"Laundress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I had forgotten him and was thinking of that villain Scioppius and his tract against Joseph Justus. Do you know," he continued with a snort of indignation, "that in his Hyperbolimaeus, not content with the statement that Joseph Justus left his laundress's bill at Louvain unpaid, he alleges that I—I, Caesar Basterga of Padua—was broken on the wheel at Munster a year ago for the murder of ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Albemarle, on my lord's not letting her come to Paris.(386) I should not repeat this to you, only to introduce George Selwyn's account of this woman who, he says, is mother to the Princess of Montauban, grandmother to Madame de Brionne, sister to General Oglethorpe, and was laundress to the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Eugenie, she was as strong as a Judith or a Delilah. They arrived at the appointed spot. Eugenie ordered the porter to put down the portmanteau, gave him some pieces of money, and having rapped at the shutter sent him away. The shutter where Eugenie had rapped was that of a little laundress, who had been previously warned, and was not yet gone to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... next day Larry pottered about the studio, acting as maid-of-all-work, while the clothes in his trunk which had been stored with the Duchess were being sponged and pressed by the little tailor down the street, and while a laundress, driven by the Duchess, was preparing the rest of his outfit for his debut. In his capacity of maid, with a basket on his arm, he went out into the little street, where in his shabby clothes he was recognized by none and leaned for a time against ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have in mind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not at all, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save that the things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women raved over him. His laundress and his landlady had good ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... days, Agnes had been a housekeeper for a young slave-holder, and in sustaining this relation had become the mother of two daughters. After being cast aside by this young man, the slave-woman betook herself to the business of a laundress, and was considered to be the most tasteful woman ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... at the old horse just as if he was laying it into Miss Wrinkleton, so that by the time he got home he had established a considerable lather on the old nag, which his master resenting a row ensued, the sequel of which may readily be imagined. After assisting Mrs. Clearstarch, the Kilburn laundress, in getting in and taking out her washing, for a few weeks, chance at last landed him at Mr. Benjamin Buckram's, from whence he is now about to be removed to become our hero Mr. Sponge's Sancho Panza, in his fox-hunting, fortune-hunting career, and disseminate ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... white, With small pearl buttons,—two of them in sight,— Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies That round his breast the shabby rustic ties; Breathe not the name profaned to hallow things The indignant laundress blushes when ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... not want him to buy at auctions—not much at least at present. Private dealing, she said, was best. If I, for example, had any cast-off clothes, he was to buy them from my laundress, and get a connection with other laundresses, to whom he might give a trifle more than they got at present for whatever clothes their masters might give them, and yet make a good profit. If gentlemen sold their things, he was to try and get them ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... sausages at home, and living on something like two shillings a day," he remarked in meditation; and then it struck him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of his drawers at home—that is, if the laundress had left ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... us as passengers, that he would furnish a room simply but comfortably, that papa would share this room with us, that Mario would supply our table, and that his wife would serve as maid and laundress. It remained to be seen now whether our other fellow-travelers were married, and, if so, what sort of ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... CLERGET (Basine), laundress at Angouleme during the Restoration, who succeeded Mme. Prieur with whom Eve Chardon had worked. Basine Clerget concealed David Sechard and Kolb when Sechard was pursued by ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... was broad daylight. Opening his eyes, he was surprised to feel himself extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped up at once and dressed quickly; then dragged out his trunk and began packing immediately. His linen had come back from the laundress the previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at the thought that everything was helping his sudden departure. And his departure certainly was sudden. Though Ivan had said the day before (to Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov) that ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the lamp was continuous now; the stranger was making his examination. By it Captain Alec guided his steps; and he arrived behind the tall gorse bush opposite Tower Cottage just in time to hear the Sergeant say "Mrs. Willnough, Laundress, Inkston," and to witness the parting of the ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... matter, if we are to accept his own estimate of himself. In any event, he was a treasure. Booth's house was always in order. Try as he would, he couldn't get it out of order. Pat's wife saw to that. She was the cook, housekeeper, steward, seamstress, nurse and everything else except the laundress, and she would have been that if Booth hadn't put his foot down on it. He was rather finicky about his bosoms, it ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... twin. "You shall not be sacrificed. If Mary goes, we'll divide the work between us, and hire a laundress once a week ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... now a ruin, inhabited by the lowest orders; the first floor, when I was last in Venice, by a laundress. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... questions, Eveley, I am so nervous anyhow I hardly know what I am saying. You remember my laundress, don't you? She is so nice and motherly and a Methodist and respectable and all that,—only old and hard up. She is coming to live with us,—she will have the den for her room, and is closing her cottage. She is to keep house ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... service wing depends, of course, on how much of that type of work is to be done at home. There are two points of view here. Some households prefer to scoop the family linen into a bag, make a list, and hand it over to a commercial laundry. Others find a dependable laundress nearby or provide facilities for doing the work at home. The clear air of the country and easy drying conditions influence many towards the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... Reeves. "I believe the laundress and chore boy come by the day, also cleaning women and such. But I know that Miss Van Allen has no resident servant besides ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... state of peculiar lucidity. I have observed, as you know, the wonderful effects produced by diet upon the imagination. My lodgings cost me three sous daily; I burnt three sous more in oil at night; I did my own housework, and wore flannel shirts so as to reduce the laundress' bill to two sous per day. The money I spent yearly in coal, if divided up, never cost more than two sous for each day. I had three years' supply of clothing, and I only dressed when going out to some library or public lecture. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... who is occupied in any of the thousand manufactures which are the result of human ingenuity. It happens to the soldier in his march, and to the mariner on board his vessel. It attends the individuals of the female sex through all their diversified modes of industry, the laundress, the housemaid, the sempstress, the netter of purses, the knotter of fringe, and the worker in tambour, tapestry and embroidery. In all, the limbs or the fingers are employed mechanically; the attention of the mind is only required ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... of washerwomen's legs was due partly to dirt, Isuppose. The princess or queen Clarionas, when escaping with the laundress as her assistant, is obliged to have her white legs reduced to ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... generally thought expedient to go to breakfast, though half-an-hour sooner than usual, in order to make the forenoon as long as possible. I should have mentioned that the hammocks are always piped up at seven o'clock. If they have been slung overnight, they are as white as any laundress could have made them; and, of course, the hammock-stowers take more than ordinary care to place them neatly in the nettings, with their bright numbers turned inwards, all nicely lashed up with ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the consideration of where it would be more convenient to put Katavasov, to sleep alone or to share Sergey Ivanovitch's room. And then an idea suddenly struck her, which made her shudder and even disturb Mitya, who glanced severely at her. "I do believe the laundress hasn't sent the washing yet, and all the best sheets are in use. If I don't see to it, Agafea Mihalovna will give Sergey Ivanovitch the wrong sheets," and at the very idea of this the blood ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... But they are a sanguine gentry, these holders of bills, and I really believe that if they could see him they would embrace him with the warmest affection. In the mean time let us have some dinner, and we will talk about poor Mountjoy when we have got rid of young Pitcher. Young Pitcher is my laundress's son to the use of whose services I have been promoted since I have been known to be ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... bereft of their walk, unable to employ their miserable legs and eyes, exercise themselves by a continual barking, which is answered by all the dogs in the neighborhood. An urchin returning from the laundress, delighted with the symphony, lays down his white bundle in the gutter, seats himself on the curb-stone, and attempts an imitation of the music of cats as a tribute to the concert. The door-bell rings. Chi e? "Who is ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... titivilitium! There's no such thing in nature. I confess, gentlemen, I have a cook, a laundress, a house-drudge, that serves my necessary turns, and goes under that title: but he's an ass that will be so uxorious to tie his affections to one circle. Come, the name dulls appetite. Here, replenish again: another bout. [FILLS THE CUPS AGAIN.] ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... the queen and king was managed at her house, and the consultations held there; so that she might as well have thrown away a little money in raffling there, as well as at the other houses: but it seems that my lord Devonshire has got Mrs Potter to be laundress: she has not much countenance of the queen, her daughter still keeping the Indian house her mother had. The same day the queen went to one Mrs Wise's, a famous woman for telling fortunes, but could ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... who is quick to make room for a doctor of divinity, will, of course, see to it that he never runs against a porter; and he who clears the way for a lady, will be sure never to rub against a market woman, or jostle an apple-seller's board. If accused of beating down his laundress to the lowest fraction, of making his boot-black call a dozen times for his pay, of higgling and screwing a fish boy till he takes off two cents, or of threatening to discharge his seamstress unless she will work for a shilling ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and active assertion of Ohio vim. Sick of vermin and slime, I would take pail, scrubbing brush and lye, and fall to; sick of it all, I would get a Summit county breakfast, old fashioned pan cakes for old times' sake; sick of the native laundress who cleansed nothing, I would give an Akron rub myself to my own clothes and have something fit to wear. These attacks of energy depended somewhat on the temperature, somewhat on exhausted patience, somewhat on homesickness, ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... sheer fun of the thing: showing trim ankles, the turn of a plump calf, such as Ben Cohen had never even thought of before, the realisation of which was like wine: freshly tasted, red, fruity, running through his veins, mounting to his head. He had known that women had legs; his mother, the laundress, suffered from hers—complainingly, devoted woman as she was—swollen with much standing, and "them there dratted veins": stocky legs, with loose ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... them), three muffineers—in heaven's name, what's that? Solid silver bread dishes, solid silver candlesticks by the dozen, solid silver vegetable dishes, and we expect one servant and an intermittent laundress to do the cooking, washing, make the beds ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... because it was in the river that a brown woman washed his clothes on the stones, returning them with the buttons pounded off; but for every missing button there was sure to be a bright yellow, semi-indelible stain, where the laundress had spread the garments to dry upon a ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... made its appearance, though still so imperfectly arranged, that the stockings, being quite wet, we were obliged to sling outside our knapsacks, while the damp shirts were left to dry, as they best might, within. But the precious time which our dilatory laundress had wasted, nothing could recall. We therefore felt ourselves under the necessity of confining our day's operations to the inspection of a hermitage, or einsiedlerstein, near Burgstein, with what was described to us as a short and pleasant walk ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... her. The French maid, a feeble nonentity, held out bravely, but after watching a few nights broke down entirely and was to have been carried to St. Catharine's hospital, but the Italian steward, who is not a bad fellow, objected and had her taken to a Catholic laundress. He has followed to nurse her. No one is left in the deserted house to attend to the young lady, except Sister Gonzaga, a good little nun, one of the three who were allowed to remain in the old convent near you, but early this morning, to cap ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... trouble of assuming any. Lastly, there was Samayana, which was not his name either, from Bombay,—a real, live East-Indian nabob. In his own country he travelled with three tents, a dozen servants, as many horses, and always carried his laundress with him. Yet he never seemed lonely with us,—which we thought very agreeable in him. Crawford had just created Mr. Isaacs, and we fancied there was a resemblance,—barring the wives,—and he told us such graphic stories of life in India that we were not always sure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... birth, whereas his wife, the sallow, deformed Leonora, was the daughter of a {119} laundress who had nursed the Queen in illness. Both were extravagant, costing the Crown enormous sums of money—Leonora had a pretty taste in jewels as well as clothes, and Marie de Medici even plundered the Bastille of her husband's hoards because she ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... Estelle Silvestre. Miss Anne G. Greene has published the third volume of her Lives of the Princesses of England; Mrs. David Ogilvy, Traditions of Tuscany; Mrs. Gordon, Musgrave, a Story of Gilsland Spa; Maria de la Vaye, Eugenie, the Young Laundress of the Bastille; Mrs. Norton, a new poem; the author of "Olivia," Sir Philip Hetherington; Mrs. Ward, Helen Charteris, or Sayings and Doings in a Cathedral Town; Mrs. Hubbach, niece of the celebrated Miss Austen, The Wife's Sister, or the Forbidden Marriage; Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... any one should be so superstitious!" said Emily Mahon. Rosemary Beckett had been telling a group of girls of the ridiculous practices of an old negro woman employed by her mother as a laundress. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... that my laundress," he shouted back, "can't bring in breakfast things for more than one on that particular tray. She's always complaining it's too small, and says I ought to buy ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... unfortunate relatives to retire to the small cabin arranged for their reception; and here they were attended by an aged female, who had long followed the fortunes of the crew, and acted in the twofold character of laundress and sempstress. He himself, with Sir Everard, continued on deck watching the progress of the vessel with an anxiety that became more intense at each succeeding hour. Hitherto their course had been unimpeded, save by the obstacles already enumerated; and they had now, at about an hour before dawn, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... large number of slaves, and they loved him and his children very dearly. And the little girls loved them, particularly "Mammy," who had nursed their mother, and now had entire charge of the children; and Aunt Milly, a lame yellow woman, who helped Mammy in the nursery; and Aunt Edy, the head laundress, who was never too busy to amuse them. Then there was Aunt Nancy, the "tender," who attended to the children for the field-hands, and old Uncle Snake-bit Bob, who could scarcely walk at all, because he had been bitten by a snake when he was a boy: so now ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... do; put its finger in its eye and weep. Ha! ha! ha! poor Risberg! how would he laugh to see these compassionate tears! It seem she has written in a very doleful strain to thee,—talked very pathetically about his debts to his laundress and his landlady. I have a good mind to leave thee in this amiable ignorance; but I'll prove for once a kind brother, by telling you that Risberg is a profligate and prodigal; that he neglects every study but that of dice; that this is the true reason why I have stood in the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... nobility with a new form of extravagance and licentiousness was Adrienne Le Couvreur, who was the heroine of the day during the first years of the Regency. She was the daughter of a hatter, who had gone to Paris about 1702; while employed as a laundress, she often gave proof of the possession of remarkable dramatic genius by her performances at private theatricals. In 1717, through the influence of the great actor Baron, she made her appearance at the Comedie Francaise; the reappearance of ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... her (the courtesan, not the laundress) how she may organize the various forces latent in her and culminate in a power which shall contain in essence the united responsibilities of church, music-hall, and picture gallery." Mike turned over on his ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... and if the reader [Footnote: "one for superfluity and one other for use." The cap was probably that which he wore when he laid aside his wig. His hose, of colored silk, probably made only "semi-occasional" visits to the laundress.] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... obviously encumbered by having boots on for the first time; he was assisted by a woman of a masculine cast of face and one eye, by name Anfisushka, who performed the duties of housekeeper, poultry-woman, and laundress. Vassily Ivanovitch walked up and down during the whole of dinner, and with a perfectly happy, positively beatific countenance, talked about the serious anxiety he felt at Napoleon's policy, and the intricacy of the Italian question. Arina Vlasyevna took no notice of Arkady. ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... that looked as though they never received the slightest attention. Finally, his clothing consisted of a cotton shirt, that looked as though it had been in use for at least a month since its last visit to the laundress, a pair of grimy blue dungaree trousers, and a pair ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... there's such a good, good woman, Jane's sister Meg-Laundress, what washes for us just 'cause I mend her things. An' tailor-Jake who showed me to do a buttonhole an' him all doubled up with coughin'; an' Billy Buttons who gives us a paper sometimes, only neither of us can read it; ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... women of the people. After inspecting many women of equal merit as regards beauty, youth and health, the princess's choice lighted on Philippa, a young Catanese woman, the wife of a fisherman of Trapani, and by condition a laundress. This young woman, as she washed her linen on the bank of a stream, had dreamed strange dreams: she had fancied herself summoned to court, wedded to a great personage, and receiving the honours of a great lady. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... who supports a family by the making of buttonholes, for one hundred of which she receives nine cents, has little time for washing, and Yetta determined, unaided and unadvised, to be her own laundress. She made endless trips with her tin-pail from the sixth floor to the yard and back again, she begged a piece of soap from the friendly "janitor lady" and set valiantly to work. And Eva's prophecy was fulfilled. The dress looked "awful diff'rent" when it had dried to half its already ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... the watchman on the block. The watchman remembered. He knows everything that goes on in the Bowery. Maggie was the wayward daughter of a decent laundress, and killed herself by drinking carbolic acid less than a month before. She had wearied of the Bowery. Nigger Martha was her one friend. And now she had ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... "Well, Mary Flynn,—that's my laundress, you know,—has overworked lately, and to keep up her strength, I'm sorry to say, has indulged in her habit of toning up for her day's work with more of the 'crathur' than is good for—, By the way, when are you going to tackle the saloons, Gertie?" She did not wait for an answer, but rattled on. ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... immense majority of that vast people have an unparalleled power of work, care nothing about hours, and, so long as they are paid, will go on with a dogged steady persistence in toil for sixteen hours a day such as no European can rival. No English ship-carpenter will work like a Chinese, no laundress will wash as many clothes, and a Chinese compositor would be very soon expelled for over-toil by an English 'chapel' of ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... is quite content to have any amount of trite philosophy passed off upon it as new goods by the author who has a gift for dialect and uses an American negro as mouthpiece. Miss DOROTHY DIX employs a black laundress of the name of Mirandy (SAMPSON LOW) for philosopher; and cheerfully persisting with the "yessum's," the "wid's," the "dat's" and the "becaze's," tells us with incessant humour many things we all knew before about husbands, their little ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... called several times in the Temple without being able to see John Saltram; a slip of paper pasted on the outer door of that gentleman's chamber informed the public that he was "out of town," and that was all. Gilbert took the trouble to penetrate the domicile of the laundress who officiated in Mr. Saltram's chambers, in order to obtain some more particular information as to her employer's movements, and after infinite difficulty succeeded in finding that industrious matron in the remote obscurity ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... Dancer Dressmaker Drummer Economist Electrician Farmer First Aide*** Flower Finder Gardener Handy Woman Health Guardian*** Health Winner Home Maker Home Nurse*** Horsewoman Hostess Interpreter Journalist**** Laundress Milliner Motorist**** Musician Needlewoman Pathfinder Photographer Pioneer*** Rock Tapper Sailor*** Scribe Signaller Star ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... seated on the quay. Again in the coach, and afterwards in his chambers, he tried to swallow the laudanum; but his hand was paralysed by "the convincing Spirit," aided by seasonable interruptions from the presence of his laundress and her husband, and at length he threw the laudanum away. On the night before the day appointed for the examination before the Lords, he lay some time with the point of his penknife pressed against his heart, but without courage to drive it home. Lastly he tried ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... you come? Asenath has sent the curtains in the north chamber to the laundress, but will go no farther until we hear for certain that Miss Worthington is to ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... got up again, fetched the kettle of hot water, emptied it into the cold water that was already in his bath, refilled the kettle and put it back on the fire. After dressing, he came into his sitting-room, made tea and cooked, in his Dutch oven, something he had bought the day before. His laundress was an elderly woman, and he could not trouble her to come to his rooms so early in the morning; on the other hand, he could not stay in bed until he thought it right for her to go out; so it ended in his doing a great deal for himself. He then got his breakfast and read ...
— Samuel Butler: A Sketch • Henry Festing Jones
... by a close packing of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in America, reduce the labors of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... use their knowledge of your domestic unhappiness to blackmail you; there will be threats of law-suits from people who will claim that they have contracted a disease from you or your child—your laundress, perhaps, or your maid, or ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... of its extensive signification. The squeamish Fair One who takes it on the sly, merely to cure the vapours, politely names it to her friends as White Wine. The Swell chaffs it as Blue Ruin, to elevate his notions. The Laundress loves dearly a drain of Ould Tom, from its strength to comfort her inside. The drag Fiddler can toss off a quartern of Max without making a wry mug. The Costermonger illumines his ideas with a flash of lightning.' The hoarse Cyprian owes her existence ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... am aunt to a Walter who should have been called Clifford, and a Margaret whom I wanted to name Beryl, and so on. Even my laundress preferred to select names for her twins from some she had seen on a circus poster rather than let me ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... appalling extent; but they were Madisons, and you didn't interdict your daughters' marrying them. The Mastertons ate no meat, and didn't believe in banks. They kept their money in queer corners, and there was so much of it that they couldn't always remember where, and the laundress had orders to turn all stockings before wetting, and did indeed often find bills in the toe. But the laundress, being also of Addington, though of another stratum, recognised this as a Masterton habit, and faithfully sought their hoarded treasure for them, and delivered it over ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... quarrel among themselves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the streets, and are taken up by the watch. Those who do not speak French before they go, are sure to learn none there. Their tender vows are addressed to their Irish laundress, unless by chance some itinerant Englishwoman, eloped from her husband, or her creditors, defrauds her of them. Thus they return home, more petulant, but not more informed, than when they left it; and show, as they think, their improvement by affectedly ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... lame of one leg, and with a large false curl hanging down over one of her eyes, which was blind. This curl was intended to conceal the blind eye, but it made the defect only more visible. She was a friend of the laundress, and was called, among the neighbors, "Lame Martha, with the curl." "Oh, you poor thing; how you do work, standing there in the water!" she exclaimed. "You really do need something to give you a little warmth, and yet spiteful people cry out about the few drops you take." And then ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to suggest that she was perhaps not supposed to be a lady in the part. Aunt Anna said, "Perhaps not, but that does not matter; Maud would be a lady under any circumstances, whatever character she impersonated, laundress or lady. Claud says she will never act till she learns to forget herself I trust one of my ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... many house parties are given by the hostess a full corps of servants is required. Each one should have certain, definite tasks to perform every day. In the luxurious American home, seven servants are usually employed. They are a butler, a chauffeur, a parlor maid, a cook, a laundress, a nurse-maid and a chambermaid. A lady's maid and a valet are sometimes added. A footman, laundry-maid and scullery-maid are also added, sometimes, to the corps of servants. But this list may be increased or diminished according to the requirements of the individual ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... still visible, and that I had so mucked it in washing, that an infant could have guessed what I had been doing. I knew that my mother who now did household duties herself, selected the things for the laundress; and in despair hit on a plan: I filled the chamber-pot with piss and soap-suds, making it as dirty as I could, put it near a chair and my shirt hanging over it carelessly, so as to look as if it had dropped into the pot by accident; ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... that economy consists in saving cheese parings and candle ends, in cutting off two pence from the laundress' bill, and doing all sorts of little, mean, dirty things. Economy is not meanness. The misfortune is also that this class of persons let their economy apply only in one direction. They fancy they are so wonderfully economical ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... lines her hands have laden, A laundress with white hair appears, Alert as many a youthful maiden, Spite of her five-and-seventy years. Bravely she won those white hairs, still Eating the bread hard toil obtain'd her, And laboring truly to fulfil The duties ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... to thee! I tell thee, shameless girl, Thou shalt be laundress to my waiting-maid.— How lik'st thou her, Ebea? will ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... The effect of this upon strangers is seen and felt, producing a sense of physical exhilaration, fine spirits, and a good appetite. It would be impossible to live in a dwelling-house built in our close, secure style, if it were placed in the city of Havana. The laundress takes possession of the roof of the house during the day, but it is the place of social gathering at night, when the family and their guests enjoy the sea-breeze which sweeps in from the Gulf of Mexico. On a clear, bright moonlight night the effect is very striking ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... And the breakfast had not of itself been bad, for Mrs. Whereas had been a daughter of Themis all her life, waiting upon scions of the law since first she had been able to run for a penn'orth of milk. She had been laundress on a stairs for ten years, having married a law stationer's apprentice, and now she owned the dingy house over the covered way, and let her own lodgings with her own furniture; nor was she often without friends ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... major-domo, a cook and kitchenmaid, body servants or valets for the head of the house and the young gentlemen, a ladies' maid, chambermaid, nurse and nursemaids, a coachman, stable boy, gardener, yard boy and laundress. ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... advice, I said to her: 'Above all things, Angela, remember that a good cook is always worth what you pay for him.' The health of the family is so largely dependent on the food. With a French cook, a butler, a laundress and three maids, a simple establishment for two people can be kept up decently and in order; a retinue of servants is not necessary when you do not entertain. Of course, with less than three maids it is impossible to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... acquaint Serigny with, much perchance he knew already. Paris swarmed with rumors. Every lip was busy with second-hand gossip coming, as each relator declared, from the most reliable sources. "My cousin, who is laundress to the Countess de Lanois, says," and upon this immaculate authority the butcher upon his morning rounds detailed the most delightful and impossible gossip ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... king, simple, patriarchal and valorous, stern to his foes, and gentle to the weak. He makes him halt his army in Ireland, because the screams of a woman have been heard; it is a poor laundress in the pangs of child-birth; the march is interrupted; a tent is spread, under which the poor creature is delivered ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... call him Percy for short!) and that his aunt is the Countess of D—— and that he knows a number of people you and Lady Agatha have often spoken of. He's got a Japanese servant called Kino, or perhaps it's spelt Keeno, I don't know which, who's housekeeper, laundress, valet, gardener, groom and chef, all in one,—so, at least Percival Benson confessed to me. He also confessed that he'd bought the Titchborne Ranch, from photographs, from "one of those land chaps" in London. He wanted to rough ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... Any group of men in a tent would have had more exciting tales to tell. I needed no fiction when I had Fanny Wright, for instance, daily passing to and fro before my tent, with her shy little girl clinging to her skirts. Fanny was a modest little mulatto woman, a soldier's wife, and a company laundress. She had escaped from the main-land in a boat, with that child and another. Her baby was shot dead in her arms, and she reached our lines with one child safe on earth and the other in heaven. I never found it needful to give any elementary ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... you forgotten possessing yourself of a little fan which my mistress dropped, quite by accident, from a window on the day of your arrival, and that you were assisted in finding it by the laundress of the villa? The artful jade has a better memory. She does not fail to remind me of the incident and to inquire for you whenever she calls for the linen. I have been obliged to stop her mouth with more than one coin to keep her from ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... usual hour on Saturday afternoon I met near the Archway Daisy Mutlar. My heart gave a leap. I bowed rather stiffly, but she affected not to have seen me. Very much annoyed in the evening by the laundress sending home an odd sock. Sarah said she sent two pairs, and the laundress declared only a pair and a half were sent. I spoke to Carrie about it, but she rather testily replied: "I am tired of speaking to her; you had ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... went up stairs again, and all over the rooms in the top of the house, opened all the cook's bundles, the waiter's boxes, the chambermaid's trunk, and the laundress's umbrella; but not a single steamboat ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... indeed, he thanked her, and had been infinitely comforted and refreshed by her care, and that all he meant was to express his distaste to Mother Jugge, the lavender (i.e. laundress), and his desire for Richard Fowen's company; but he was little attended to, and apparently more than half offended, the brisk old lady ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so; was most graciously received; and, of course, called early next day at her Palace. Her Grand-Chamberlain had appointed me the hour of noon. He now introduced me accordingly: but what was my surprise to find the Princess in bed; in a negligee all new from the laundress, and the gallantest that art could imagine! On a table, ready to her hand, at the DOSSIER or bed-bead, stood a little Basin silver-gilt, filled with Holy Water: the rest was decorated with extremely precious Relics, with a Crucifix, and a Rosary of rock-crystal. Her dress, the cushions, quilt, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... mean how do I work for a living? I am a lace mender, and a bit of a laundress too. I wash fine muslin gowns, and mend and clean valuable old lace. It's pretty work and pleasant enough in ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... it all at once?" asked Etty Thoresby, slipping into the rocking-chair, as Mrs. Linceford, by whom she had come and placed herself within the last minute, rose and went in to follow her laundress, just then going up the stairs ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating house and a pastry cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and firm, smoking hot, and bedight with Christmas holly ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... however, I was not without a rival. A captain of marines, who was formed for the place by nature, opposed me in my patron's affections. His mother had been laundress to a man of quality, and thus he early acquired a taste for pimping and pedigree. As this gentleman made it the study of his life to be acquainted with lords, though he was dismissed from several for his stupidity; yet he found many of them who were as ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... I eat, again I talk and listen, I eat, and again I go to bed; and so each day I can do nothing else, and I understand how to do nothing else. And in order that I may be able to do this, it is necessary that the porter, the peasant, the cook, male or female, the footman, the coachman, and the laundress, should toil from morning till night; I will not refer to the labors of the people which are necessary in order that coachman, cooks, male and female, footman, and the rest should have those implements and articles ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the fifth day of January, a fire breaking out at Whitehall through the carelessness of a laundress, the whole body of the palace, together with the new gallery, council- chamber, and several adjoining apartments were entirely consumed; but the banqueting-house was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... with your old sermons, and Mother with my old dresses! But it was a good sermon," she added. "I have hardly been civil to that German laundress since." ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... into bed I was surprised to hear a voice in the dining-room, where the laundress was lighting a fire. She had found the door unbolted, notwithstanding my design to fasten it, and must have passed the bed-chamber door while I was hanging on it, and yet never perceived me. She heard me fall, and presently ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... do the cooking and mending; the dog was to sweep the floors; the duck was to dust and make the beds; the owl, Too-Too, was to keep the accounts, and the pig was to do the gardening. They made Polynesia, the parrot, housekeeper and laundress, because ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... grandmother was a 'daily gift' to old Mistress when they were both children. Grandmother was nurse to the children; she lived over a hundred years and nursed all the children and grandchildren. She died at the Bissell's home on Rutledge Avenue years and years after slavery. Mother Ellen was laundress; she died first part of the War. My father tended the yard and ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Presently, Annie, the laundress, put her frowsy head in at the door. She was a queer, warm-hearted Irish girl; her big arms were still streaming from the tub, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so that my account might still remain open; and fancied the clerks and cashiers grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that awful counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein behind the glazed partition I could see the bald heads of Newcome Brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper, I would as soon have thought of walking into the Doctor's ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pencil and brush, and they made him decorate the chapel. When the work was done, he called them in. To their amazement and horror, the saints and angels, instead of being ideal faces, were the living portraits of the familiar figures about the cloister. "Why, there's the iceman! there's the laundress!" He rebelled when they told him this was wicked: he said it was all a part of God's world, that the business of the artist was to interpret life; he wished they would let him enter the pulpit, take the Prior's place, and preach a sermon that would make ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... in the poor one? the professional man's in the mechanic? the man of society in the man unknown? Then it was true, eh? that the mulatto (for Guayos was a "yellow man") had spoken to the lawyer familiarly in the street in presence of ladies and officers? Maybe. The laundress at the second house down the street had said so, but, fie! it was only on a matter of business. Tut! Business was no excuse, considering that Don Alonzo was of Spanish parentage, while the other had been nothing but a Cuban for two centuries. To forget this breach ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... records of "as many as twenty bookes" in the old valuations. The great ornament of the room is a neat trophy of buckler, bow, arrows, and two daggers, all hanging conveniently on the wall. Stoke opens his eyes, yawns, looks round for his clothes, and sees, with no surprise, that his laundress has not sent home his clean linen. No; Christina, of the parish of St. Martin, who used to be Stoke's lotrix, has been detected at last. "Under pretence of washing for scholars, multa mala perpetrata fuerunt," she has committed all manner of crimes, and is now in the Spinning House, carcerata ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... she says tactfully that she sees Prometheus has set his heart upon going, and she wants him to feel perfectly free to do just what he likes. Only there are certain practical matters that one must consider. There's the mortgage, and the laundress—unless he'd like to have her do the washing herself, which she'd be glad to do only he never took those stones out of her way, in the brook—and there's the bill for that last set of bear-skins that she got for the windows; and ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... all herself; she would trust no one, least of all the laundress. She had only faint old visions of John Hurst's collars to guide her; but she was upheld by an immense relief, born of her will to please, and Arthur, by a blind reliance, born of his utter weariness. At times these preparations well-nigh exasperated him. "If going meant all that fuss," ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... thank ye," answered Higson, cocking his eye, "I've a notion that clean linen would be plentiful aboard the corvette, and by the time it reached us it would be ready again for the laundress." ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Baron. I think we should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... much extra washing, you may have to use much diplomacy as regards the laundress; and if it is very disgusting washing, it is well to have a large pail, with a cover, upstairs. Thoroughly disinfect the clothes before you send them to the washing, as the odors are often sickening, and the laundress, like other servants, is very much afraid, usually, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... more care about it. The feathers did the rest, and the lady set great store by her for a better laundress she had never had. Well, one day the butler, who had a notion to have the pretty laundry-maid for his wife, said to her, he should have spoken before but he did not want to vex her. "Why should it when I am but a fellow-servant?" the girl said. And then he felt ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... Jane Gladys O'Donnel, stout and good-natured, an indifferent cook and rather untidy. She was twenty years old and the eldest of a large and impoverished family. Her mother was a laundress— "took in washin'"—and her earnings, with the wages of Jane Gladys, must suffice to feed many hungry mouths. That was why Mrs. Conant had hired Jane Gladys. Aunt Hannah knew the girl was not very competent, but she was cheap, so Mr. Jones accepted her without protest. Alora ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... their work was done, Deerham could not conceive: it was next to impossible to fancy one of those ladies scrubbing a floor or making a bed. The butcher called for orders, and took in the meat, which was nearly always mutton-chops; the baker left his bread at the door, and the laundress was admitted inside ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... on the porch, exchanging a few gay remarks with the garbage man before shutting the side door after him. The big stove was roaring hot, a thick odor of boiling clothes showed that Marthe was ready for her cousin Nancy, the laundress, who came once a week. A saucepan deeply gummed with cereal was soaking beside the hissing and smoking frying pan Mrs. Salisbury moved the frying pan, and the quick heat of the coal fire rushed up at ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... time, yet it was long enough. I waited nearly three hours before my name was called, and when it was, I unlocked my trunks and handed them over to one of the officers, whose dirty hands made no improvement on the work of the laundress. First one article was taken out, and then another, till an Iron Collar that had been worn by a female slave on the banks of the Mississippi, was hauled out, and this democratic instrument of torture became the centre of attraction; so much so, that instead of going on with the examination, ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... thickness of cloth at that part. There is another kind of safety skirt which is a combination of breeches and skirt in one; but I consider this a very unsanitary arrangement, for it is obvious that the undergarment must be kept clean, and handed over when necessary to the laundress to be carefully washed, before sending it to a tailor to be pressed and repaired as may be required. It is part of a groom's duty in small households to attend to the cleaning of his mistress's hunting boots and skirt, but a combination garment should not be ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... their conspiracy was that Hocus recommended his brother and sister, his two aunts and nieces and four nephews, his own six children, his dog, his conventicle-minister, his laundress, his secretary, a friend of whom he had once borrowed five pounds, and a blind beggar whom he favoured, to various posts about the house and to certain pensions, and these Jack Bull (though his fortune was ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... years earlier if they are paying pupils, and remain till sixteen. They make everything for themselves at the school excepting hats and boots, and do all their own domestic work, the kitchen and laundry being under the superintendence of a cook and laundress. Large orders of needlework are executed, but the mornings are ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... a witty chap and a good singer, "Hay," and I were leaning over the taffrail, looking into the swirling water made by the propeller's thrust, when "Dye" remarked: "This is the queerest water I ever saw in all my days; it looks like the bluing water our laundress used to make, with the ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... scholars to take lessons. How could she support herself? She could remain in the house, for the mortgage was paid off, though the government and not poor Solomon Isaacs had the mortgage-money in its grip for the present. Old Ursula, who was cook, chambermaid, housekeeper, laundress, and everything else for Father Peter, and had been Marget's nurse in earlier years, said God would provide. But she said that from habit, for she was a good Christian. She meant to help in the providing, to make sure, if she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... maid-servant who had been stuck, unstuck herself and dragged herself to her mistress; she told her that her outraged lord knew nothing, and that before giving up the ghost she would comfort her dear mistress by assuring her that she could have perfect confidence in her sister, who was laundress in the hotel, and was willing to let herself be chopped up as small as sausage-meat to please Madame. That she was the most adroit and roguish woman in the neighbourhood, and renowned from the council chamber to the Trahoir cross among the common ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea that such an existence was in any way ignoble; nay, indeed, when he had paid his rent, and his clerk, and his laundress, and his tavern score, and "stood glasses round" amongst his friends, he lighted his cigar, and thrust his hands into the depths of his pockets, and paced the flags of Holborn happy in the belief that he had performed ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... suburb of Prague, there lived about twenty years ago, two poor but honest people, who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow; he worked in a large printing establishment, and his wife employed her spare time as a laundress. Their pride, and their only pleasure, was their daughter Viteska, who was a vigorous, voluptuous-looking, handsome girl of eighteen, whom they brought up very well and carefully. She worked for a dress-maker, and was thus able to help her parents a little, and she made use of her leisure moments ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... memoranda enclosed, and a quarter of an hour afterwards fleet-footed Sancho was flying over the sixty miles to Fort Whipple as fast as Private Tom Clary could ride him. Three days later a pack-train arrived, with a laundress from the infantry company, Frank Burton, and Mary Arnold, and with stores and supplies necessary for setting up a sick-camp. The wounded girl mended rapidly from ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... an understanding with the laundress (to whom you say that you are all-powerful with me), threatening to take away my practice from her, unless she gets up gratis some of ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pinholes, corner creases torn, soft, tarnished, decrepit while yet young. Some have been half-burned; one has been found half-digested in the stomach of a goat, and one boiled in a waistcoat-pocket by a laundress. No matter; the cashier at the bank will do his best to decipher it; he will indeed take an infinity of trouble to put together the ashes of a burned note, and will give the owner a new note or the value in coin, if satisfied of the integrity of the old one. The bank authorities preserve specimens ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... reported a small part of the conversation I had with the Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of The ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was one night dressed in a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear foul linen because his laundress was made a princess. This was a reflection upon the Pope's sister, who, before the promotion of her brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in Rome, the Pope offered a considerable sum of money to any person ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... took chambers in Lincoln's Inn. His father on his second marriage had settled some property upon him, which brought in some L90 a year. He had to live like a gentleman upon this, and to give four guineas a year to the laundress, four to his barber, and two to his shoeblack. In spite of Jeremy's deviation from the path of preferment, the two were on friendly terms, and when the hopes of the son's professional success grew faint, the father showed sympathy with his literary undertakings. Jeremy visited Paris ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... bottles out of my pocket, and had finished them, "I'm a little disappointed with you to-day. I came out here for a little quiet blood-and-thunder before going to bed, and you are mixing up your stories like the regimental laundress's soapsuds. It's not right of you. Now, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... your honours and reverences would know whether I writ clean and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well by looking into my Laundress's bill, as my book: there is one single month in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one and thirty shirts with clean writing; and after all, was more abus'd, cursed, criticis'd, and confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote in that one month, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... and passionate "Conversations with a laundress" about articles that I blush to remember. Some twenty pages of the volume were devoted to silly dialogues between an extraordinarily patient shoemaker and one of the most irritating and constitutionally dissatisfied customers that an unfortunate ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... is that your chambermaid, bellboy, hotel clerk, taxi driver, dressmaker, saleslady, cook and laundress, hairdresser, waiter and bootblack may all and each be a so-called divorcee. (For convenience sake, I speak of them all as "divorcees," although Webster defines a "divorcee" as a man or woman who has already ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... hired girl, she must bear them in the meekest silence. Even the most friendly advice, conveyed in the blandest possible tone, is often declined with freezing dignity or repelled with tart resentment. The cook who makes a cinder of your joint, or sends you up disgusting slops for coffee, or the laundress between whose clean and soiled linen you are puzzled to choose, has almost invariably the reply, uttered with a majestic sternness that never fails to crush any but a veteran and plucky housekeeper: 'This is the first time ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you," said the laundress, "my young master will stick nothing to call an honest woman slut and quean, if there be but a speck ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... chimney-boards, or cut paper, or work samplers?" "Dear aunt," said Isabel, "I am a brown bird of the mountains, as my mother called me. She taught me to sing, because she said it made work go on more merrily, but the longest day was short enough for what I had to do; I was laundress, and sempstress, and cook, and gardener; and if Cicely went to look for the sheep, I had to milk and bake, and at night I mended my father's fishing-nets, while I was learning Latin with Eustace. Yet I got through all very well, till my mother fell ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... in stifled screams of terror, caused by the sudden appearance of a human hand, in a place and in a manner well adapted to shake the stoutest laundress's nerves. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... days, "in the absence of domestic servants from our family circle. Adam was head of the house, general provider, hired-man, stable-boy, head-gardener, coach-man, night-watchman and everything else of the male persuasion on the place; whilst I was cook, laundress, nurse, housekeeper, manicure, stenographer, and general housemaid, as well as the mother of the family—a situation that even though it involved us in no end of hard work, had its compensations. Living off in suburbs as we did, you can have no idea of what a comfort it was to us not to ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... College, and paying privately for the entertainment, but no such guest might sleep in College, and the permission is carefully restricted to the male sex. Women were, as (p. 073) a rule, not allowed within a College gate; if it was impossible to find a man to wash clothes, a laundress might be employed, but she must be old and of unprepossessing appearance. A scholar or Fellow of a college had not, however, committed himself irrevocably to a celibate life, for marriage is included among the "causas rationabiles ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... teleseme, but the words on the dial were confused; she quickly moved the needle round over the whole twenty-four points, but none of them suited the case. She stopped it at "porter," moved it to "bootblack," carried it around to "ice water," and successively to "coupe," "laundress," and "messenger-boy," and then gave up in despair, and jerked open the door that led to the hall. Miss Wakefield had just come up to the next apartment to inquire after a little girl ill from a cold, and was returning toward the elevator when Mrs. Drupe's wild ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... new name into his family. It never occurred to him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham, and my double, who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... and equipment, to Larry O'Toole, the son of my mother's laundress, to be preserved for him until he is old enough ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher |
