"Tidy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bid you good-bye to-night, for after all I am not to sleep in your room, which is much better, as I should have had to disturb you so early. My husband has found a tidy room next door in a cottage, and we shall do very ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... came the clear trill of a canary singing blithely in its cage. Within the tidy, homely little room a pale-faced girl and a youth of slender frame listened intently while the bird sang its song. The girl was the ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... in there now had I not gone into the library and found a lot of illustrated papers, which I always put in the cupboard to keep the place tidy, thrown out on to the floor. I went to put them back but discovered the door locked. The key I afterwards found in the grate, where Mr. Leithcourt had evidently thrown it, and on opening the door imagine the shock I had when I found the visitor lying ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... duties at home as well, and is sometimes seen, a pitcher in one hand and a mop in the other, making the house tidy. She can boil potatoes, shell the beans, feed the hens, and make herself useful in ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... in the car seat it seemed to be a good time to look over some things in the pretty London traveling bag, which had been pushed under its owner's feet until then. Betty found a small bit of chocolate for herself by way of dessert to the early luncheon, and made an entry in a tidy little account book which she meant to keep carefully until she should be with papa again. It was a very interesting bag, with a dressing-case fitted into it and a writing case, all furnished with glass and ivory and silver fittings and yet very plain, and nice, and convenient. ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... down to write to her. What a tidy, methodical little desk! Everything in its place. Dear, business-like, sea-witch Isabel! Here was her engagement book. He ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... she said. "Clear away the tea, tidy up the hearth, and let me read my chapter while the daylight lasts," and finishing her tea Morva did ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... a year before, when he had stood at the door of that room and had first seen Marguerite Delarue. As they galloped up the street the vision of the room and of the girl came vividly back—the inviting, homelike room, with its easy-chairs, its pictures and shaded lamps, its tables with their tidy litter of papers and fancy work, its pillowed lounges, and deep cushioned window-seats, and the tall, anxious-eyed girl with the sick child in her arms, held close to her breast. Unconsciously he turned his head, possessed for the moment by the vision, and looked back at the dark mass ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... than he was yesterday; he has been asking for you ever so many times, miss, and has made me go to the door to see if you were coming. He'll be main glad to see you. I have been working hard to make the house look a little tidy, but it is in a sad mess; it is a wonder the whole of it didn't come down and crush the old ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... hundred compactly built houses standing on the western bank of the Detroit river. Beyond it, on both sides for nearly eight miles, stretched the prosperous settlement of French peasants, whose long, narrow farms reached far back from the river, though in every case the tidy white houses and outbuildings stood close to ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... think he was a bachelor. Hadji is smokin' a good seegar an' occasionally histin' a dhrink iv cider, an' wan iv th' ladies is playin' a guitar, an' another is singin' 'I want ye my Sulu,' an' another is makin' a tidy, an' three or four hundred more ar-re sewin' patches on th' pants iv th' Hadji kids. An' th' ambassadure he says: 'Mos' rile an' luminous citizen, here is a copy iv th' Annual Thanksgivin' pro-clamation,' he says. 'Tis addhressed to all th' hearty husbandmen ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... modes of their preparation: when you have time, go and help in the cooking of poorer families, and show them how to make as much of everything as possible, and how to make little, nice; coaxing and tempting them into tidy and pretty ways, and pleading for well-folded table- cloths, however coarse, and for a flower or two out of the garden to strew on them. If you manage to get a clean table-cloth, bright plates on it, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... in my time," said Mr. Ponders, completing the operation and corking the medicine bottle. He held it towards Rosalie, paused in his mysteriously deliberative way, and then suddenly handed it to her. "And a tidy fair drop for Miss Keggs at that," he added. He went to the door, again paused as though uncertain whether to open it, then opened it for Rosalie to pass out. "Good night," ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... her more than anything, and again and again she struck the banisters with vexation. Late as it was, she got a lantern from the tool-shed and went down the garden to rake the earth over them. The sparrows had taken every one. But countless fragments of the letter remained, disfiguring the tidy ground. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... and again Peter wanted to laugh. But he didn't. He kept perfectly still. Mrs. Quack shook herself and then began to carefully dress her feathers. That is, she carefully put back in place every feather that had been rumpled up. She took a great deal of time for this, for Mrs. Quack is very neat and tidy and takes the greatest pride in looking as fine ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... possible to soften the terrible impression his face produced. With this in view, skillful painters, barbers, and artists were summoned, and all night long they were busy over Lazarus' head. They cropped his beard, curled it, and gave it a tidy, agreeable appearance. By means of paints they concealed the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face. Repulsive were the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they were puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth background, wrinkles ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... day was spent "resting in the centre of the Sea of Marmara." That was their favourite preening perch between operations, because it gave them a chance to tidy the boat and bathe, and they were a cleanly people both in their methods and their persons. When they boarded a craft and found nothing of consequence they "parted with many expressions of good will," and E11 "had a good wash." She gives her reasons at length; for going in and out of Constantinople ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... Who is not very tidy; And he's lazy, alack! He sleeps all day Friday. About a yard wide The Yak is, precisely; With fringe on each side He's ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... (which is sometimes a trifle irksome) they never hear an unkind word. They grow in grace, partly because they return as many of these favors as is possible at their age. They water the plants, clean the bird's cage and fill the seed cups and bath; they keep the room as tidy as possible to make the janitor's work easier; they brush up the floor after their own muddy feet; the older ones help the younger and the strong look after the weak. The conditions are almost ideal; why should they not ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the rooms tidy as well as he could. When he touched her clothes a thrill of something like terror went through him. He had never thought what existence would be without Katy. She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed—necessary ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... large stock of patience, and a small parcel of insect powder. The knapsack and the shoes I found exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable; but I had very little occasion to draw upon either my stock of patience or insect powder. The French are a tidy people, and though their beds, stuffed with maize chaff, may be hard, they are tolerably clean. The food provided in the auberges is doubtless very different from what one is accustomed to at home; but with the help of cheerfulness and a good digestion that difficulty ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... are emphatic on that point; we are to patrol outside though, and not to venture farther unless there is a commotion. But it is the duty of the non-commissioned officer in whose charge a hut may be to see that the prisoners keep the place tidy, to watch them carefully, and to observe if they show ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... flaming over all the land under my eye; and yet I am but just entered upon the period of English literary history which is most rich in rural illustration. The mere backs of the books relating thereto, as my glance ranges over them, where they stand in tidy platoon, start a delightfully confused picture ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... as you well know, neat, tidy, and well dressed girls. As soon as they turn off from the stream of their fellow-workers, as they leave the mills, it is hardly possible to tell whether they are factory girls, shop girls, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 54, November 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... was very quiet round the old inn. The birds were singing, and the bees humming in the pleasant sunshine. The house looked clean and tidy, and no one was to be seen except three persons bending over a table, with their heads close together, deeply absorbed in whatever business they were engaged in. Two of these persons were Dame Bedard, the sharp landlady of the Crown of France, and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... kitchen that was as usual tidy to the last degree; the General, however, true to the influence of his environment, was busy with a tiny broom and dustpan. Emma sat in the window reading, and on the stove something simmered and ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... little chill, a feeling that he had left the warm, living thing and was too much alone. This time he came through Prairie and Calumet Avenues. Here, on the asphalt pavements, the broughams and hansoms rolled noiselessly to and fro among the opulent houses with tidy front grass plots and shining steps. The avenues were alive with afternoon callers. At several points there were long lines of carriages, attending a reception, or a funeral, or ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... dotted with all kinds of trees, amongst which flower beds cropped up in most unexpected and unlikely places, just as if some giant had flung them out on the grass like a handful of pebbles that scattered as they flew. They were always trim and tidy, and the gardener, Hogg, was terribly strict, and woe betide the author of any small footmarks that he found on one of the freshly raked surfaces. Nothing annoyed him more than the odd bulbs that used ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... court-yard of the Hotel comes quite as a relief. It is an evidence of life. This Hotel's exceptional quietude suggests the idea of its being conducted like a prison on the silent system, with, of course, dumbwaiters to assist in the peculiarly clean and tidy salle a manger. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... casements. The swallows were skimming and dipping about the meadows; and the swans steered their majestic course along the river, rippling its otherwise unbroken surface. The men of the village sat on the thresholds of their doors, smoking an early pipe! and their tidy children, the boys with hair combed straight, and the girls with clean pinafores, came abroad; some to carry the Sunday dinner to the baker's, and others to nurse the baby in the sunshine, or to snatch ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... like to knock them down; only don't mention my ideas. Madame will bother me, and say it is unladylike; and perhaps she will give me Theresa Tidy's maxims to do into ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... Reverend Cecil had strayed into Betty's room, now no longer boudoir and bedchamber, but just a room, swept, dusted, tidy, with the horrible tidiness of a room that is not used. There were squares of bright yellow on the dull drab of the wall-paper, marking the old hanging places of the photographs and pictures that Betty had taken to Paris. He ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... use, and in one or two instances checks of substantial value. There was also what was called a steward's rebate on the monthly bills, which in circles where lavish entertainment is the order of the day amounted to a tidy little income in itself. My only embarrassment lay in the contact into which I was necessarily brought with other butlers, with whom I was perforce required to associate. This went very much against the grain at first, for, although I am scarcely more than a thief after all, ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... the goddess is found hanging upside down. One morning when the head of the family comes out of his bed-room and the youngsters go in to make the room tidy, as they call it, (though they generally make the room more untidy and finally leave it to the servants) they find the famous family picture hanging literally topsyturvy (that is with head downwards) and they at once sound the alarm. Then they all ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... as clean, and your hair is as bright, Your frock is as tidy, your hands are as white, But there's one thing, ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if it ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... no use for you-alls to stop here. The Injuns have got this section combed out clean. You couldn't get enough plumes around here to pay for your bacon. Now, I knows of a tidy little island 'bout twelve miles south of here where there's stacks of the birds. If you start right now you'll hit it before them pesky varmints of redskins find it. I'm telling you in pay for that tobacco. Max Hilliard ain't the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the young man had violently rung the bell. "Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay the table again. Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get. Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air. Tidy up the place for there's a ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... not the characteristic of this little low room, simply for want of able hands to ensure it. Eleanor's first work was to set Jane to eating grapes; her next, to put the place in tidy order. "Lady Rythdale shall be useful once more in her life," she thought. She brushed up the floor, swept the hearth, demolished cobwebs on the walls, and rubbed down the chairs. She had borrowed an apron and cap from ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... window-frame. The pendulum ticked drowsily along the opposite wall, and the hickory back-log on the hearth hummed a lamentable song through all its simmering pores of sap. Peaceful as the happy landscape without, dozing in dreams of the departed summer, cheery as the tidy household signs within, seemed at last the lives of the two inmates. Mary Potter had not asked how her son's wooing had further sped, but she felt that he was contented of heart; she, too, indulging finally in the near consummation ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... has a tidy sum of money on deposit with the bank at one per cent., if he wants to employ a sum for a short time, say for the purchase of cattle, he prefers to raise the money on a bill at six ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Maltby—which was only fifteen miles distant from his home—he became suddenly aware of an approaching dog-cart in the road before him, and a familiar voice crying, "Why, if it ain't young Squire Loman, riding a bit of very tidy horseflesh too, as I'm ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you ...
— The Velveteen Rabbit • Margery Williams
... that sometimes disgust the invalid with what is put before him. There is a tidy and an untidy way of serving most dishes, too; for instance, in serving a poached egg, have it piping hot and on the toast; not cold, part on the toast and part on the ...
— The Community Cook Book • Anonymous
... as a child who asks nothing better than to be told what to do; and, generous and clever woman as she was, she had taken no undue advantage of his weaknesses. She had taken care of him as you take care of a cloak; she kept him brushed, neat, and tidy, looked closely after him, and humored him; and humored, looked after, brushed, kept tidy, and cared for, M. de Bargeton had come to feel an almost dog-like affection for his wife. It is so easy to give happiness that costs nothing! Mme. de Bargeton, knowing that her husband had ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Great Mogul's domains there are Familiar sprites of much domestic use: They sweep the house, and take a tidy care Of equipage, nor garden work refuse; But, if you meddle with their toil, The whole, at once, you're sure to spoil. One, near the mighty Ganges flood, The garden of a burgher good Work'd noiselessly and well; To master, mistress, garden, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... there, Including the girls and the son and heir, A red-cheeked frivolous knife-and-fork's crew, Who hadn't forgotten, oh joy, the corkscrew! And, last, we furbished our feasting-green, And left no paper to spoil the scene, Did up the remains in a tidy pack And took to our boat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... know a tidy bit about it. She asked about George Cooper, and Richmond the Black, and Tom Oliver, always comin' back to you, and wantin' to know if you were not the pick of the bunch. And trustworthy. That was the other point. Could ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... do," Uncle John would say, "is to keep the garden clean and tidy, and to water the plants every morning so that they may be very green." And Toby would go and whisper this to the baby, and she would stare at the ceiling ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... even insufficiently clad. But the little bit of quite plain linen around her slim throat was spotlessly clean; and her poor and totally unornamented chocolate-coloured stuff dress was in decently tidy condition, and was worn with that nameless and inexplicable grace which causes it to be said of similarly gifted women ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... of the delay to set everything tidy, and we had a great washing day. He sent for a barber in the village to trim his hair and beard. The Naiband Figaro was an extraordinary creature, a most bare-faced rascal, who had plenty to say for himself, and whose peculiar ways and roaming eyes made us conceal away out of his sight ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... as I said this, I began to fear she would think I meant it. But she only smiled and said, "It won't hurt she, sir; and my good man, who does all he can to keep her tidy, is out at toes and heels, and if I don't keep he warm he'll be laid up, and then the church won't be kep' nice, sir, till he's ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig. Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of a toy-shop. Tropic flowers simply look like artificial ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... rendering his unlovely features yet more disagreeable. Behind him trotted the red-faced counselor who had accompanied him on his first visit. But matching the rival step for step was the "Boss," while "Red" brought up the rear in a tidy fashion. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... mistress insisted on cleanliness in her servants, but Mashutka had no gift for keeping herself spotless. When her hands were clean she could do nothing, but felt as if everything would slip through her fingers. If she was told to do her hair on Sunday, to wash and to put on tidy clothes, she felt the whole day as if she had been sewn into a sack. She only seemed to be happy when, smeared and wet with washing the boards, the windows, the silver, or the doors, she had become almost unrecognisable, and had, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... an hour after it was gone all its most glaring faults seemed to marshall themselves before my mind's eye. Whole paragraphs, that had read quite reasonably before, now loomed ludicrous in perspective. I longed to snatch it back; to tidy it here, to take it in there, to smooth certain rough places neglected in my haste. For almost a year I had lived with this thing, so close that its faults and its virtues had become indistinguishable to me. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... present priest, commences in 1862. Including the scattered casitas several miles around, its population is not over five hundred souls. It is situated in a narrow vale or hollow, not far west from the Rio Pecos itself, and has a modest but clean and tidy church, with a small belfry. All the houses are of adobe. Lieutenant-Colonel Emory (Notes, Executive Document 41, p. 30) speaks of it in 1846 as "the modern village of Pecos, ... with a very inconsiderable population." As yet there are but very few Americans ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... made her Lamb nice and tidy, and she was going downstairs, Mirabell was, to see what Uncle Tim was doing, when Arnold came back from Dick's house with the toy fire engine and the wooden puzzle the sailor ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... plied from the mainland to Lighthouse Island and one or two more small islands scattered about near the coast was a small but tidy little vessel that was really capable of better speed than most people gave her credit for. She was painted a sort of dingy white, and large black letters along her bow proclaimed her to be none other than the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... neither was bothered with the romantic ideas usually attached to the woodland cabins of fiction, each had expected a smarter camp. Nor were they very favorably impressed with the two men who appeared on the bank. They were not exactly tidy in appearance and their figures and faces suggested that they had spent a winter of comparative ease among the ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... inasmuch as the Sisters of the Sacred Heart have erected a terribly modern convent here. A large Gothic doorway, in a high fragment of ancient wall, admits you to a garden-like enclosure, of great extent, from which you are further introduced into an extraordinarily tidy little parlour, where two good nuns sit at work. One of these came out with me and showed me over the place—a very definite little woman, with pointed features, an intensely distinct enunciation, and ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... mountains and pasted on one page a number of small snapshots taken during the outing; she copied a joke she had read in the paper that morning and discussed the serial story in the boarding-house magazine which all the boarders were reading; she wrote out the directions for a new crocheted tidy her sister had made—Miss Marshall had a mania for crocheting; and she finally wound up with "all the good will and good wishes that Nora Jane will consent to carry from your friend, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not to get too near. They'll lay down a chalk line, and they'll stop outside on't. If they'd only come near enough, th' light 'd burn up all them transgressions: but, ye see, that wouldn't just suit 'em. These is folk that wants to have th' Lord—a tidy way from 'em—and keep th' transgressions too. Eh, Mistress, but when a man can pray right through th' hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, his heart's middlin' perfect wi' the Lord. Otherwise, he'll boggle at them last verses. We don't want Him to search us when we know He'll find yon wedge o' gold ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... girl, and most tidy—also extremely graceful. But her father, to the best of my belief, can ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... Walpole is thinking of his own concerns—I've thought the best way, as it was the shortest, was to come at once to yourself: I have got a few documents here that will show you I have enough to live on, and to make a tidy settlement, and do all that ought ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... mine. I have had a most unfortunate adventure in the hills, losing my way and being compelled to sleep out all night, nor can I remain to get tidy, as it is essential that I should reach my luggage (which ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... you think it a very nice thing to go to a dinner party and sit in chairs all round a large room, where the coloured covers are taken away and everything looks very gay, and so tidy, nobody is allowed to do anything but smile, and talk, and wear white ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... rest of the gardens they swept bare enough, removing every morning Nature's rain of leaves; piling them in heaps, whence from slow fires rose the sweet, acrid smoke that, like the cuckoo's note for spring, the scent of lime trees for the summer, is the true emblem of the fall. The gardeners' tidy souls could not abide the gold and green and russet pattern on the grass. The gravel paths must lie unstained, ordered, methodical, without knowledge of the realities of life, nor of that slow and beautiful decay which flings ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... after night it was the same. Morning found him a happy, bright child, full of engaging ways and innocent sayings, and quite satisfied with 'Cousin Honor,' but bed-time always brought back the same wailing. Nurse, a tidy, brisk personage, with a sensible, deferential tone to her superiors, and a caressing one to the children, tried in vain assurances of papa's soon coming back; nay, it might be feared that she held out that going to sleep would bring the morrow ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upstairs, chattering, and primped and fussed in Maxine's neat and austere little bedroom. They used Maxine's powder and dropped it about on the tidy dresser and the floor. They brushed away only what had settled on the front of their dresses. They forgot to switch off the electric light, leaving Maxine to do it, thriftily, between serving courses. Every penny counted. Every penny ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... that cannot be covered—ach, Frau Dellwig, good-evening—you see we have taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. There—now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up your pretty dress. Is Letty to ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. William's very trousers hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it were not in their iron-grey nature to rest without looking about them, Mrs. William's neatly-flowered skirts—red and white, like her own ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... ye knows—but thar's a gal that'll suit. Git up gals;' and a row of five women rose: 'No; git up thar, whar we kin see ye.' They stepped up on the log. 'Now, thar's a gal fur ye,' he continued, pointing to a clean, tidy mulatto woman, not more than nineteen, with a handsome but meek, sorrow-marked face: 'Luk at thet!' and he threw up her dress to her knees, while the poor girl reached down her shackled hands in the vain effort to prevent the indignity. He was about to show ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... would have a full hand. I don't know what Pa meant, but he plays draw poker sometimes. Anyway there was eleven people came including the minister, and after they had talked about the neighbors a spell, and Ma had showed the women a new tidy she had worked for the heathen, with a motto on it which Pa had taught her: 'A contrite heart beats a bob-tailed flush,'—and Pa had talked to the men about a religious silver mine he was selling stock in, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... quiet, well-appointed house near the Promenade. I was admitted without delay, and shown into the composer's room. It was plainly a musician's work-room, yet it had a note of elegance that surprised me. Musicians are not a tidy race; but here there was none of the admired disorder that one instinctively associates with an artist's sanctum. There was no litter. The well-used pianoforte could be approached without circuitous negotiation of a rampart of books and papers, and the chairs were free from encumbrances. ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... the knife; then take one of those long-haired sable brushes, which are called "riggers" (fig. 19), and which all artists'-colourmen sell, and fill it with the colour, diluting it with enough water to make it quite thin. Do not dilute all the pigment; keep most of it in a tidy lump, merely moist, as you ground it and not further wetted, at the corner of your slab; but always keep a portion diluted in a small "pond" in the middle ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... neat, a. tidy, orderly, trim, clean, cleanly; tasteful, trim, finished, artistic, nice, excellent, adroit; dainty; spruce; dapper, natty. Antonyms: dowdy, slovenly, slatternly, untidy, tawdry, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... delicious and luxuriant about it," I went on critically, "yet it has a delicate, ethereal, austere, straight- forward Puritanical loveliness of its own; but, no, it is not as beautiful as Italy or Ireland, and it isn't as tidy as England. If you keep away from the big manufacturing towns and their outskirts you may go by motor or railway through shire after shire in England and never see anything unkempt, down-at-the-heel, out-at-elbows, ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... be poisoned. I wish little Mary would come. Ah! her mother would never have served me so.' He lay awake, thinking such things over and over again, all night long, and I stood watching him from a dark corner, till the dayspring came and shook me out. When I came back next night, the room was tidy and clean. His own daughter, a sad-faced but beautiful woman, sat by his bedside; and little Mary was curled up on the floor by the fire, imitating us, by making queer shadows on the ceiling with her twisted ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... scrubbing of the halls and stairways, but the tenants are required to sweep them every day, in turn. The sinks and drains are kept clean. All this has a marvellous effect on the home habits of the inmates; and I have seen as clean and tidy rooms in the "Good Luck" tenement house as I have seen anywhere, and that, too, on days when they were caught unawares, it not being the regular rent day, when they expect the landlady. All above six per cent has been put in the bank ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... received the gift of a first-born, were in the habit of comporting themselves! He poured himself out another glass, and with it came the reflection, both amusing and consoling, that his brother, who was confidently expecting his tidy five figures to crown the earthly bliss of one or more of his large family some day, would be equally but less agreeably surprised. "Serve him right!" he said to himself. "What business have they to be looking out ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... said the wretched criminal, who began to find the way of the transgressor unreasonably hard and thorny, 'first and last, you've had a pretty tidy handful of ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... greet tae see him," Mrs. Macfadyen said to me one day, "sae booed an' disjackit, him that wes that snod (tidy) and firm. His hair's turned white in a month, and he's awa' tae naething in his claithes. But least said is sunest mended. It's no richt tae interfere wi' another's sorrow, an' it wad be an awfu' sin tae misca' a young lassie. We maun juist houp that Flora 'll sune come back, for ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... story of her first meeting with Enrique Baloona. Some say he was fishing for bolawallas[20] and she came graciously up and asked him the time; others aver that he was passing beneath her lattice and she dropped a fluted hair-tidy at his feet. But anyhow, from the time they first met they never parted until it was absolutely necessary. They pursued the course of their love through the long, tranquil summer days and nights—every word they uttered one to the other was sheer poetry. Enrique, who was a fully qualified academician, ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... Spain and spent the best part of a year in Seville. I amused myself hugely and wrote a bad novel. Then I returned to London and, with a friend of my own age, took and furnished a small flat near Victoria Station. A maid of all work cooked for us and kept the flat neat and tidy. My friend was at the Bar, and so I had the day (and the flat) to myself and my work. During the next six years I wrote several novels and a number of plays. Only one of these novels had any success, but even that failed to make the stir that my first ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... prepared for them, an abundance of milk, toys for the older ones, picture-books, etc. They are fed three times a day, washed and combed before being sent home (although constant applicants are expected to bring their children tidy and neat on first arrival), and if the mother fails to return at night, they are of course housed with the tenderest care. As there would be no room to accommodate permanent baby-boarders without impairing the original intention for which the creche is opened, these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... cried, for I was sorry to lose Suzanne, even for a little and for her own good, and my heart was heavy. Also my quarrel with the predicant had put me out of temper. When I had got over this fit I set to work to tidy Suzanne's little sleeping place, and that I found a sad task. Then Jan returned from the waggon, having bid farewell to the young couple, an hour's trek away, and his head being clear by now, we talked over the plans of the new house which ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... and delicacy will teach you the desirability of keeping your room tidy, and your articles of dress and toilet as much in order as possible. If there is a deficiency of servants, a lady will certainly not hesitate to make her own bed, and to do for herself as much as possible, and for the family all that is in her power. I never saw an elegant ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects, by that article of dress; but, from head to foot she was scrupulously clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed, her laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own conscience as well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), and wrestle as ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... the hour of noon approaches, the cooks of the messes may be seen coming up the fore and main hatchways with their mess-kids in their hands, the hoops of which are kept as bright as silver, and the woodwork as neat and as clean as the pail of the most tidy dairymaid. The grog also is now mixed in a large tub, under the half-deck, by the quarter-masters of the watch below, assisted by other leading and responsible men among the ship's company, closely superintended, of course, by the mate of the hold, to see that no liquor is abstracted, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the woman-usher (in a neat muslin cap with pink ribbons) keeps the candies and cakes she sells to the audience between the acts. Upon the poor little profits of her office here this honest woman lives, and keeps herself as tidy as if she had ample pin-money. She thrusts a little wooden footstool under the feet of each woman in the audience, and is amply repaid with a sou at the end of the evening. The footstool is welcome, for a Frenchwoman is ill ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... I mean to. There!" announced P. Sybarite, finishing the bandage with a tidy flat knot—make yourself comfortable on that couch, tell me where you keep your whiskey, and I'll mix myself a drink and listen ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... walls were papered with landscapes in which pretty shepherdesses, impossible sheep, and garlands of roses predominated,—a style much in vogue in the early forties,—indeed the room seemed as if it had been closed and laid away by a tidy housewife years before, and opened and aired for my reception but yesterday. An illumined text,—a "Jonah under his Gourd," elaborately worked in colored silks,—a smirking likeness of "The Father of his Country," ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... mean, with the fuzzy golden hair done low. You've often exchanged "Good evening" with her, I'm sure. Her hair's done low: she used to make rather a point of telling me that. Why, I don't know, especially as it was always tidy and ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... the three, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, was Captain John Good, R.N. There he sat upon a leather bag, looking just as though he had come in from a comfortable day's shooting in a civilised country, absolutely clean, tidy, and well dressed. He wore a shooting suit of brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat gaiters. As usual, he was beautifully shaved, his eye-glass and his false teeth appeared to be in perfect order, and altogether he looked the neatest man I ever had to do ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... housekeepers. But since the death of Hope's mother Mrs. Simcoe was the only incumbent. She had been Mrs. Wayne's nurse in her last moments, and had rocked the little Hope to sleep the night after her mother's burial. She was always tidy, erect, imperturbable. She pervaded the house; and her eye was upon a table-cloth, a pane of glass, or a carpet, almost as soon as the spot which arrested it. Housekeeper nascitur non fit. She was so silent and shadowy that the whole house sympathized ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... stowed below, and the anchor securely fastened, Tripper went aft and hauled in the main-sheet. "Up with the foresail, Tom. That is it. You keep the tiller, Jack." The two men now proceeded to coil down all the ropes, and get everything ship-shape and tidy. By the time they had finished, Harwich was fairly behind them, and they were laying their course a point or two outside the Naze, throwing the spray high each time the boat plunged ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... "It's never remarkably tidy." Jernyngham broke into a rueful smile. "I believe she started for the settlement when I was at work in the summer fallow this morning. The fact that the horse and buggy are ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... and well cultivated, and the cheerfulness of its aspect presents a striking contrast to the silence and solitude of the town. The streets, however, are as clean as those of Holland, and the inhabitants are neat and tidy in their attire. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... mother," he had said when he got home, home being a small neat house on a tidy street of a little country town. "I tried every branch, but the only training I've had—well, some smart kid said they weren't planning to serve soda water to the army. They ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... disappointed at being left, and gave way to despondency; but I assured her it was all for the best, and that as the Lord had heretofore provided for us, so he would provide for us now. We returned to the tent of Mrs. Green, a tidy mulatto woman, where we had left our satchels. As she met us and learned of our being left, and heard sister Backus lament over "not having where to lay our heads," she quickly replied: "Yes, you shall have a place ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... devils," said the New Zealand general. "You don't care a damn about the patients so long as you have all the beds tidy by the time the doctor comes around. I'm a general, I am, and you can't order ME about, and if you think I'm going to shave at this time in the morning you are jolly well mistaken. I am down with dysentery, and don't you forget it. I ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... does not take part in the general housework. Her duties are solely to care for the wardrobe of her mistress, to assist her at her toilette, to draw her bath, to lay out her clothes and keep her room tidy. But she does not sweep or dust the room or make the bed—these are the duties of the chamber-maid. If she is an accomplished maid she will probably do a great deal of sewing, and perhaps she will massage her mistress' hair and manicure her nails. But these duties are not to he expected; the mistress ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... decay. Fecty, defective throughout—both used in describing apples or potatoes. Hedge-picks, shoes. Hags or aggarts, haws. Rauch, smoke (comp. German and Scotch). Pond-keeper, dragon-fly. Stupid, ill-conditioned. To plim, to swell, as bacon boiled. To side up, to put tidy. Logie, poorly, out-of-sorts. ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... went at it in the wrong way. His idea was to destroy it by drinking it up. He miscalculated his capacity. It took no great quantity of strong waters to partially destroy Gibbs, and at such times he was neither literary nor romantic, no fit mate for Hunka-munka, who had a tidy sum in savings laid away and did not wish to invest it in the destroying process. I do not know what she said to him, at last, but there came a day when he vanished from our sight and knowledge, and the kitchen after dinner was silent. I suppose the change was too much ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thinking," he said; "that I am too neat and tidy—too namby-pamby to do anything in this country. That my boots are too narrow in the toe, my hair too short and my face too clean. I cannot help it. It is the fault of the individual you saw outside—Joseph. He insists on a strict observance of ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... little woman, making a charming gesture with her little heart-shaped head, about which she had tied a snow-white three-cornered piece of linen to give herself a tidy and almost nunlike appearance—"oh yes, I like that! A devil of a girl.... Well, you'll find out what sort of a girl I am if you ever get into my hands! I'd take charge of the cooking as well—nobody knows how to get ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... mention of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea; and the tidy on the back of the sofa was ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Rawnsley's sister came in from a late evening walk, and said, 'O Mrs. D—-, have you seen the wonderful sunset?' The good lady turned sharply round and, drawing herself to her full height, as if mortally offended, answered: 'No, miss; I'm a tidy cook, I know, and "they say" a decentish body for a landlady, but I don't knaw nothing about sunsets or them sort of things, they've never been in my line.' Her reminiscence of Wordsworth was as worthy of tradition as ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... like the foolish princess, and desire a roc's egg; it will prove a stone, the egg of a rock, indeed. Be content rather with this ostrich-egg I send you; with your own slender fingers lift the lid;—pretty, is it not, the tea-service I send you? The tidy warblers threw out the emptied shells; one by one I picked them up, and have made cups and saucers, bowls and pitchers for you: a roc's egg never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... laughed at the funny face he made and then she smiled in her most motherly fashion. "Then it's a good thing I forgot and left it on last night," she said, "and don't you worry, I can perk it up and make it look real tidy." ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... house. She called it her raid, and Polly's raid proved extremely disturbing to the domestic economy of the household. For instance, when Susan, the very neat housemaid, had put all the bedrooms in perfect order, and was going to her own room to change her dress and make herself tidy, it was very annoying to hear Polly, in a peremptory tone, desiring her to give her the ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... If you don't I must get a house all the sooner. It would lighten my mind, too, about the two little freeholds over the hill—not a morsel a-piece, divided as they were between her mother and me, but a tidy bit tied together again. Just think about it, will ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... distinguished by the preference of such a girl, and on the principle of noblesse oblige, he tries to become worthy of her. This love makes the cowardly brave, the weak strong, the dull witty, the prosy poetic, the slouches tidy. Burton glows eloquent on this subject (Ill., 2), confounding, as usual, love with lust. Ovid notes that when Polyphemus courted Galatea the desire to please made him arrange his hair and beard, using the water as a mirror; wherein the Roman poet shows a keener sense of the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... us, Flo, to keep things very tidy in a place like this, where we've had to work hard with our axes every day and all day, and no woman to help us in domestic affairs? Why, sometimes we've been so tired at the end of a day, that instead of cleaning up, we have tumbled into bed, boots and all! But there is ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... family moved into one of these homes, some of its members would be very much inclined to keep to their wigwam habits. As these were very shiftless, and far below what we considered to be their possibilities of methodical and tidy housekeeping, some practical lessons had to be given. As they were willing to learn, various plans and methods were adopted to help them. The following was the most successful and perhaps on the whole, to all concerned, the most interesting. When we were aware that some new houses had been erected ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... institution is carried on by the lady-collectors, who solicit subscriptions, chiefly from the bachelors on their beat; and the lady-missionaries, who visit the lowest dens in the place, to distribute, with a beautiful philanthropy, moral Tracts, and Exhortations to be good, tidy, church-going, and happy, to the ragged and starving inmates. Although these, however, are the functionaries ostensible to the public, it is the managing partner who sets them in motion. She is neither president nor vice-president, nor treasurer nor secretary, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... years after he began to retrieve the early mistakes of his life, M.S. established a provision shop on his own account, in the city of New-York, and was successful. He and his tidy little wife called on Friend Hopper, from time to time, and always cheered his heart by their respectable appearance, and the sincere gratitude they manifested. The following record stands in the Register: "M.S. called at my house, and spent an hour with ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... came along at a tidy pace too,' observed the coachman, looking over his shoulder at Nicholas with no very ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... first difficulty. They were always in the habit of taking that meal, and indeed every other, in the kitchen. It saved time, trouble, and fire, besides leaving the parlor always tidy for callers, chiefly pupils' parents, and preventing these latter from discovering that the three orphan daughters of Henry Leaf, Esq., solicitor, and sisters of Henry Leaf, Junior, Esq., also solicitor, but whose sole mission in life seemed to have ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... wooden chamber at the end of the passage, Claude took off his coat, and set to work to make himself as tidy as possible. Hot water and scented soap were in themselves pleasant things. The dresser was an old goods box, stood on end and covered with white lawn. On it there was a row of ivory toilet things, with combs and brushes, powder and cologne, and ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... day, and Fan found her with a handkerchief tied over her head, and a big apron on, just putting the last touches to the tidy little room, which was as fresh and bright as water, air, and a pair ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... valor becomes a mere catalogue. "The men were magnificent," say the officers; the men's opinion of their leaders expresses itself in the manner in which they followed them, in their cheers, in their demeanor to-day while they tidy up their battered ships, setting aside the inevitable souvenirs, from the bullet-torn engines to great chunks of Zeebrugge Mole dragged down and still hanging in the fenders of the Vindictive. The motor launch from the canal cleared the end of the Mole and there beheld, trim and ready, the shape ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... off his coat and displayed the tear, he perceived Gladys, who had risen from her work, and curtseyed very timidly and profoundly. Mr Prothero had almost forgotten the Irish beggar, and certainly did not suppose the tidy-looking, pale, tall girl ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale |
