her appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike candor, and a ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... appeared ahead. Boyd jammed on the brakes with somewhat more than the necessary force, and Malone was thrown forward with a grunt. Behind him there were two ladylike squeals. ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "You're very ladylike, Fletcher, but as this isn't crewel-work or crochet you'll oblige me by being so rude as to bring that dummy off. Now, once more; put some snap into it! Get your hold, find your purchase, and then throw! Just imagine ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the lofty, of tenderness and independence, she had never ceased to be the Northwold standard of the 'real lady,' too mild and gracious to be regarded as proud and poor, and yet too dignified for any liberty to be attempted, her only fault, that touch of pride, so ladylike and refined that it was kept out of sight, and never offended, and everything else so sweet and winning that there was scarcely a being who did not love, as well as honour her, for the cheerfulness and ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was called to succeed her in charge of the Soldiers' Home at Washington. Of the efficiency and beneficence of her administration here for two and a half years there is ample testimony. Thoroughly refined and ladylike in her manners, there was a quiet dignity about her which controlled the wayward and won the respect of all. Her executive ability and administrative skill were such, that throughout the realm where she presided, everything moved with the precision and quietness of the most perfect machinery. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... threw it impatiently away. He had seldom been more perturbed. He sat with folded arms and knitted brows, thinking intently. The girl had told him distinctly that her name was Anna. Her whole conduct and tone had been modest and ladylike. He went over his interview with her again, their conversation at dinner-time. She had behaved in every way perfectly. His spirits began to rise. Drummond had made an abominable mistake. It was not possible for him to have been deceived. He drew ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Tyler really wrote it, expressing a little civil surprise at the style. I told them that I had heard it said that it must have been written by some of the gentlemen in the family, because it was generally understood that Mrs. Tyler was a very ladylike person. Some said, "It does us no harm to be reminded of our deficiencies; we need all the responsibility that can be put upon us." Others said, "It is certain we have many defects;" but Lord John Campbell said, "There is this difference between our evils and those of slavery: ours ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Fierce-lion who lived near came on horseback with his son into that wood to hunt. The son's name was Strong-lion. And the father saw the footprints of the queen and the princess, and he said to his son: "My son, these footprints are clean-cut and ladylike. Let us follow them. And if we find two women, you shall marry one ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... the stream a young man on horseback had come into view. Catching sight of Laura he slipped across a low boundary wall, his brown mare, a thoroughbred, changing her feet in a ladylike way on the worn stones, and trotted down to ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... proved to be an unimpeachable row of what Tuppence called "ladylike looking houses." They rang the bell at No. 27, and a neat maid answered the door. She looked so respectable that Tuppence's heart sank. Upon Tommy's request for Mr. Carter, she showed them into a small study ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... not flushed now, nor angry, nor forward. She was quiet and ladylike, while in the house of one of the most gentlemanly men of his time. If her husband had looked at her, he would have seen her so much like the woman he wooed and once dearly loved, that he might have somewhat changed ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... dear, I go about my duties with a most ladylike absence of passion, but when night comes I cross the sandy waste of the past and stretch out my hands to fondle the idea of perfect companionship. Our thoughts seem to be a reverberation of the same thunderous roll, and while they ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... produced a memorandum book, to see when Miss Minford took her last lesson; and, in order that she might read distinctly, drew out her eyeglasses, and adjusted them with a graceful movement of the arm and hand. Overtop thought that she handled the eyeglasses in a most ladylike manner; and that, when they were astride of her shapely nose, they ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the minister's family until they end up 's socks on the thirteenth baby. A joke's a joke, 'n' I c'n see the p'int o' a good joke 's quick 's any one, but I mus' say I fail to see any fun in such a remark. 'S far 's my observation's 'xtended, there ain't nothin' ladylike in the minister's wearin' my stockin's, nor yet in Mr. Kimball's entertainin' the whole c'mmunity with 'em. A'cordin' to my manner o' thinkin', a woman as 'll give away four pair o' brand-new hand-knit ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... Street, and furnish the rooms for her, and she is to earn her living by keeping lodgers. Now, if you really want to remain in London, Nina, don't you think that might be a comfortable home for you? She is a very nice, ladylike little woman; and she's a great friend of mine, too; she would do everything she could for you. There's a chaperon for you ready-made!—for I'm afraid she has only one lodger to look after as yet, though she has all the necessary servants, and the establishment is quite complete. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Owen's question, even yet, simple though it was. If the sight of her had brought back the past, what thronging memories crowded upon him at the sound of her voice—wooing, wilful, joyously insistent! But that she was so womanly and ladylike, and that he knew she was "only the sec'tary," he would have been ready to advance upon her with outstretched hands, and ask her if she had quite forgotten Tommy Dudgeon—her old friend, Tommy? As it was, he stood staring like one bewitched. Miss Owen, wondering at his silence, and his fixed gaze, ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of their sort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though she had not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good training from the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, and has a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she not so dislike the ways of an inn, and have such fear of the men that gaze ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... from the house of our friends, Law and Duncanson, where I make my home. Miss Duncanson, who is mistress of the house, is a very sprightly, sensible, ladylike woman. My remarks on this city ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... termed by Cato the 'chattering, finery-loving, ungovernable sex,' I despair to depict it. When returning north in the A.S.S. Winnebah, we carried on board a dark novice of the Lyons sisterhood. She looked perfectly ladylike in her long black dress and the white wimple which bound her hair under the sable mantilla. But the feminines on board the Senegal bound for Sierra Leone outrage all our sense of fitness by their frightful semi-European gowns of striped cottons and chintzes; by their ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... rein end and went on slowly. "Robbing a bank would be the quickest and easiest," she decided whimsically, as she neared the place where she always sheltered Pard. "But not so ladylike. I guess I'll write a book. It should be something real thrilly, so the people will rush madly to all the bookstores to buy it. It should have a beautiful girl, and at least two handsome men,—one with all the human virtues, and the other with all the arts of the devil and the ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... little less well-bred, I think she would have bridled. As it was, she really did smirk a little, in a ladylike way. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... a chestnut mare, a broken down racer, thorough-bred as Beeswing, but less fortunate in her life, and I fear not so happy occasione mortis: unlike the Duchess, her body was greater and finer than her soul; still she was a ladylike creature, sleek, slim, nervous, meek, willing, and fleet. She had been thrown down by some brutal half-drunk Forfarshire laird, when he put her wildly and with her wind gone, at the last hurdle on the North Inch at the Perth races. She was done for and bought for ten ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... see; you are thinking that it is—is not ladylike, that none of your lady-friends would do it if even if ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the colour element of vice is so oddly lacking in our life of to-day. We appear, one and all, to have been born at an advanced age and with ladylike manners, and we reach our years of indiscretion very slowly; and meanwhile we learn, too late, that prolonged adherence to morality trivialises the mind as hopelessly as a prolonged vice trivialises the countenance. I fear this has been said by someone else, my too impetuous Jill, and I hope not, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... "That's sayin' it ladylike," grinned the outlaw, "I told him Cinnabar was a friend of mine an' he was to keep off him, but Purdy, he's plumb disregardful of advice. Anyways, the woman's safe. Purdy's figurin' on leavin' her there while he dickers ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... girls talked about, thank you, Ewen!" His wife gave an angry dig to the word "my." "Everybody says what a nice ladylike girl Alice is. But Nora often gives me a deal of trouble—and if she takes to imitating Connie, and wanting to go about without a chaperon, I don't know what I shall do. My dear Ewen, do you know what I discovered ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... did not always interest her, although she never showed anything but the most ladylike attention. He often went away lamenting the destiny that had fashioned his nature to run in so small and rigid a groove. His happiness, therefore, did not consist in being with her, for then he was oppressed by a consciousness of not entirely pleasing her. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... defauts," and these latter could have no environment less critical and more congenial than that in which it had pleased her mother to place her. It was right and fitting that the wife of the reigning Talbot-Lowry of Mount Music, should inevitably lead the way at local dinner-parties; should, with ladylike inaudibleness, declare that "this Bazaar" or "Village Hall" was open. It was no more than the duty of Major Talbot-Lowry (D.L., and J.P.) to humanity, that his race should multiply and replenish the earth, and Lady Isabel had unrepiningly obliged humanity to ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted; and it became impossible to utter the speech, so easy of arrangement with no one to address it to. Margaret's low rich voice was softer than usual; her manner more gracious, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... She did not mind Tavia's usual queer sayings, but she knew perfectly well that her aunt would not like such vulgar expressions. The boys might smile, but even they knew a girl should not forget to be ladylike in an ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... house, I got the Captain to speak to the head blacksmith about our horses, after which we went in to breakfast, when I saw his wife and daughter for the first time. They are both very ladylike women, and both natives of France. During the meal, I found Captain Sutter communicative on the subject of the discovery of the gold mines, which I was very glad of, as I was anxious to learn the true particulars of the affair, respecting which ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... to be waited on, and petted, and admired," Adele had stormed one day, in open rebellion, to her Aunt Sophy. "She uses it as an excuse for everything and has, ever since 'Gene and I were children. She's as strong as an ox." Not a very ladylike or ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... would sometimes have her ambitions to be ladylike, and once, when she had gone to a party in town and seen Virginia dancing while she sat against the wall, she had come home to throw herself upon ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... her life. She had an imperial sort of way of manoeuvring a frying-pan, which did one good to see. It is my belief, that if that woman had been called upon to groom a horse, she'd have done it in a ladylike way. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... gentleman, but if I had had the very lovely lorgnette that has descended to me from my Great Grandmamma, the wife of the old Flanders grandsire, I would have settled the matter with very little trouble in an entirely ladylike manner. As it was, I did not know what to do but stand and then stand longer. Just at the moment when I began to feel that I would either be forced to forget that I was a gentleman or to faint as a lady, a very nice man touched me on the ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... objectionable. I had asked her permission to dedicate the play to her, which she had granted; and though she failed to convince me that a young-lady element had any business whatever in a play, she very kindly allowed her name to adorn the title-page of my un-young ladylike drama. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... her forehead cleared, then her eyes glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty; before, she had only looked ladylike. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... girls are scarce. Really natural little girls are almost as scarce as real boys. Too many girls begin at a very early age to attempt to imitate the pride and vanity manifested by older girls and young ladies. It is by many supposed that to be ladylike should be the height of the ambition of girls as soon as they are old enough to be taught respecting propriety of behavior, which is understood to mean that they must appear as unnatural as possible in attempting to act like grown-up ladies. Many mothers who wish their daughters to be models ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... were here it would be a distraction. She was a very good child, and quite useful in the house. And while she was speaking she watched Kirsteen, and thought: 'She is very handsome, and altogether ladylike; only it is such a pity she wears that blue thing in her hair—it makes her so conspicuous.' And rather unexpectedly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to make me up a fancy name and make a repertation. They ain't goin' to call me 'Dusty Gudgeon' no more. Miss Louder tells me I can 'bant'—whatever that is—to take down my flesh, and mebbe you'll see me some day, Miss Lou, in a re'l ladylike part. An' I can always cry. Even Mr. Bane says I'm wuth my wages when it comes to the ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... And in the same way everybody is aware he would like to get married. Only he can't. Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years ago a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home to keep house for her brother, Fred, who had an engineering shop for small repairs by the water side. Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bungalow after dinner, and sitting for hours in the verandah saying nothing. The poor girl couldn't tell for the life of her ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... "I have no doubt it is pleasant to look on; but is it not rather too ladylike a pursuit for a ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the tombs which self-respecting tourists must see, even if they hurry over the inspection of carvings, cartouches, and representations of very small queens smelling very large lotuses (most Egyptian queens apparently spent much of their time, lightly clothed, and smelling lotuses, a ladylike pursuit for those about to have their portraits taken); in order to find time for the mummied cats, the bazaars, the silver scarves, the red and black pottery, and the images of wolves, crocodiles, and camels cheap enough to be freely bought for poor relations at ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... and Mrs. Jimmie simply smiled indulgently. While Jimmie and I reeled in our seats and clutched each other's sleeves and shrieked (in as ladylike a manner as we could), while tears poured down our cheeks and our ribs cramped and our breath failed. That is the way Jimmie and I enjoy things. That is also why we can stand it to travel in the same party, and not come home hating ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... country life her twenty-four years did not count more to her in wear and tear of feeling and the doubtful moulding of experience than if she had lived through one London season. She was a girl of acknowledged good sense, calm, equable, holding herself in the strictest leash of ladylike reserve, and governing all her emotions without trouble, patent or unconfessed. Hers was a character which would never floreate into irregular beauties to give her friends anxiety and crowd her life with embarrassing consequences. She despised ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... a ladylike thing to do in polite society. But there wasn't time to ask your permission or tell you why it was necessary. Well, after that little incident, Tracker and the horses and I got so mixed up with each other that we haven't hardly got untangled since. There ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... farmer in the late Mr. Marshall's parish. On discovering the identity of the English governess with the little girl who had admired the foals, lambs, and chickens in past times, Mrs. Morton gave invitations to tea. She was ladylike, the sons unexceptionable, and no objection could reasonably be made by the Misses Lang, though the acquaintance was ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... accustomed prop of authority beginning to crumble. Surely Pussy knew best about things like that! He would as soon have thought of interfering with her housekeeping as of instructing her in the details of ladylike conduct. And, indeed, he had not observed that Gabriella was in the room until his wife, for her own purpose, had adroitly presented ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... no great things, they say-ladylike, but frightened. Her voice is lovely, and as to her looks-people rave about them. Tell me, she is not ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by the mother of a friend of mine—Mrs. Jackson was her name, a ladylike woman, but who appeared to me to be very old when I was a girl. Her husband was sailing master on board a man-of-war, and this is what took place once when she was on board with him. They were in port, and there was a large party ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... after the meal was over and satisfy her appetite; but to sit down with a party of ladies and gentlemen and make a good "square" meal, Mammy considered very ungenteel indeed. This idea she was always trying to impress upon the little girls, so as to render them as ladylike as possible in the years to come; and on this occasion, as there were quite a number of the families from the adjacent plantations present, she was horrified to see Dumps eating as heartily, and with as evident satisfaction, as if she ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... but the Bible, sermons, and the newspaper. She was very sincere and devout in her religion, and was remarkable for good sense and great strength of expression in writing and conversation. Though by no means pretty, she was exceedingly distinguished and ladylike both in appearance ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... of Paris and London; but I saw many rooms decorated within, exactly like those of an European petite maitresse. Little tables, looking and smelling like flower beds, portfolios, nick-nacks, bronzes, busts, cameos, and alabaster vases, illustrated copies of ladylike rhymes bound in silk, and, in short, all the pretty coxcomalities of the drawing-room scattered about with the same profuse and studied ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... which I might call grace swearing. 'Od's fish,' cried the king, when he saw the man climbing Salisbury spire; 'he shall have a patent for it—no one else shall do it.' One might call such little things Wardour Street curses. 'Od's bodkins' is a ladylike form, and 'Od's possles' a variety I met in the British Museum. Every gentleman once upon a time aspired to have his own particular grace curse, just as he liked to have his crest, and his bookplate, and his characteristic signature. It fluttered pleasantly into his conversation, as Mr. Whistler's ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... in search of its victims, and Jennings' boast that he had such a ladylike and beautiful woman in his possession brought numbers to the prison who begged of the jailer the privilege of seeing the slave-trader's prize. Many who saw her were melted to tears at the pitiful sight, and were struck with admiration at her intelligence; and, when ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... people who were like her, and in the shelter of their opinions and ideals. She did not contemn or exclude the people who were unlike her, but she had never had any more contact with them than she now had with the weather of the streets, as she sat, filling her large arm-chair full of her ladylike correctness, in the library of the handsome house her father had left her. The irruption of her brother's son and daughter into its cloistered quiet had scarcely broken its invulnerable order. It was right and fit they should be there after his death, and it was not strange that in the course ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wish to," said Edna, who, strange to say, could whistle like a blackbird. "You would only have people always telling you, it is not ladylike. I don't know I'm whistling half the time when mamma tells me not to. It ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... that we have been relieved from a serious scruple by discovering that silly novels by lady novelists rarely introduce us into any other than very lofty and fashionable society. We had imagined that destitute women turned novelists, as they turned governesses, because they had no other "ladylike" means of getting their bread. On this supposition, vacillating syntax, and improbable incident had a certain pathos for us, like the extremely supererogatory pincushions and ill-devised nightcaps that are offered for sale ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... little shiver, and then, though paler and evidently agitated, composed her tattered and dusty outer garments in a deft, ladylike way, and leaned back against the mountain side, He saw her also glance at his loosened shirt front and hanging neckerchief, and with a heightened color he quickly re-knotted it around his throat. They moved from the ledge toward the trail. Suddenly ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... a mean, old brute, but don't you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel my contract in a perfectly refined an' ladylike manner. Right now I start in bantin' and dietin' in the scientific-est manner an' the way I can lose three or four hundred pounds when I set out to do it is something grand. It won't be no time at all until I'm thin and ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... don't have to answer," said the judge, gallantly. "But alla same, Marie, you hadn't oughta used a gun on him. It—it ain't ladylike. Nawsir. Don't you do it again or I'll send you to Piegan City. Ten dollars or ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... the rights of labour and some for the rights of capital, and we have kept wondering if possibly a little something could not be done before long, possibly next year, in behalf of the huge, battered, helpless Public, that dear amorphous old ladylike Person doddering along the Main Street of the World, now being knocked down by one side and now by the other. It has almost looked, some days, as if both sides in the quarrel—Capital and Labour, really thought that the Public ought not to expect to be allowed to be out ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... to go! Her mother had fallen under the influence of Presbury—her mother, woman-like, or rather, ladylike, was of kin to the helpless, flabby things that float in the sea and attach themselves to whatever they happen to lodge against. Her mother ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... dressed. She had on a short dolman, and a pretty hat that shaded her forehead but fitted close round, and she wore long gloves that came up on her sleeves. She had a book from the library; she walked with a little bridling movement that he found very ladylike. 'Manda Grier tilted along between them, and her tongue ran and ran, so that Lemuel, when they came to Miss Vane's provision man's, could hardly get in a word to say that he guessed ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... quiet, also to stop their singing at night when my sleep was too much disturbed, but they were never offended. Presents of fruit, fish, mouse-traps, and other articles which they thought I might like, were constantly offered me. The women, free and easy in their manners, were ladylike to a surprising degree. In spite of having had ten teeth of the upper jaw filed down and the remainder coloured black by the constant chewing of betel, they are ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and indeed still a general thoroughfare. Here, in due time, she was brought to bed of a daughter, whom she christened by the name of Virginia; not so much out of respect to her last mistress, who bore that name, as because she considered it peculiarly ladylike and genteel. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... picture appealed to him very strongly. And Ruth appeared to him in a new light. It was perhaps the change in her voice that did it. She appeared to him at once as a creature very feminine and enchanting, and as a creature who could earn her own living in a manner that was both original and ladylike. A woman such as Ruth would be a delight without being a drag. And, truly, was she not a remarkable woman, as remarkable as he was a man? Here she was living amid the refinements of luxury. Not an expensive luxury (he had an excellent notion of the monetary ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... into a jerky gallop, attended by his self-appointed associates; and, considering that the young man was so stout, that the messenger boy considered it unprofessional to hurry, that the shop girl had doubts as to whether sprinting was quite ladylike, and that the two Bohemians were moving at a quicker gait than a shuffle for the first occasion in eleven years, the cavalcade made good time. The cab was still stationary when they arrived in ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... want a better one," Crestwick rejoined, grinning. "It strikes me you're looking prettier than you did; but that's perhaps because you have taken to wearing more ladylike clothes. As regards my appearance, I'll venture to say that yours will be very much the same before ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... anything but ladylike in their manner, declaring that the Salvation Army did not deserve a gift and should have nothing from them. The elevator man's suspicions were aroused. The ladies were attired in long automobile cloaks, and close caps with large veils, and he studied them carefully as he carried them down ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... his face with a ladylike handkerchief in memory of his danger and gratitude, Melchard ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... plunging and careering as if she had fins instead of sails. I was captain of her then and I know it. Well, your father bought her, and your mother threw a bottle of fine old port over her bow, and called her the Martha Hatton, and she has been a different ship ever since—ladylike and respectable, no more butting of the waves, as if she was a ram; she lifts herself on and over them and goes curtseying ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Sun spoke of Susan's "ungainly form rigged out in the bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule by her very motions on the platform."[38] Untruth was piled upon untruth until dignified ladylike Susan with her earnest pleasing appearance was caricatured into everything a woman should not be. Less courageous temperance women now began to wonder whether they ought to associate with such a strong-minded ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... my money. It wasn't me yer wanted. I might 'ave known that. It was the shop that yer were always talkin' about. An' if yer 'adn't walked in at that door just now, I should never 'ave suspected. Screamin' funny, ain't it? She wasn't much loss, but she was a thousand times better than the ladylike devil that killed her. I don't know 'ow the law stands in a case like this. Yer may be safe from that, but yer've got me ter deal with first. Yer led me on with yer damned airs to believe in things I've never ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... looked at her for a few moments attentively, and seemed to notice for the first time her ladylike appearance and manners; a sort of reserve crept over him at the conclusion of his scrutiny, for he made no answer to her question, but simply asked, with more formality than before, "Are you a relation—do you want an ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... was erratic and uncertain in her voyages. She evidently sailed to the principal islands of the South Seas, and did business with them all. From one of these voyages, Henry, her captain, returned with a wife—a dark-haired, dark-eyed, ladylike girl—for whom he built a small cottage beside his father's, and left her there while he was ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the dearest thing?" she whispered to a friend, as they descended the stairs. "There's something so soft and sweet and ladylike about her, as if nobody could be slangy or loud before her, you know. Yet she isn't a bit dull; she just sparkles when you get her interested and happy. I do want her to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... carriage. Adj. fashionable; in fashion &c. n.; a la mode, comme il faut[Fr]; admitted in society, admissible in society &c. n.; presentable; conventional &c. (customary) 613; genteel; well-bred, well mannered, well behaved, well spoken; gentlemanlike[obs3], gentlemanly; ladylike; civil, polite &c. (courteous) 894. polished, refined, thoroughbred, courtly; distingue[Fr]; unembarrassed, degage[Fr]; janty[obs3], jaunty; dashing, fast. modish, stylish, chic, trendy, recherche; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... for thinking." Then, his wrath gathering emphasis as he went on: "The longer I live the plainer I see Shakespeare was right—what fools these mortals be, and all that. There's that Haggage woman—speech-making through the country like a hiatused politician. It may be philanthropic, but it ain't ladylike—no, begad! What has she got to do with Juvenile Courts and child-labour in the South, I'd like to know? Why ain't she at home attending to that crippled boy of hers—poor little beggar!—instead of flaunting through America ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... that coarseness?" he thought. "Not from her mother, certainly. She seems very gentle and ladylike. It must be from the Worthingtons," and the doctor wondered where he had heard that name before, and why it affected him rather unpleasantly, bringing with it memories of Lily. "Poor Lily," he sighed mentally. "Your love would have made me a better man if I had not cast it ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... herb bed. But such are mere appetizers for the feast. The next course is the peas. He can go down a row of peas that are about to set their flat pods swelling to become fat pods and eliminate everything but a stubble of tough butts that have been shorn of their ladylike and smiling greenness. Pea vines in the garden always seem such gentle ladies, clad in a fabric of soft, semitransparent green, nodding and smiling, slender, tall and sweet. But when the woodchuck romps back up the row nothing is to be ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... child. But she overdid it. She hadn't allowed—none of us except Viola had allowed—for his appalling sensitiveness. The poor chap told me afterwards that he could bear up against the Canon's stiff face and what he called Mrs. Thesiger's ladylike refinements of repudiation, and the poker that Victoria had swallowed, but that that kid's kindness, coming on the top of it all, floored him. He took her hand (I think he squeezed it), and his mouth opened, but he couldn't speak; ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... full-length portrait of that delightful Countess d'Aulnois, to whom we all owe our earliest and most brilliant glimpses of fairy-land; something of her gravely-pleasant countenance, plain, but refined and ladylike, with that kindly mystery in her side-long glance and