"Presentable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I worked again, to provide myself with money. I bought new clothes and made myself presentable. When my appearance accorded better with my plan, I paraded Paris, seeking ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... limits. I draw the line at convents. Go and get it over, and if the child is presentable you can bring her back to tea. I gather that Mary is anticipating a complete failure on our part to sustain the situation and is prepared to deputise. She has already ransacked Au Paradis Des Enfants for suitable bribes wherewith to beguile her infantile affection. I understand ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... to his boot-cleaning, singing softly. She touched his thick hair, and he kissed her fingers. He worked away at her shoes. At last they were quite presentable. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... the Gospel was NOT preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices. That of all wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the Pestilence warned us to set right. And that no Post- Office Order to any amount, given to a Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be presentable on the Last Great ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... Ruth Brown cannot master; and what in Benedick, her masculine counterpart, beyond the power of Moore to conceive and render? It is chiefly girlish beauty and simple sweetness that Hero requires, so she shall be Edith Grey. Claudio, Leonato, Don John, Pedro,—we have clean-limbed, presentable fellows that will look and speak them all well; and as for lumbering Dogberry, Abbot, with his fine sense of the ludicrous, will carry it out in the best manner. A dash of the pencil here and there through ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... "I hope he is presentable," she added. She knew that she could trust her husband ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... "Not at all presentable, papa. You look just as one might expect you to do—black with smoke and dust and cinders, as if you had traveled in the train ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... be thoroughly investigated," said Mr Rebble; "but be quick now and make yourselves presentable. I shudder at what the Doctor would say if he saw you all in this condition. ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... agreed. "We shall have to coal when we arrive," he observed mournfully. "That'll take us two hours, and by the time we've finished, made fast to the buoy, had our baths, and made ourselves fairly presentable, it'll be two o'clock. I take it we go to sea at the usual ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... being preached, it is useless to say that it is worthy of being practised. The statement will be meaningless, except to those for whom it is superfluous. It is therefore essential to the moral end that in some way or other it be generally presentable, so that its excellence shall appeal to some common sense in man. And again, be it observed, that we are demanding no mathematical accuracy. We demand only that the presentation shall be accurate enough to let us recognise its corresponding fact ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... may alight on their tough skins without being felt. Mr. Lampard relates that on one occasion a number of Baiga men were supplied by the Mission under his charge with large new cloths to cover their bodies with and make them presentable on appearance in church. On the second Sunday, however, they came with their cloths burnt full of small holes; and they explained that the damage had been done at night while they were ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... mile of a noted river, but, by force of the law of hospitality, as it were, the stretch of water bordering the lawn was a finny sanctuary. Once, he halted, and looked fixedly at a dormer window in a cottage just visible above the trees on the opposite slope. Such a highly presentable young man might well expect to find a dainty feminine form appearing just in that place, and eke return the greeting of a waved hand. But the window remained blank—windows refused to yield any information ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... stand up, even with the aid of the life-lines and the rails, and all of them retreated to the boudoir and music-room. None of them had been introduced to the strangers; for they had asked to be excused, as they were not in a presentable condition. ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... leave at dawn. I'll come to you to-night in the coulee, and we'll make our final plans. My brain is a little muddled now, and I've got to clear it, and make myself presentable before supper. We must not let Joanne know. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... alike was deserted, and becoming gloomy in the closing down of night. Dorothy remained hidden in the cabin, until about the time of our approach to the rude landing at Travers' plantation. Whether this isolation arose from an effort to make herself more presentable, or a desire to avoid further contact with the Spaniard, was a question. When she finally emerged at Roger Fairfax's call, and crossed the deck to where the men were, there was no alteration in her dress, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Then you have just the one pair of new nankeen trousers, last year's trousers are tight for you; you will be obliged to have clothes made in Paris, and Paris prices are not like Angouleme prices. You have only two presentable white waistcoats; I have mended the others already. Come, I advise you to ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... he had told me many anecdotes of "Hell Roaring Bill Jones," and had said I should see him. But it turned out that Hell Roaring Bill had begun to celebrate the coming of the President too early in the day, and when we reached Medora he was not in a presentable condition. I forget now how he had earned his name, but no doubt he had come honestly by it; it was a part of his history, as was that of "The Pike," "Cold Turkey Bill," "Hash Knife Joe," and other classic heroes of ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... Sunday all through the year; while a third provided that all such as were of the craft were to receive at least sixpence a quarter from each customer who desired to be shaved weekly in his chamber or house. One shave per week does not coincide with our modern notions of what is attractive and presentable in the outer man, but the same rule prevailed at Cambridge. The statutes of St. John's College in the latter university affirmed: "A barber is very necessary to the college, who shall shave and cut once a week the head and beard of the Master, Fellows, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... delightfully Oklahomite title of Wild Bill McLean, were wild enough in all conscience; but they left very little of my friend's illusion that members of the Upper Ten could not be accused of crimes. Nero and Borgia were quite presentable people compared with Senator Hamon when Wild Bill McLean had done with him. But the difference was deeper, and even in a sense more delicate than this. There is a certain tone about English trials, which does at least begin with a certain scepticism about people prominent in public ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... discommoded by personal idiosyncrasies. The details that go to compose this or that gentleman's appearance—such as the little wrinkles around his eyes, and the way his hair grows, and the special convolutions of his ears—all these, presentable on canvas, or evocable by words, are not right matter for the chisel or for the mould and furnace. Translated into terms of bronze or marble, howsoever cunningly, these slight and trivial things ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... suitcase she carefully put in the two bowls. From a drawer in the library table she purloined a photograph that she had discovered there when she had dusted the room in the morning, trying to make it a bit more presentable before the master came down to breakfast. It was a picture of a handsome, soldierly looking man in an officer's uniform, with two children snuggling up to him. The children were Polly and Peter—some years younger but ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... slavery. If I could not induce these mounted travelers to stop with us, I generally persuaded them to sell their saddle animals. Thus, hiring negroes and buying mules, I gradually put the plantation in a presentable condition. While the cotton was being picked the blacksmith was repairing the plows, the harness-maker was fitting up the harnesses for the mules, and every thing was progressing satisfactorily. The gin-house was ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... politeness, read my note, and said how happy he should be to comply with the request it contained; "but," said he, "you must excuse me now. I have to finish my correspondence, get my breakfast, and make myself a little more presentable. Will you call again in ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... real as Richard Savage, with whom he is contemporary, and it must be admitted that he is a more presentable personage. What a jolly philosophy is his about the delights of beggary! It has all the humor of Rabelais with no touch of the Touraine grossness. It has something of the wisdom of Aurelius, only clad ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... crowd becomes crazed for the accomplishment of something that looks like murder. The injection of the minor prophets made a ludicrous ending of a thing that had at the beginning almost paralyzed me with fear. So the thing ended with the bully of the mess lying prostrate on his back. I was not presentable as a waiter for several days, but inside of an hour everybody on the ship knew what had happened, and for the second time in my life I was hailed as ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... farsighted! Who could have imagined that he would become so famous all in a moment? I must confess that when you wrote to me that letter telling me of your engagement, and how happy you were, I was a little cross. I could not clearly see you the wife of a parson, even so presentable a parson as Mr. Holland. Oh, of course I wrote you the usual exuberant letter—what would be the good of doing anything else? But now that he has become famous—Oh, I want you to bring him with you to my first ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... whose family opulence grew out of the only merchantable article a Hebrew is never known to seek profit from, thought she could be made presentable in the first circles if taken in hand in good season. So it came about that, before many weeks had passed over her as a scholar in the great educational establishment, she might be considered as on the whole the most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Benson decided that he simply could not go to the Naval Academy presenting any such grotesque picture as he did now. Yet he had no money about him with which to purchase more presentable clothes in town. So he formed ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... items ostentatiously on her little gloved fingers 'First, my dear, I shall dress him properly. At present his raiment is a disgrace, and he wears a dress-shirt like a crumpled sheet of the Pioneer. Secondly, after I have made him presentable, I shall form his manners ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... and stood, clean and combed and straight on his pins, his chest heaving as he glanced around a kitchen which was shipshape, and upon his aged friend, who was as presentable as possible, it occurred to him that when a caller happened in this morning—Mrs. Kukor, Father Pat, or Cis; or when he, himself, fetched King Arthur, or Mr. Roosevelt, or Robinson Crusoe, no excuses of any kind would have to be made. He and his ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... are we to know how far one generation is worse than generations which have gone before it? Men are, after due time, forgiven for this defiance of social usage, and women who were barely presentable in youth become presentable enough by the time they reach middle age. People may seem to us to be very equally and justly mated who five-and-twenty years ago were the town's talk. It is practically impossible, therefore, to compare the actual ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... I fancy, a coat of yours for the purpose. Put them on when you go to your relations: it is astonishing what a difference it makes in the ideas people form of us, according as our coats are cut one way or another. I should not be presentable in London thus; and nothing is more true than that a tailor is often the making of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... insight and does not overlook whatever is good even in the most repulsive character is, perhaps, what the describers in fiction of modern society need even more than skill in dissection. To observe and dissect what is corrupt is easier than to make the record of corruption presentable. Mrs. Praed's own tale The Bond of Wedlock, with all its undoubted cleverness, its realism and dramatic strength, fails in its due impression as a picture of latter-day English morals because it is too sordid, too completely devoid of any of the ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... the seas, in the lakes, and in the rivers, there are fewer fish from year to year. In our Pestchanka, I remember, pike used to be caught a yard long, and there were eel-pouts, and roach, and bream, and every fish had a presentable appearance; while nowadays, if you catch a wretched little pikelet or perch six inches long you have to be thankful. There are not any gudgeon even worth talking about. Every year it is worse and worse, and in a little while there will be no ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... done.... I crossed the border at eight o'clock, unseen and unknown. Morestal's foot was on his native heath! At ten o'clock, I saw the steeple of Saint-Elophe from the Cote-Blanche and I cut straight across, so as to get home quicker. And here I am! A bit tired, I admit, but quite presentable.... Well, what do you say to old Morestal ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... comes from the pen of G.W. Cable, under the title of "The Negro Question," puts old truth in a new dress, and renders it more attractive and presentable. If any man has the right to write upon this "Negro Question," it is Mr. Cable. If I had to prepare a liturgy for the Congregational churches, I would put in it the following petition: "From the superficial views and misleading statements of tourists through the South, or those ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... proceeded to spread the table with a white cloth and napkins, arrange the best chairs, and make the kitchen as presentable as I could with lamps, while Ricka went to work at the range. We had a passable supper, but not nearly so good as we usually have, for the official had not only taken us by surprise, but had come unbidden, and was not, (by the express orders of the business ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... you know, but when Mabel's rose-cold developed she decided that we must go to the seashore, even though we did die of lonesomeness. And here we find you—or you find us. The sea air will make Mabel presentable in a day ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... Revolutionary officers is called, what matchless figures file past the mind's eye! We see stalwart Ethan Allen entering Ticonderoga too early in the morning to find its commander in a presentable condition, and demanding possession "in the name of Almighty God and the Continental Congress "—destined, himself, in a few months, to be sailing down the St. Lawrence in irons, bound for long ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... intimate doubts as to the propriety of Nate's standing on the table-cloth and sitting on the toast-rack. And then Moppet was at that baby again, dropping very cold pennies down his neck. They must be made presentable for supper, too, Moppet and Nate and Methuselah,—Methuselah, Nate, and Moppet; brushed and washed and dusted and coaxed and scolded and borne with. There was no end to it. Would there ever be any end to it? Sharley sometimes asked of her weary thoughts. Sharley's life, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... reality he was endeavouring to run the overnight's proceedings through his mind. The more he thought of Amelia's winning ways, the more satisfied he was that he had made an impression, and then the more vexed he was at having his spectacles broken: for though he considered himself very presentable without them, still he could not but feel that they were a desirable addition. Then, too, he had a splitting headache; and finding that breakfast was not till ten and might be a good deal later, all things considered, he determined to be off and follow ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... penniless cousin, a dependent, a hanger-on, do you understand? And you—Ah, how—how funny! Why, Margaret always gives me her cast-off finery, the scraps, the remnants, the clothes she is tired of, the misfit things,—so that she won't be ashamed of me, so that I may be fairly presentable. She gave me eight of those handkerchiefs. I meant to pick the monograms out with a needle, you understand, because I haven't any money to buy such handkerchiefs for myself. I remember now,—she gave them to me on that day—that first ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... rambles, and taken a fancy to it. At first I certainly thought we could never make it our home, it was so dilapidated and tumble-down; but by the time winter came on we had had several repairs done and alterations made, and the rooms really became quite presentable. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and there was no note of apology in her voice as she made the explanation, 'my girls are accustomed to do a good deal of the house-work. We have only one servant, and she is not very presentable when she has ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... is very much tired,' said Mr. Dutton. 'There was a good deal to be done to make him presentable this morning. You must forgive me for sacrificing his curls, there was nothing else ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they were enabled to take shelter under an island more to the south than the one we gained. Here they remained for some time to refit, and thus were brought to our rescue just in time to preserve us from destruction. We were all tolerably recovered and presentable by the time we entered Port Royal harbour. Here we found the frigate almost ready for sea, and, to our satisfaction, Spellman with our first prize had arrived safely. Among those who most cordially welcomed me was ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... that any one with the least generosity of sentiment, might have remembered her praiseworthy efforts in her own behalf, and the long hours the young teacher had spent in the vain attempt to make her more presentable in the eyes of her friends, and argued that this did not seem compatible with such a grave accusation as was ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... for you." It was his mother calling from the door. He ran in through the kitchen, and hurried to make himself presentable for the table and their guest whom he ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... inexplicable in deciphering those strange advertisements which now and again appear in the newspapers. Let me therefore ask of you to bring your old skill to bear in the present case, and if you can make me anything like a presentable translation to send back to my friend the laird, you will ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... called out as Mrs. Bayliss passed through the hall, "come in here and help us dressmakers. Can't you rig up a costume for Dot that will be presentable to ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... give him a worse designation, but that is a manifest impossibility; for without the assistance of two good presentable members of your Estate, Alpha and Upsilon, he would be a mere nonentity—he it is that has dared to outdo all injuries that I have ever known, expelling me from the nouns and verbs of my inheritance, and hunting me out of my conjunctions and prepositions, till ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been shaved and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema became more confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was returning from adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found himself in Florence with nothing saved from the disaster but ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... puzzle, mainly, until they reached their street and crossed once more to go to the hotel. They registered, went to their room, and here Noll put in the next twenty minutes in making his clothes look presentable again. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... found themselves at opposite ends of the car, struggling severally with the problem of the morning's toilet. When the combat was ended, they were surprised at the decency of their appearance, and Isabel said, "I think I'm presentable to an early Broadway public, and I've a fancy for not going to a hotel. Lucy will be expecting us out there before noon; and we can pass the time pleasantly enough for a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was successfully achieved, there still remained the carcases of four lions, one leopard, and a python to be dealt with. It was consequently well on in the afternoon ere the somewhat disagreeable task was over, and the men were free to bathe, change their clothing, and generally make themselves presentable. This done, the Flying Fish was taken back to her former berth on the bush-encircled area of open ground, it having been unanimously agreed to spend a few days longer in so splendid a game country as this seemed to be. But all were agreed ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to a friend's coachman, a hard-working Englishman, who was delighted to get the place for his nephew—an American-born boy—the child of a sister, in great need. As the boy's clothes were hardly presentable, a simple livery was made for him; from that moment he pined, and finally announced he was going to leave. In answer to my surprised inquiries, I discovered that a friend of his from the same tenement-house in which he had lived in New York had appeared in the village, and sooner than be ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... were exchanged, I was shown to a dressing-room, and with the aid of 'Jim,' a razor, and one of the Colonel's shirts,—all of mine having undergone a drenching,—soon made a tolerably presentable appearance. The negro then conducted me to the breakfast-room, where ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... what he had to offer, and sufficiently well-bred to conceal her emotions when he approached her. These conditions Miss Derwent fulfilled. Personally she would do him credit (a wife, of course, must be presentable, though in the husband appearance did not matter), and her obvious social qualities would be useful. Yet he had had no serious thought of proposing to her. For one thing, she ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... a sore trial to her mother. Addie was pretty as a child, tolerably presentable even at her most awkward age, glided gradually into girlhood and beauty, and finally "came out" completely to Mrs. Blake's satisfaction. But Lottie at fifteen or sixteen was her despair—"Exactly like a great unruly boy," she lamented. She dashed through her lessons fairly well, but the moment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... seemed to be something in her weird and uncanny; and he found himself constantly speculating as to how he could ever become reconciled to her; or what changes future years could make in her; and whether the lapse of time could by any possibility develop this impish being into any sort of a presentable woman. From the moment that he saw her he felt that the question of beauty must be abandoned forever; it would be enough if she could prove to be one with whom a man might live with any degree of domestic comfort. But the prospect of taking her at some period in the future ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... which were equal to the same thing were equal to one another—when it came to finding enough parts to make a respectable whole! For among the four bachelors was not one whole suit of clothes sufficiently presentable for social events. Everything was rough and ready in those days and in spite of the hardships the friendly pioneer settlers had some good times together; but the sod house quartette had never been seen at any of these gatherings—not ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... often be extracted, with a little care, uninjured from their egg-shells, and yet—as happened to me lately in the instance of a hawk—the shell may make a presentable museum object, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... indeed, their connections were one of the two striking features about them, the other was their handicap, Captain Polkington, late of the ——th Bengal Lancers. He was well connected, though not quite so much so as his wife; still—well, but he was not very presentable. If only he had been dead he would have been a valuable asset, but living, he was decidedly rather a drawback; there are some relatives like this. Mrs. Polkington bore up under it valiantly; in fact, they all did so well that in time they, or at least she and two ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... form the arched roof, and the faith itself is the completing keystone. In order to an efficient belief in Christianity, a man must have been a Christian, and this is the seeming argumentum in circulo, incident to all spiritual truths, to every subject not presentable under the forms of time and space, as long as we attempt to master by the reflex acts of the understanding, what we can only 'know' by the act of 'becoming'. 'Do the will of my Father, and ye shall know whether I ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... contributed was for the women of the Free Level. Thinking that an opportunity had at last arisen for her to express her compassion for the ill-favoured girls of her own former level, Marguerite hastened to bundle up such presentable gowns as she had and sent them to ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors, knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable." ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... your majesty quite so soon. A few hours later I would have been ready to receive you. Will you permit me to retire for a few moments, that I may at least make my head, if not the rest of my person, presentable?" ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... return Lulu, hardly waiting to remove her out door garments and make herself presentable for the evening, went at the sewing with all the activity and determination of her very ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... under the noses of the grinning convicts, with as much complacency as if she had been in a Chatham ball-room. Indeed, if there had been nobody else near, it is not unlikely that she would have disdainfully fascinated the 'tween-decks, and made eyes at the most presentable of ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... camp to emulate these paying virtues of reverence, and an aged mariner was procured from the Sailor's Snug Harbor in San Francisco, on trial. But the unfortunate seaman was more or less diseased, was not always presentable, through a weakness for ardent spirits, and finally, to use the powerful idiom of one of his disappointed foster-children, "up and died in a week, without ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... that the first thing we must do for him is to give him an outfit, or he'll not be presentable on board, and then I hope, from gratitude, that he will ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... in three days! It would have taken him three months and longer on the sea to earn a similar amount. A man was a fool to go to sea when he could write, he concluded, though the money in itself meant nothing to him. Its value was in the liberty it would get him, the presentable garments it would buy him, all of which would bring him nearer, swiftly nearer, to the slender, pale girl who had turned his life back upon itself and given ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... a few minutes she reappeared with it,—a heap of soft white folds in her arms, and a yard or so of the train dragging after her upon the carpet,—the one presentable relic of a once inconsistently elaborate bridal trousseau, at present in a rather tumbled and rolled-up condition, but still white and soft and thick, and ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fast friends, and it was agreed that "Hickey" should go and make himself presentable, after which they would dine at some restaurant and then sample a convenient mail box. Meantime Peabody telephoned to Headquarters, and when the two set out for dinner at six o'clock the supposed "Hickey" was stopped on Broadway by ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... did not get real strong, and was troubled somewhat with a cough when cold weather came on. But she lost her weather-beaten look, and did gain a little flesh. She was very presentable in her black-silk dress, with some lace at the throat and wrists that she had bought at her marriage. She wore a little black-lace head-dress with a few purple bows; and she admitted to Charles that the Jaspers ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... but this morning I told Janet to give her her breakfast in her bedroom, then after she has made herself presentable she can join us. I'm sure she and that dreadful boy Jim will get you to inspect their 'cubby house' down on the river bank in the course of the day. Sometimes Edward makes me quite cross by the way he yields to their stupid whims. He actually ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... of grey flannel and wheeled my boxes away on a little truck, and after a while a master came down and showed us, in a perfunctory manner, over the more presentable quarters of the school. My brother was anxious to get away, because he had not been emancipated long enough to find the atmosphere of dormitories and class-rooms agreeable. I was naturally interested, in my new environment, but ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... and thirty miles or so at the pace of a courier. I should say let us go at a reasonable pace, and get into Paris soon after midnight, which will give us time for some little sleep, and afterwards to make ourselves presentable. What ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... and he was fascinated and amazed, and took the child to the director of the Royal Opera, asking for her the advantages of musical education, and the director roughly said: "What shall we do with that ugly thing? See what feet she has. And, then, her face; she will never be presentable. No, we can't take her. Away with her!" But God had decreed for this child of nature a grand career, and all those sorrows were woven into her faculty of song. She never could have been what she became, royally arrayed on the platforms of Berlin and Vienna and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... and marriage. All the same, her mind at this moment was in a most conventional state of shock. She knew it, perceiving quite clearly the irony of the situation. Who were the Penfolds? A little artist girl?—earning her living—with humble, perhaps hardly presentable relations—to mate with her glorious, golden Harry?—Harry whom half the ambitious mothers of England ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fairly amused, as at the outspoken folly of an enfant terrible, but he only said, either to his wife or to himself, 'A little polish, and then she may be fairly presentable.' ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... second half of the 18th century, the period of the greatest floraison of this combination, competed with each other in devising elegant frets for the glass fronts. Solid and satisfying to the eye, if somewhat severe in form, the mahogany bureau was usually an exceedingly presentable piece of furniture. Occasionally it had a bomb front which mitigated its severity; this was especially the case in the Dutch varieties, which were in a measure free adaptations of the French Louis Quinze commode. These Dutch bureaux, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... He made himself presentable before anyone saw him. Then he waited for his father and Blinky, whom he heard talking. When they came up he joined them. Wild horses could not have dragged him into the house alone. As they entered the kitchen Bobby let out a yell and made for him. That ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... suffered deeply and shall continue to suffer until I can look my modest wardrobe in the face and say, 'presentable at last,' I am certain that I deserve a special boon of consolation. In plain English, to which I still cling, despite the fact that I dream of some day establishing a marvelous vocabulary of my own, won't you and Elfreda come to Overton to see ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... keep Christ standing at the door until they were newly appareled, or until they had elaborately arranged their tresses, then coming out with their affected surprise as though they had not heard the two or three previous knockings, saying: "Why, is that you?" No. They were ladies, and were always presentable, although they may not have always had on their best, for none of us always have on our best; if we did our best would not be worth having on. They throw open the door and greet Christ. They say: "Good morning, Master; ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... to be sure, a presentable member of any bar, for a smudge detracted considerably from the appearance of one side of his face, his clothes were rumpled and covered with black dust, and his hands were black. But I had rarely seen him so calm. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... consoled herself, there was something rather dignified in this arrangement, after all; Len was presentable, and she was always the happier for being with Sally. She washed her only gloves, pressed her suit, and spent every alternate minute during the next day anxiously inspecting her chin where an ugly pimple threatened ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... complied, and waited until his boy was brought to him in a more presentable condition; then he went away, very wroth indeed in heart, but ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... colonists to battle through the winter. They were in extreme poverty, and in many cases their frost-bitten, starved bodies were wrapped only in rags before spring came. Those who still had their plaids, or other presentable garments, were prepared to part with them for a morsel of food. With the coming of spring once more, the party travelled northward to 'the Forks' of the Red River, resolved never again to set foot within the ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... After about fifteen minutes of disagreeable work, all was well, however,—the engine started, and the sound was again smooth and steady. John's expression was radiant, and he came to help the ladies in, while the forlorn chauffeur retired to make himself presentable. ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... "Quite a presentable cavalier, ma Juliette! And a fixed occupation is something of an advantage at times, n'est-ce-pas?—Je t'aime, tu l'aime! And how soon do you ride away? ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... lodging while looking for an employment. In the irony of fate that morning the proprietors of a dry-goods store, struck with his good looks and manners, had offered him a situation, if he could make himself more presentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was gazing half abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the portmanteau without noticing the auctioneer's persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he was not aware that the auctioneer's assistant was also looking at him curiously, and that possibly ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... objection of expediency. She had insensibly grown to take his success for granted, like the rest of the Washington world; he would be a governor, a senator, he might be—anything! And he was perfectly presentable, now; no, it would be on the whole an investment in the future that would pay well enough; his parents would be awkward, but they were old people, not likely to be too much ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... and anyway, there are the Simpsons—they are all right. Solid comfort, my dear, is not to be despised, especially when a girl can't pick and choose, and may possibly never get another chance. He is awfully presentable, too, and most gentlemanly, I am sure. Oh, on the whole—if you ask ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... for me to go to the Cambridge Military Hospital at Aldershot for a special operation to try and make the scar presentable. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... retirement furnished by the ivy, and the loving plant softened every outline, filled up every crevice, bridged the gaps in the walls, toned down the rudeness of projecting stones, and did everything that an ivy-plant could do to make the rugged old castle as presentable as were the high rounded mounds without the city, cast up by the besiegers when the enemy ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... him, panting, as was he. She frowned fiercely, then her eyes softened, became tender—just why she could not have explained. "What a dirty boy it is!" she said softly. "Go into the house and ask Williams to take you where you can make yourself presentable." ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... and best that we have heard of the above-named gentleman. We should premise, that, the details of it are a little altered, with the view of adapting it to "ears polite;" for without some process of this kind, it would not have been presentable. A lady went to the doctor in great distress of mind, and stated to him, that, by a strange accident, she had swallowed a live spider. At first, his only reply was, "whew! whew! whew!" a sort of internal whistling sound, intended to be indicative ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... Arabella, her voice softening incredibly. "It's only a man here or there who really loves a woman, my dear. Most of them whip up a hotch-potch of quite commonplace feelings with a dash of passion and call it love, while all they actually want is a good housekeeper and presentable hostess and someone to carry on ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... a lonely, solitary feeling as we drove through the crowd of loiterers, and were glad to descend at a presentable-looking hostelry. How often first impressions are wrong we proved to ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... her indignation was the fact that her uncle's visitor was an extremely presentable young man. Had it been otherwise, Olive would have given the captain a good scolding, and would then have taken her revenge by making fun of him and his shipmate's son. But now she felt insulted that her uncle should conceal from her the fact that he had an entirely proper young gentleman ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... repeated before they were sure of it. There was a general scramble from the kimonoed crowd, who were not expecting a visitor at this hour. But Mrs. Brown, who wore a black China silk wrapper and was always presentable, went to the door where a small boy in a long white linen apron and a baker's cap stood with a huge flat ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... a suite of offices on the fifth floor, looking directly out over and into the cool green beauty of Madison Forest. In an hour or so, they cleared out the bats and spiders, the rubbish and the dust, and made the place very decently presentable. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... had been in love before in a sort of way; but this was truly different. He wished to marry Jenny very much indeed.... That she was remarkably sensible, really beautiful and eminently presentable, of course, paved the way; but, if I understand the matter rightly, these were not the only elements in the case. It was the genuine thing. He did not quite know how he would face the future if she refused him; and he was sufficiently humble ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... unwilling to open his pockets. The princes who were to release Sleeping Beauty did not have sufficient means to make a presentable appearance, while their retinue was ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... charge of eighteenpence a week. A manager, named Levy, was engaged at a salary of half a crown a week and a commission on sales. He was a blind man himself, and a blind carpenter was engaged to assist in making the storehouse presentable. ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... classes is an idea that gives us pause. It is one of those suggestions, like Lord Brougham's of the "unknown public," which, in a single phrase, and a sentence or two of explanation, tell a whole history. This is the class John Bunyan wrote for before the bishops had his Allegory in presentable calf and gold-leaf,—before England knew that her poor tinker had shaped a pictured urn for her full of such visions as no dreamer had seen since Dante. This is the class that believes in John Bright and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... messenger arrived from General Washington requesting an interview with her. She, Molly Pitcher, to be received by the Commander-in-chief of the American forces in such a garb as that! How could she make herself presentable for the interview? With her usual quick wit, Molly borrowed an artilleryman's coat, which in some measure hid her grimy and torn garments. In this coat over her own petticoats, and a cocked hat with a feather, doubtless plucked from a straying hen, she made no further ado, but presented ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... hospitality of 'society' in all the towns it is impossible to speak in too high terms. The stranger has but to bring a couple of good introductions to people who are in society, and provided he be at all presentable, the doors of the most exclusive houses will be opened to him. Young men of education and manners are everywhere at a premium, and the colonies are still small enough for it to be a distinction to have just come out from England. Unless you know your company it is always wise ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... trying to make old bills presentable by washing them at the Department. Meanwhile, most of them are ground again into pulp, made into new paper, and all the first processes gone through with to ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... all unsuspected by her subject, had taken Jane in hand a month ago, and had made her at length fairly presentable. Incidentally she had made herself a martyr. "But never mind," she would say; "the poor child doesn't know how to do herself justice, so somebody else has got ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... know. But there are a few—and quite possible. There are the Kenbarrows, about four miles off—a large family—nouveaux riches—the father made buttons, or something of the kind. But the children are all most presentable, and enormously rich. And, of course, there are the Fallodens—quite near—Mr. and Lady Laura, Douglas, the eldest son, a girl of seventeen, and two children. You'll probably see Douglas at Oxford. Oh, I believe Sir Arthur Falloden, pere, told me the other day ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... valley of the Seine and other favored spots may have circulated in some such early landscape, and have garbed himself and tattooed himself somewhat as the painter here paints him, it is probable that there was far less of the picturesque and presentable about him, of grace of attitude and whiteness of skin in his women-folk, than in any artist's presentation on a ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... look more presentable I guess I'll try and get some breakfast," thought the boy as, his thirst appeased, he ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and I must confess to eating with a good appetite. When I lifted my eyes from my plate I saw that Tamsin was watching me curiously, as though she could not quite make me out. Certainly I was not very presentable. My clothes were stained and torn, and my appearance altogether unkempt. I felt ill at ease, too, and did not care to talk much. Besides, in spite of my strange position, I was tired and sleepy. This Cap'n Jack ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... that which has to do with the wearing surface and earth shoulders or berms upon which there is some traffic and (2) that which has to do with the side ditches and drainage structures and keeping the roadside in presentable condition. Both kinds of work are usually carried out by the same organization, but whereas the nature of the work indicated under (1) will vary with the type of wearing surface and with all variations in traffic, that which ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... myself somewhat presentable upon leaving the steerage of the steamer, my trunk on a dray, I proceeded to an unprepossessing hotel kept by a colored man on Kearny street. The cursory view from the outside, and the further inspection ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... the work somewhat like a pencil with considerable pressure, and care is taken to make the strokes as uniform in direction as possible; otherwise the surface looks non-uniform, and has to be further polished by tripoli, whitening, etc, before it is presentable. ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... express sympathy, urge patience, and suggest hope. But he had no ear for words, though he tried to listen, poor fellow! so I soon stopped, and he presently left the room. I immediately made myself as presentable as a night of unprecedented emotions would allow, and went below to do him such service as opportunity offered and the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... when the owner was not using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its light, delicate wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball of twine that was hidden somewhere about him, he made a very presentable cross, to point out to future hunters on Katahdin the ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... certain conspicuous mark, showing them to belong to the Maharajah. He is much more western than eastern in his ideas; more ready to expend his large revenue for the public good than to build Peacock Thrones, which at the same time excite the marvel and cupidity of the world; and so this very presentable city, in the heart of India, is a mixture of Orientalism and European innovation, the streets even being lighted by gas. Though, to speak honestly, this last fact seemed a trifle out of place; wild monkeys and crocodiles in the environs, and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... found Dick Crawford, who had returned with Tom Binns. The two women, their clothes dry by this time, had taken possession of the hut to make themselves presentable, and Dick in silent astonishment ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... must not be caught lurking at the door by chance visitors. Nor was it only out of fear of being surprised by her relations that the quiet baroness insisted that Hilda and even Berbel should always be presentable. Her pride was inseparably united with that rigid self-respect which, in the poor, alone saves pride from being ridiculous. It was indeed marvellous that she should succeed as she did in hiding the extremity of her need from the Greifensteins, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... face into a bowl of water. When he emerged from it he did not yet seem to me to be presentable; but I thought of a little stratagem. As he was growing worried, looking at himself in the mirror, I said to him: "All you have to do is to say that a little dust flew into your eye and you can cry before ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... never heard of "Miss Em'ly," and said so. "Well, just you go in and set on the sofy and soon's I see your horses took care of I'll come in and tell you." I went into my own room, and after I rustled some water I made myself and the kiddies a little more presentable. Then we went into the sitting-room and sat on the "sofy." Presently Bishey sauntered in, trying to look unconcerned and at ease, but he was so fidgety he couldn't sit down. But he told his story, and a dear ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Harold, and do not make them any worse. If you go out to that place to-day, they won't even be as presentable as they are." ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... coherent picture of all the purely physical processes—the stirring of the brain, the thrilling of the nerves, the discharging of the muscles, and all the subsequent motions of the organism. We are here dealing with mechanical problems which are mentally presentable. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... attended a night school, and was fast correcting his awkward English, and attaining to other knowledge. Prosperity and schooling together had given him quite a polish. The rough boy was coming to be a presentable youth. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... in a small room in front on the top floor we came upon a girl, half insensible from a drug. She was vainly trying to make herself presentable for the street, ramblingly talking to ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... South was always democratic except in comparatively limited areas, and it is so everywhere today. In those communities which have felt the new industrial spirit the question of birth plays little part. Any presentable young man can go where he chooses. In such communities the tendency—apparently inevitable in industrial societies—to base social distinctions upon wealth and business success is beginning to show itself. The plutocrats, however, are ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... careless air, as if 'twas nought, he gives us a purse and bids us go out in the town to furnish ourselves with what disguise was necessary to our purpose. Therewith Dawson gets him some seaman's old clothes at a Jew's, and I a very neat, presentable suit of cloth, etc., and the rest of the money we take back to Don Sanchez without taking so much as a penny for our other uses; but he, doing all things very magnificent, would have none of it, but bade us keep it against our other necessities. And now having his money in our pockets, we ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... a moment and floated in the dark, listening. As soon as he got home he would go to the refrigerator for a piece of raw beefsteak for his swollen eye. Darn that eye anyway! He would have to hibernate up in the woods till it became more presentable. Far behind him in the mist somewhere the yard-engine was still coughing; across the water came a subdued squeal of protesting flanges, followed by the distant bang of shunted box-cars. He listened ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... nothing could make a gentleman, because true gentility and his nature were far apart. He remained, notwithstanding all his advantages, a cunning, and in his way an able man of business, like his father before him. For the rest, he was big, florid and presentable, with the bluff and hearty manner which sometimes distinguishes a faux bonhomme. "Honest John" they called him in the neighbourhood, a soubriquet which was of service to him in ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... moment and talk things over," said the cautious Stuart. "It wouldn't do for the whole three of us to go up to the place and demand food, and I'm rather doubtful if it 'ud do for even one of us. You said this morning, Henri, that not one of us was over presentable, while I should say that now that our clothing is soaked we are very much more ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... horror and compassion that she felt to see the boys in such a state, and, without stopping to ask questions, they were hurried in, and nursed and doctored into a state that made them a little more presentable at the tea-table, round which, when they were assembled, Mr Inglis listened to the recital of the conflict; and, much as he was annoyed at the not very creditable affair, still he could not see how the lads could have acted differently. It was ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... no difficulty, with the assistance of her mother, in discarding the penniless subaltern who has devoted himself to her, and whom she has induced to believe that she preferred to the whole world. Having received an offer from a gentleman of presentable looks and immense possessions, she promptly accepts it, and gains to her own surprise a considerable reputation for judgment and discretion. It is quite possible that after a year or two of giddy married life she may decline gradually into a British Matron, respected alike on account of her increasing ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... Ivy, in a loud whisper, as we filed through the hall, "Stella's actually managed to come, and to make herself presentable. However did she ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... pitifully, "and I'm going to bring the basin here, and do it some more." Which she did; so that by the time Phronsie was brought downstairs to sleep in Mrs. Fisher's room, Joel was quite presentable. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... dresses made the next two or three days pass like a flash. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan with money in her pocket was a very different woman from Mrs. O'Shanaghgan without a penny. She enjoyed making Nora presentable, and had excellent taste and a keen eye for a bargain. She fitted up her daughter with a modest but successful wardrobe, bought her a proper trunk to hold her belongings, and saw her on ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... if you wish it," he assented, remembering afresh his immense obligation; and when the time was ripe he made himself presentable and felt his way down the dimly lighted library stair, being minded to slip into the social pool by the route which promised the smallest splash ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... they then descended, and the intimacy between all parties became so great that it appeared as if they not only wore the young men's clothes but also stood in their shoes. Having thus made themselves presentable, Jack presented his hand to both ladies and led them into the garden, that Don Rebiera might finish his long story to Gascoigne without further interruption, and resuming their seats in the pavilion, he entertained the ladies with a history of his cruise in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... her face in a gracefully-perfumed remnant of lace, to so overwhelming a degree that for the moment I feared she might become involved in the dizzy falling. "Never, by any mischance, use that word again the society of the presentable, Mr. Kong." ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... best thing for his purpose. In higher social positions, and at an age when appearances are realities, in the condition of the Marquis of Anglesea, for instance, it becomes important to provide the cripple with a limb which shall be presentable in polite society, where misfortunes of a certain obtrusiveness may be pitied, but are never tolerated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... a little piece of veal or other cold meat, you can make a very presentable dish in the following way: Cut a thin slice of meat and spread on each side of it a layer of mashed potatoes to which you have added some tomato sauce. Beat up an egg and dip the slices and potato into it, lay them in fine breadcrumbs and fry them till a good golden ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... lord, it any such he might find. "Thou wouldst make," quoth the host, "the very sort of retainer to suit a gentleman of this city, Egano by name, who keeps not a few of them, and will have all of them presentable like thee: I will mention the matter to him." And so he accordingly did, and before he took leave of Egano had placed Anichino with him, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... evening go pleasantly off. There were also two friends of Charles's, by name Paley (a nephew of the archdeacon) and Ashworth. They seem nice young men, with modesty and good-breeding. I am glad, as my mother used to say, that his friends are so presentable. Moreover, there came my old, right trusty, and well-beloved friend, John Richardson, so we were a full party. Lady Anna Maria returned in the evening. Francis ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... still sleeping, so she dipped her hands into the cold water, took off her stiffened shoes and bathed her swollen feet. Her dress had dried in the night winds, and when she had combed her hair she looked fairly presentable. ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... Baker rippled on, while Mrs. Lee listened with more and more doubt and disgust. The woman was showy, handsome in a coarse style, and perfectly presentable. Mrs. Lee had seen Duchesses as vulgar. She knew more about the practical working of government than Mrs. Lee could ever expect or hope to know. Why then draw back from this interesting lobbyist with such ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... presentable when he left his chum's residence, after spending the evening there, but he was still burning for revenge against Andy and his cronies. He had half a notion to go to Andy's house and tell Mr. Foger how nearly serious the bully's ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... you look a little more presentable. Have you got a clean handkerchief? Well, that's an unexpected miracle; I don't know how you happened to think of it. When are you going to speak with them ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dry. My black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... he answered, "and oftener than not, never. If you had told me beforehand you wished to hear my history, I should have pruned my family tree into a more presentable shape. But if you will kindly tell me as I go along which of my relatives you disapprove of, and who you would like to be introduced, I shall arrange the plot to ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... came almost every day. On Sunday mornings he made himself scrupulously tidy, polishing his boots and brushing his clothes, so as to make himself thoroughly presentable. As he went home from work he would look in to ask whether little Lasse had slept well. He eulogized Ellen for bringing such a bright, beautiful youngster into the world, and she quite fell in love with the old man, on account of his ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... rough, imperious man, who mayhap had been irritated by numerous other appeals of the same kind, looked coldly on the plainly clad, insignificant-looking girl, and said: "What shall we do with such an ugly creature? See what feet she has! and then her face! She will never be presentable. Certainly, we can't take such a scarecrow." The effect of such a salutation on a timid, shrinking child may be imagined. Croelius replied, with honest indignation, "If you will not take her, I, poor as I am, will myself have her educated for the stage." Count Puecke, who under ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... have slept far into the next day had not Francois appeared with their clothes, nicely brushed and carefully mended, so that they were able to make a presentable appearance in their ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... refined, intelligent, cultivated lady in the ship, and altogether the kindest and best. She sewed my buttons on, kept my clothing in presentable trim, fed me on Egyptian jam (when I behaved), lectured me awfully on the quarter-deck on moonlit promenading evenings, and cured me of several bad habits. I am under lasting obligations to her. She looks young because she is so good, but ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... silence was broken by Lady Chillington. "Take the child away," she said; "attend to her wants, make her presentable, and bring her to me in the Green Saloon after dinner. It will be time enough to-morrow to consider what must ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various |