uplifted finger, which indicated the approaching climax of a tale ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... my class. I had a sort of idea that my early training had accustomed me to a degree of artistic culture that I could not easily find in a working girl, and that would be quite natural to Marian. I soon found that she had the keenest sense of what was ladylike, and no sense of what was beautiful at all. A drawing, a photograph, or an engraving sensibly framed without a white mount round it to spoil it pained her as much as my wrists without cuffs on them. No mill girl could have been less in sympathy with me on the very points for which I had preferred ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Mother, the Abbess, was very infirm, and could not get up from her chair, but she spoke very politely and ladylike to me in French. She has been forty years in her present situation, and comes from Bretagne. The chaplain of the Convent is also an old Frenchman, and there are several other French nuns amongst them—one who had been condemned to be guillotined in the Revolution, and was set at liberty just at ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... he has been reading the latest novel by "JOHN STRANGE WYNTER," called, The Other Man's Wife, as the French would observe, "without pleasure." As a rule he rather enjoys the works of the Author of Bootle's Baby, and other stories of a semi-ladylike semi-military character; but the newest tale is one too many for him. The "man" is a mixture of snob and cad,—say "a snad,"—the "other man" a combination of coward and bully, the "wife" a worthy mate to both of them. The plot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... for a good while and I still possess her letters somewhere; I see in memory that large and bold handwriting, often only two words to a line, on the high-class slate-coloured paper. The sums she spent on writing materials! It was one of her many ladylike traits. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... of gas, was as clear as it would have been in broad daylight. I ran to my own room, and flung the bag upon the table. Then I untied the cord which bound it at the neck, and counted its contents. There were twenty notes of the Bank of England for one thousand pounds each, tied up in one little ladylike bundle with a bit of narrow pink silk ribbon. There were thirty-eight notes of five hundred pounds each, tied in the same delicate and feminine fashion. Then there were notes of one hundred and of fifty, to the value of seven hundred pounds. And at the bottom of ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think last winter was so really good," she went on; "I should be sorry to break up what ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... attainment of outward good would seem to be its suffocation and death. Why does the painting of any paradise or Utopia, in heaven or on earth, awaken such yawnings for nirvana and escape? The white-robed harp-playing heaven of our sabbath-schools, and the ladylike tea-table elysium represented in Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics, as the final consummation of progress, are exactly on a par in this respect,—lubberlands, pure and simple, one and all.[7] We look upon them from this ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... by two or three French officials attended by an escort of Annamese policemen. These latter had a decidedly ladylike, genteel air with their hair smoothly brushed and twisted in a low knot at the back of the neck, the whole bound round with a black kerchief laid in neat folds. Their uniform was of dark blue woollen set off by putties of a lighter blue, and their appearance was decidedly ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... amiable rather ladylike person, with small hands and feet and well-arranged curly hair. He was quick and clever and work sat lightly upon him. Quiet and good natured, when necessity arose he never failed to assert his authority. We all respected him. His young wife was pretty and pleasant, which ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... would laugh at me well if they saw me eating bread and milk for my luncheon. I think myself a bit of something light and nice, like eclairs or a charlotte russe, is ever so much more ladylike and nice.' ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... old woman. [Female animal] hen, bitch, sow, doe, roe, mare; she goat, Nanny goat, tabita; ewe, cow; lioness, tigress; vixen. gynecaeum[obs3]. estrogen, oestrogen. consanguinity &c. 166[female relatives], paternity &c. 11. lesbian, dyke[slang]. V. feminize. Adj. female, she-; feminine, womanly, ladylike, matronly, maidenly, wifely; womanish, effeminate, unmanly; gynecic[obs3], gynaecic[obs3]. Pron. she, her, hers.' Phr. "a perfect woman nobly planned" [Wordsworth]; "a lovely lady garmented in white" [Shelley]; das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan [Ger][Goethe]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... my word!" answered I, rather slily; for I was thinking all the while how "Somebody" was a thousand times more beautiful, simple, and ladylike. ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... surprised, therefore, when a young man entered the room who bore out somewhat the picture they had conjured. He was tall and slender, very dapper and rather ladylike in his bearing. His alert, dark eyes were set too close together, and his face had a narrow, sinister look that made them all feel uncomfortable. He spoke with a decided English accent, in a light, flippant voice which sent ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... and without an instant's delay hurried across the room and retired by the half-open door. Immediately from the narrow staircase there arose a series of those acclaims that usually attend the progress of royalty, and, in even an intenser degree, of rats. There came a masculine shout, a shrill and ladylike scream, a howl from Mary Ann Whooly, accompanied by the clang and rattle of a falling coal box, and then Lady Purcell, pale and breathless, appeared at the doorway of ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... attempts to launch their children successfully. Sometimes they attempt unwisely to thrust a child into an occupation merely because "it is ladylike," or the "vacation is long," or "the pay is good," regardless of the child's aptitude or limitations. Quite often they await inspiration in the form of some revelation of the child's desires, regardless of the demand of society for such service ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... didn't, I can tell you: she had more spirit. We both went to a church school—that was part of the ladylike airs we gave ourselves to be superior to the children that knew nothing and went nowhere—and we stayed there until Liz went out one night and never came back. I know the schoolmistress thought I'd soon follow her example; for the clergyman was always warning me that Lizzie'd end ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... inmate of Mr. and Mrs. Mervyn, old friends of my father. The latter is precisely a good sort of woman;—ladylike and housewifely, but, for accomplishments or fancy—good lack, my dearest Matilda, your friend might as well seek sympathy from Mrs. Teach'em,—you see I have not forgot school nicknames. Mervyn is a different—quite a different being from ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... know them all; a most delightful family; Mrs. Bland is a charming woman, so very ladylike. It's my good luck to be under the Dean's jurisdiction; I think I shall pull with ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... that. A woman with a good jointure is a doosid deal easier a profession than the law, let me tell you that. Look out; I shall be on the watch for you: and I shall die content, my boy, if I can see you with a good ladylike wife, and a good carriage, and a good pair of horses, living in society, and seeing your friends, like a gentleman. Would you like to vegetate like your dear good mother at Fairoaks? Dammy, sir! life, without money and the best society ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stammer out an apology. We were near the house of lawyer Van Beek, where Miss Roselaer was going; and as we took leave of each other she warmly pressed my hand, thanking me for my protection and presence of mind, but added that 'such conduct was scarcely ladylike in the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... into an armchair, beckoning me to a footstool, and I began to talk unconscionably, she urging me on. She professed to know my writings—it was of course impossible that she should have seen those rare anonymous letters to the most ladylike of Boston newspapers: she touched my dearest hobby, that republics and governments generally must be judged not by their politics but by the amenity of the social life they foster. Feeling that this was witchcraft or divination even more questionable, and dreading she had another Giorgione to ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... with her beautiful small hand she would clasp a delicate, little, golden-hued love of a fish and eat it as elegantly and as innocently as though it were a Naples biscuit. But alas! it was after all a raw fish; and all I can say is, that Fayaway ate it in a more ladylike manner than any ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... an idea or two," and Jet uttered aloud a dozen or so crackling syllables that sounded as though they could have been ladylike profanity. Whatever they were, Byuk jumped, too, and tuned ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... party of them up here, and I thought the difference was all to her advantage. She looked a natural, healthy girl; they looked like a set of overdressed dolls, afraid to move or to talk loud, or to stretch their mouths when they smile; very ladylike and nice, no doubt, but you will see Millicent will throw them into the shade when she is once past the tomboy age. Leave her alone, Mrs. Cunningham; a girl is not like a fruit tree, that wants pruning and training from its first year; it will be quite time to get her into shape ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... actress, in a Royal fringe and a tight bodice with short sleeves, who had once been a celebrity, though no-one remembered for what. Miss Myra Mooney, formerly a beauty, had known her days of success. She had been the supreme performer of ladylike parts. She had been known as the very quintessence of refinement. It was assumed when she first came out that a duke would go to the devil for her in her youth, and that in her late maturity she would tour the provinces with ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... The day after you went, came some beautiful pigeons. I sent word back that you were no longer here to enjoy his gifts, and the next day he came to see me. He has shown himself very kind. And all this, dear Ellen, had for its immediate cause your proper and ladylike behaviour in the store. That thought has been sweeter to me than all the old gentleman's birds and fruit. I am sorry to inform you that, though I have seen him so many times, I am still perfectly ignorant ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell |
