"Petticoat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be sure you are," said she, "and a yard of petticoat strings hanging out. I don't know why I pay such high wages to Mrs. Richards if she can't take the trouble to see whether or no you are fit to be looked at," and Mrs. Proudie poked the strings here, and twitched the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the time I saw her, was made and worn after, the Indian fashion, and consisted of a shirt, short gown, petticoat, stockings, moccasins, a blanket and a bonnet. The shirt was of cotton and made at the top, as I was informed, like a man's without collar or sleeves—was open before and extended down about midway of the hips.—The petticoat was a piece of broadcloth with the ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... almost under their feet, soon got its hold again upon their fears, and Jake found himself standing stock-still, listening both ways for that dreaded, or would it be welcome, movement on the floor behind, and to the dragging sound of Mrs. Quimby's skirt and petticoat as she made her first step down those cellar-stairs. What an endless time it took! He could rush down there in a minute, but she—she could not have reached the third step yet, for that always creaked. Now it did creak. Then ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... passers-by: these are not like the dusky ghosts that wander through the pale-blue mists of Bloomsbury. Here comes a buxom water-carrier, in her orange petticoat and sage-green shawl, who has the two copper cans at the end of the long piece of wood poised on her shoulders, pretty nearly filled to the brim. Then a couple of the gayer gondoliers in white and blue, with fancy waist-belts, and rings in their ears. A procession of ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... the thought of pressing his lips to them would have put his teeth on edge. He loved the little brown shoes, that must have been expensive when new, for they still kept their shape. And the fringe of dainty petticoat, always so spotless and with never a tear, and the neat, plain stockings that showed below the closely fitting frock. So often he had noticed girls, showily, extravagantly dressed, but with red bare hands and sloppy shoes. Handsome ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... much of him. It is true that he has his bosom friend to fall back upon, but if you could see that friend as we see him these days you wouldn't be sure whether it was true or not. The old woman, who had the peddler-and-petticoat episode, was not in it the same day with your brother's friend! I do assure you. And anyhow—even if he still has brains—his writing apparatus is all done up in ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... mouth, under a neatly trimmed moustache, showed no harsh lines, no traces of past conflict. Had the great Overseer of men's destinies not seen fit to guide him to the Frontier, out of reach of demoralising influences, it is doubtful whether he would have escaped the trail of the petticoat, the snare of the grass-widow in determined search of amusement. As it was, he had passed through the critical twenties with a clean defaulter sheet; had established himself as a good soldier and a good comrade, a "friend-making, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... one of the corner lots of her property. She had almost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequence of the sale, she had a few large bank-notes sewed up in her petticoat, and one day—maybe a fortnight after her tearful interview with Pere Jerome—she found it necessary to get one of these changed into small money. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the other for a bank which was not in that ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... time too when dreams came true. Fanny Foster knew this when Christmas morning she opened a parcel and found a beautiful silk petticoat. No card came ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... serve to clear her. Why could not Kennedy McClure mind his business, which is also my business? He has been witched, as if he were only twenty, by this lass of Adam Ferris's. And the more shame to him that has passed sixty without ever a chick or a child to hamper him, or a petticoat to drag ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... dressed; with unusual orthodoxy or unusual jealousy. Watching her opportunity, she had whisked into the corridor, in extreme deshabille; and gone, like the wild roe, towards Majesty's Suite of Rooms; through Majesty's glass door, like a catapult; and emerged as we saw,—in petticoat and shift, with hair streaming, eyes glittering, arms cut, and the other sad trimmings. O Heaven, who could laugh? There are tears due to Kings and to all men. It was deep misery; deep enough "SIN and misery," ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... dirty towel,—or indeed anything that came handy. Miners, noticing this purely perfunctory habit, occasionally supplied him slily with articles inconsistent with their service,—fragments of their shirts and underclothing, flour sacking, tow, and once with a flannel petticoat of his wife's, stolen from the line in the back-yard. Roscommon would continue his wiping without looking up, but yet conscious of the presence of each customer. "And it's not another dhrop ye'll git, Jack Brown, until ye've wiped out the black score ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... chair I saw Rupert in his shirt and trousers, and Henrietta in a petticoat and an out-door jacket, with so white a face that even the firelight seemed to give it no colour, and on her lap was Baby Cecil in his night-gown, with black smut marks on his nose ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... hunted, as the humor seized him. It was on a September evening, during a jaunt on South Mountain, that he met a stubby, silent man, of goodly girth, his round head topped with a steeple hat, the skirts of his belted coat and flaps of his petticoat trousers meeting at the tops of heavy boots, and the face—ugh!—green and ghastly, with unmoving eyes that glimmered in the twilight like phosphorus. The dwarf carried a keg, and on receiving an intimation, in a sign, that he would like ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... November, wind north-east, a poor old woman with a wooden leg was seen struggling against the fitful gusts of the bitter breeze, along a stony zigzag road, full of deep and irregular cart-ruts. Her ragged petticoat was blue, and so was her wretched nose. A stick was in her left hand, which assisted her to dig and hobble her way along; and in her other hand, supported also beneath her withered arm, was a large rusty iron sieve. Dust and fine ashes filled up ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... appearance. They wear close jackets of various colors when they go abroad, and the same loose breeches as the men, but over them they usually have a large wrapper (sarong), not unlike the pareu of the Polynesian islanders, which is put round them like a petticoat, or thrown over the shoulders. Their hair is drawn to the back of the head, and around the forehead it is shaven in the form of a regular arch, to correspond with the eyebrows. Those that I saw at the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... guns are carefully swabbed with tow and prepared for their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from the (fence) stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering exultant or jogging grumly according to the result of the "event;" and the metropolis of Petticoat Gap—for such, in the vernacular and on the maps, is its unfortunate designation—relapses into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... the oars in the mud, blade down, and was now evidently lashing them to the oar-locks. This done, she stood up and slipped off the blue flannel skirt of her little sailor suit, standing up in her short white petticoat. She hung the skirt by the hem over the oars, and immediately she had a very fair substitute for a tent, to shield her from the blazing sun. Then, apparently quite contented, she sat down in the bottom ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... says, that the woman seemed to be habited in a brown coloured petticoat, waistcoat, and a white hood; such a one as his wife's sister usually wore, and that her countenance looked extreamly pale and wan, with her teeth in sight, but no gums appearing, and that her physiognomy ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... nothing handsome; nor, indeed, any thing peculiar, save the long pendent nightcaps. The men wear jackets and breeches, and have the before-mentioned caps on their heads; the dress of the women is a spencer, a petticoat, and a kerchief of white or coloured linen round ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... six foot two, and Isabella quite six foot, and broad in proportion. They were dressed almost alike, and at a little distance, but for the lady's scanty petticoat, it would have been difficult ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... sure, says I; why don't you come, says he; what should I come for says I; if you don't come to me, I'll come to you, says he; I shan't come to you I assure you, says I. Upon which he run up, caught me in his Arms, and flung me upon a Chair, and began to offer to touch my Under-Petticoat. Sir, says I, you had better not offer to be rude; well, says he, no more I won't then; and away he went out of the Room. I was so mad to be sure I ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... her brain, now strained like a body on the rack, would suddenly snap, she threw up her arms, and began to take off her dress, as if she would hush thought in abrupt movements. In a moment she was in stays and petticoat. The delicate and almost girlish arms were disfigured by great bruises. Great black and blue stains were spreading through ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... steadfastly determined that my boyhood shall be less tedious in the telling than it was in the living—for I always longed to be a man, and hated my green and petticoat-governed days—I will pass forthwith to the hour when I reached the age of eighteen years. My dear father was then in Heaven, and old Betty had found, as was believed, another billet. But my mother lived, and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... thought was put into her head by seeing something occasionally flap out upon the surface of the muddy water, as if it were spread out below. It looked to her like the tail of a coat, or the skirt of a petticoat. She was just about to fish it up with her paddle, when it occurred to her that it might be the clothing of a drowned person. She shrank back at the thought, and in the first terror of having a dead body so near her, called Oliver's name. He did not hear; and she would not ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... heaped untidily on the top of the piano; one of the wardrobe doors is open, revealing some dresses hanging within; and the edge of a lace petticoat, with its insertion of coloured ribbon, peeps out from under the carelessly-closed lid of the box-ottoman. Two milliner's hat-boxes are on the floor by the ottoman, and a pair of satin slippers are lying, one here, one ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... resolution, they assisted in dressing her the next morning, and set out along with her all their skill and dexterity were requisite to reduce her shape into some kind of symmetry; but, having at last pinned a small cushion under her petticoat on the right side, to counteract the untoward appearance the little infant occasioned by throwing itself on the left, they almost split their sides with laughter, assuring her at the same time that she looked ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lovely petticoat, too. String a continuous warp long enough for the width of the skirt. Adjust the rods for the length. By using a little color in the warp near the right edge of the weaving, the skirt will have some stripes. Twist a cord of the wool and run in ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it," said Eleanor, laughing. "But there's no waste like the wastefulness of ignorance; and oh, Margery, it's the gores I'm afraid of! If skirts were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many pieces all alike—run them together—hem the bottom—gather the top—and there you are, with everything straightforward ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "I saw the poor baby last night; hadn't anything on but dirty cotton rags. It was lying asleep in a cold cellar on a little heap of straw. The woman had given it something, I guess, by the way it slept. The petticoat had gone, most likely, to Sam McFaddon's. She spends everything she can lay her hands on ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... on her silken hose and garter, Her crimson petticoat was kilted high, She trod her way amid the bog and brambles, Until the fairy-tree ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... I've waked up of a winter night and found her woollen petticoat spread onto my bed, and she ashiverin' by the dyin' fire. One mornin' she surprised me uncommon by holdin' of a cap afore my eyes. 'A new one made of the old one,' says she, 'but you 'd never dream on 't, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... fingers she began to undress Miranda. Off came the green silk dress with its tight "basque" and overskirt. Off came the ruffled petticoat and little chemise edged with fine lace. And Miranda stood in shapeless, kid-bodied ugliness, which stage of evolution the doll of her day ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... their fatigue. These mares are of most wonderful swiftness, and when I saw them they seemed rather to fly than to run in riding, these Arabians only cover their horses with cloths or mats, and their own clothing is confined to a single vesture somewhat like a petticoat. Their weapons are long lances or darts made of reeds, ten or twelve cubits long, pointed with iron and fringed with silk. The men are despicable looking people, of small stature, of a colour between black and yellow, which we call olive, having voices like women, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... is sacred and inviolable. I have no idea of touching the hem of her petticoat. Your affectation of a dislike to encounter me is so flattering that I begin to think myself a very fine fellow. But it really puts me out of humor ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... publications, stitched in blue paper, were lying on the table, with scraps of paper stuck between the leaves, as if to mark where the hostess had left off reading. Vanessa, for under that title did Cumberland present Mrs. Montagu, entered the room shortly afterwards, dressed in a petticoat embroidered with the ruins of Palmyra. The lady is made to mistake the author for the inventor of a diving-bell, and to address him accordingly, with delightful results. The various visitors are described in the same humourous manner, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... Princeton, Maine, are experts at this work.] And this dress she shaped like those worn of old. [Footnote: This remark indicates the lateness of the Micmac version of this very old myth.] So she made a petticoat and a loose gown, a cap, leggins, and handkerchief, and, having put on her father's great old moccasins,— which came nearly up to her knees,—she went forth to try her luck. For even this little thing would ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... been defeated by the instrumentality of Snarleyyow, upon the top of the immense fragment of the rock which we have described as lying upon the sea-edge of the platform, was perched a fair, slight-made little girl, of about twelve years of age. She was simply clad in a short worsted petticoat and bodice of a dark colour; her head was bare, and her hair fluttered with the breeze; her small feet, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, were also naked, and her short petticoat discovered her legs half way up to the knee. She stood there, within a few inches of the precipice ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... work in 'em—it's like cropping a bird's wing to make a river-boat of a ship, and a dead, dead shame to shorten sails till it looks like a young gal dressed in breeches or any other onnatural thing—for a sailing-ship and a full-flowing petticoat always rise up in a true man's mind together—God bless ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... look all the whiter by contrast. Her dress of crimson silk, cut very low, displayed to advantage—the plump, dimpled shoulders, and her snowy bosom, and from a band of black velvet round her throat was suspended a heart-shaped locket, set with superb rubies and brilliants. A white satin petticoat covered with priceless old lace, over which the crimson silk gown, open in front, was looped high upon the hips, and then swept back in a long, ample, richly trimmed train, completed the elegant toilet of Mme. la Marquise. Jeanne, the favourite maid and confidante, held ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... out and lifted it up, grew rapidly larger and larger until it floated away. He set out to search for it; nor did he desist until one day he came upon a large pool in the river and found a beautiful woman bathing. On the bank lay her grass petticoat where she had cast it off. He sat down upon it; and when her attention was attracted to him by his dogs, they recognized one another. She was the moon, and he was the man who had dug her up out of the earth; and ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... schemes. He was certainly insensible to the soft roundness of a bosom almost crushed under the weight of the bowed shoulders, and to the beautiful modeling of the crouching Venus that was visible under the black petticoat, so closely was the dying girl curled up. The drooping head which, seen from behind, showed the white, slender, flexible neck and the fine shoulders of a well-developed figure, did not appeal to him. He did not raise Esther, he did not seem to hear the agonizing gasps which ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... by the riverside, where the flax-beaters used to say their prayers in the intervals of their work; and it was just at the foot of this that Angele Rouvier, having finished her prayer, put her rosary in her pocket, wiped her eyes with the hem of her petticoat, and said to me: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... than I thought they were when they were with us, but the 'tempestuous petticoat' has its charm, which I find ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... interlards her culinary conversation with French terms, and we have discovered that this is quite common. A 'jigget' of mutton is of course a gigot, and we have identified an 'ashet' as an assiette. The 'petticoat tails' she requested me to buy at the confectioner's were somewhat more puzzling, but when they were finally purchased by Susanna Crum they appeared to be ordinary little cakes; perhaps, therefore, petits gastels, since gastel is an old form of gateau, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... this Epistle; but I presume the argument which the Right Hon. Doctor and his friends mean to deduce from it, is (in their usual convincing strain) that Romanists must be unworthy of Emancipation now, because they had a Petticoat Pope in the Ninth Century. Nothing can be more logically clear, and I find that Horace had exactly the same views upon ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... cross of Christ upon us. God be good to the misfort'nit crathur." For she was not of at all an implacable temper, and would, under the circumstances, have condoned even the injury that obliged her to appear at Mass with a flannel petticoat over her head until the end of her days. Yet she did hold the Tinkers in a perhaps somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... nothing for a moment, but let loose the linen safeguard petticoat she wore against mud or dust when riding, and appeared in a rich brocade of gray silken stuff, and a striped under-gown. When she had put off her loose camlet over-jacket, she said, "Will you have a glass of Madeira, or shall it be Hollands, John? ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... they accepted the fire good-humouredly as one of the necessary drawbacks of a hotel that wasn't quite up to their Winnipeg form. Nellie Smith was delightful. I must say she was delightful, and she looked delightful. She was wearing a blue-and-red striped petticoat, rather short, and a white jersey, and over that a man's blue jacket, which fitted her pretty well. She looked indescribably pert and charming, though the jacket was ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... quarrels over the subject confirming the impression. Nelly worked on, however, unmoved by criticism or approval, spending all that could be saved from the housekeeping on the most stylish clothes to be found in Petticoat Lane market, and denying herself even in these for the sake of a little hoard, which accumulated, oh! so slowly since it had been broken into, once for a new feather for her little hat, once for a day's pleasuring ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... round and plump, with black, bright eyes and ruddy cheeks; barefooted, dressed only in a damp petticoat, which clung to her body, and showed the outline of her figure. She turned her face to Silan and, smiling pleasantly, said: "You take too much care of me; I'm ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... silver basket buttons, a small cap, and wide drawers of the same cloth, with black stockings or high boots, and a red sash. The costumes of some of the villages along the shores of the Bocca are very pretty. The women from Dulcinea wear a body petticoat and jacket of scarlet, with silver buttons and buckles, and a white covering tastefully enfolding the head and shoulders. The peasantry to the south wear the Montenegrian dress; the poorer ones, in extreme scantiness. These profess, like that people, the tenets of the Greek church, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... national costume. The individual Gael was a stout, dark, young man, of low stature, the ample folds of whose plaid added to the appearance of strength which his person exhibited. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs; the goatskin purse, flanked by the usual defences, a dirk and steel-wrought pistol, hung before him; his bonnet had a short feather, which indicated his claim to be treated as a duinhe-wassel, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... tradesman's daughter, and it would ill have beseemed her to attire herself in silk and velvet, even though the sumptuary laws had been repealed. But she did not see why she might not have a scarlet under-petticoat like Rachel Dyson, her own cousin, or a gay bird's wing to adorn her hat on holiday occasions. The utmost she had ever achieved for herself was a fine soft coverchief for her head, instead of the close unyielding coif which all her relatives wore, which quite concealed ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... wondered if tissue-paper was fair. Hattie said it was, for Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby Sister's flannel petticoat? And didn't one's own ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... too close to his mother's apron-strings for his own good—a girlish, hysterical kind of boy, who should be given spoon- victuals and put to bed early. Of course he wants to marry Trilby, for he is of that age when the swish of a petticoat makes us seasick. She is perfectly willing to become his mistress—although she had "repented" of her sins and been "forgiven" but a few days before. She has sense enough—despite Du Maurier's portraits of her—to know that she is unworthy ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... reasonable thing could she do than amuse herself with making cheeses? that is, whirling round, according to a fashion practised by young ladies both in France and England, and pirouetting until the petticoat is inflated like a balloon, and then sinking into a courtesy. Mademoiselle was very solemnly rising from one of these courtesies, in the centre of her collapsing petticoats, when a slight noise alarmed her. Jealous of intruding ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening,—those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, the pretty, dark-eyed maid-servant of the man who lives in the other part of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and down my room, for I feared the guides would despair of me if they saw me stumble at every step. I was profoundly humiliated, and only weighty reasons prevented me from resuming my woman's dress. At last I bethought myself of an expedient. I made a parcel of my silk petticoat and my boots (brodequins), and gave it to a porter, so that I might resort to them if I should be completely paralyzed by those accursed garments ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... a petticoat of straw and a long neck attracted Freya's hands to the table. She ridiculed the sobriety of Ferragut, who was diluting with water the reddish blackness ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Womans Man, I will divert you with an Entertainment worth your Seeing. Come, it shall cost you nothing; only I must beg the Favour of you to unrig, and lend me your Cloaths for half an hour; and I will bring you a Mant and Petticoat to wear the while; and you shall see a Jolly Crew of Active Dames, which will perform such Leacherous Agilities as will stir you up to take the other Touch, and far out-vie whatever has been either done, or related to be done, by Madam Creswel, ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... flitting about the room in dainty lace petticoat, and little else, was young Beryl, superintending her aunt's feverish struggles with paint and powder-jars, frocks, petties, silk stockings, socks, and wraps, snatching these articles from a voluminous wardrobe and ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... try petticoat government, Prothero. I don't know how the experiment will succeed, but I am tired of an empty bungalow, and I have been looking forward for some years to her being old enough to come out and take charge. It is ten years since I was home, and she was a little chit of eight years ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... did not run to the dimensions' required; so she ripped up a petticoat. Torn between her eagerness to complete a disagreeable task and her offended modesty, Kitty went through the performance with creditable alacrity. Then she jumped back into bed, doubled her knees, and once more ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Your trouble has the scent of a perfume used by a lady. I smell here the petticoat of the princess. Behind the member of parliament is Jozwowicz, just as behind the evening dress there is the morning gown. What a ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... dozen young lasses emerged from the adjacent dwellings, reminding me, by their light step and gay costume, of scenes in ancient France, where taste in dress comes natural to every class of females. The trim bodice and covered petticoat, and little apron, with its pockets to receive the hands when in an attitude for conversation; the colored kerchief wound tastefully round the head, with a coquettish knot perking above one ear; and the neat slipper and tight ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... of talk, and several members threatened to resign. At the evening session J. S. Morton, W. E. Moore, A. F. Salisbury and L. L. Bowen came into the House and proposed to present General Larimer with a petticoat, which did not tend much to allay the excitement. The General, of course, was justly indignant at such treatment, as were also the other members. The proposal was characteristic of the prime mover in it, and we are astonished that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... dream?" asked Nijeradze, opening wide his oriental, somewhat sheepish eyes. "Whence this beauteous child, this comrade in a petticoat?" ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... anything like the scale open to her; but now that the collective hand had been held out to her with such alacrity, so that she might skip up into the light, even, as seemed to her modest mind, with such a show of pink stocking and such an abbreviation of white petticoat, she could strike herself as perceiving, under arched eyebrows, where her mistake had been. She had invited for the later hours, after her dinner, a fresh contingent, the whole list of her apparent London acquaintance—which was again a thing in the manner of little ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... remark of Dean Swift's, "I admire Handel—principally because he conceals his petticoat peccadilloes with such perfection," does not go. Handel considered himself a priest of art, and his passion ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Nancy Etticote, In a white petticoat, With a red nose; The longer she stands, The shorter she grows. ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... Rosa, for she was not often sent alone to her grandmother's, although she lived quite near. Soon she was ready. She looked very smart in her scarlet petticoat, bright apron, and white blouse, and started off proudly with ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... never saw her equal for farm work—rough or smooth. And she used to manage to dress neat and look pretty all the time; not like some small settlers' daughters that I have seen, slouching about with a pair of Blucher boots on, no bonnet, a dirty frock, and a petticoat like a blanket rag—not bad-looking girls either—and their hair like a dry mop. No, Aileen was always neat and tidy, with a good pair of thick boots outside and a thin pair for the house when she'd ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... possible to any sensitive human organism. All at once, as if the very last possible moment of silence had passed, the conversation broke loudly and generally: "And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Think of it, Allan, by to-night I may be an angel, dressed in a long white nightgown like those my mother gave me when I was married, which I cut up for baby-clothes because I found them chilly wear, having always been accustomed to sleep in my vest and petticoat. Yes, and I shall have wings, too, like those on a white gander, only bigger if they are ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... said Remarkable, producing from beneath her petticoat of green moreen a pair of dull-looking shears; well, upon my say-so, you have sewed on the rags as ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the ends to form a half-circle. The distracted little mother left her place in it. Without a word to betray the anguish tearing at her heart she gathered her linsey petticoat snugly about her, and grasping an ax, ran swiftly toward the direction of the screaming. The Widow McCabe hesitated, glanced over her shoulder. Satisfied the other women had the children well grouped and close to the fort, she darted ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... bullock's horns, firmly secured by means of straps; round his neck he wore a necklace composed entirely of skeleton human hands, which had been severed at the wrists; about his waist was a girdle of animals' teeth and claws, supporting a mucha, or rather a short petticoat made of dry grass, from beneath the rear portion of which dangled a bullock's tail; and in his right hand he carried a formidable bangwan or ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... he had said; "they'd shoot me, and with good reason, if I let any petticoat Saw Bones tamper with them; no insult intended—only compliment, dear lady! Your books read like fairy stories; I'm too old a hand to be taken in. The revised Bible, ma'am, is dangerous for souls, and new ideas in physic are about ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... pants and jackets and petticoats of cocoanut-fibre; for you must know I've often see'd mats made o' that stuff, an' splendid wear there's in it too, though it would be rather rough for the skin at first; but we'd get used to that in coorse o' time. Only fancy Mrs Jarwin in a cocoanut-fibre petticoat with a palm-leaf hat, or somethink o' that sort! An', after all, it wouldn't be half so rediklous as some o' the canvas she's used to spread ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... wild and scarcely judicious selection. She put on crimson silk stockings, and tucked into her bag a pair of crimson satin shoes. Her dress consisted of a black velvet skirt over a crimson petticoat, and her bodice was of crimson silk very much embroidered and with elbow-sleeves. Round her neck she wore innumerable beads of every possible color, and twisted through her lovely hair were some ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... power of the infidels, and at once forgot the unnatural crimes of their two kings. They thought only of their piety, and with joy the news was carried throughout New Spain, that one of their previous kings had consecrated his imprisonment to embroidering a petticoat for the Virgin Mary; and when this announcement was followed by another, a little more apocryphal, that the most holy image had, by a nod, signified her acceptance of the present, there could no longer be a doubt of his title ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... guns had been hove overboard, others had their muzzles still appearing through the ports. Many of the crew were on board, but a considerable number had made their escape to the shore, their red caps and petticoat trousers showing that they were either Turks or Egyptians. As the boats got close up to the ship, the people on board began to gesticulate furiously, and it seemed with no very friendly intentions. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the shimmering cloudy-blue folds of the robe, at the soft dark edges of fur with their under-ruffles of pink chiffon, at the lace and ribbons of the petticoat which showed where the robe fell away, and she forgot they were merely outer trappings, to be bought from any department store or private shop. They seemed part of a superior charm belonging exclusively to Rosamond Merton, and Patricia sighed as she saw in the mirror over the mantel-shelf ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... this way. My mother had a beautiful white Sunday petticoat, which she had cut up and made into suits for us. As there is just so much cloth in a petticoat and no more, the stuff had to be cut close to cover all of us children, and as the petticoat had been ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... little older the child will grasp a finger laid in its palm, which greatly facilitates this part of the toilet. The stockings are next put on and pinned with safety-pins to the napkin; then comes the petticoat, the band of which is also loosely fastened with safety-pins, and with the slip the toilet is complete. All the clothing should be changed ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... quality of bearing which he could not discriminate, yet which he instinctively recognized as superior, offended him in some sort. He noticed again the ring on the stranger's hand as he drew off his glove. Gloves! Emory Keen an would as soon have thought of wearing a petticoat. Once more the fear that these effeminate graces found favor in Millicent's estimation smote upon his heart. It made the surface of his opaque eyes glisten as Dundas rose and took up a pipe and tobacco-pouch which he had laid on ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... on the edge of Violet's bed in the little back room in St. Ann's Terrace. Violet, in a white petticoat and camisole, overcome by the heat, lay stretched at length, like a drowsy animal, in the hollow of the bed where she had flung herself. Her head, tilted back, lay in the clasp of her hands. Her breasts, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... beads, long and short, with the indispensable talismans. The body dress is a Tobe or loin-cloth, like that of the men; but under the "Namba," or outer wrapper, which hangs down the feet, there is a "Siri," or petticoat, reaching only to the knees. Both are gathered in front like the Shukkah of the eastern coast, and the bosom is left bare. Few except the bush-folk now wear the Ibongo, Ipepe, or Ndengi, the woven fibres and grass-cloths of their ancestry; amongst ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... tightly-sitting pantaloons—braccae, as they were called—of gaily variegated tartans, precisely similar to the trews of the Scottish Highlander—a much more ancient part of the costume, by the way, than the kilt, or short petticoat, now generally worn—and these trews, as well as the streaming plaid, which he wore belted gracefully about his shoulders, shone resplendent with checkers of the brightest scarlet, azure, and emerald, and white, interspersed here and there ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... miraculous way slow down the hours, dull the incidents, lengthen the meals, and make even the servants and page-boys wear a look of boredom and propriety. The best clothes which every one put on helped the general effect; it seemed that no lady could sit down without bending a clean starched petticoat, and no gentleman could breathe without a sudden crackle from a stiff shirt-front. As the hands of the clock neared eleven, on this particular Sunday, various people tended to draw together in the hall, clasping little red-leaved books in their hands. The clock marked a few minutes ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... bridge and entered the house by the front doors. The latch clanged to, echoing, and Biddy Joyce appeared in a red petticoat. Gabrielle introduced Radway, and Biddy was not scandalized, being used to the freedoms of Irish hospitality. Jocelyn had been in bed for half an hour or more, she said, and as the state in which he ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... watched the life about the other huts. The natives were brown, thick-lipped folk, all with rings in their ears and dead, brown eyes; they were almost naked, with just a strip of cotton cloth or plaited leaves round the middle, and the women had also a short petticoat of cotton stuff to cover them. All the children went about stark naked night and day, with great big prominent bellies simply ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... ladder through the hatchway, to stand half out for a few minutes giving orders, while we had a good look at the lower part of his person, which was clothed in what would have been a stiff canvas petticoat, had it not been sewn up between his legs, so as to turn it into the fashion of a pair of trousers, worn over a ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... his Donna, and I am his Donna: your husband is a becco, and mine is another. For the rest, what right have you to reproach me? If he prefers me to you, is it my fault? If you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string.—But do not think to speak to me without a reply, because you happen to be richer than I am.' Having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which I translate as it was related to me by a bystander), ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that he really followed Sallie Sclater, who's a visiting girl, and myself to see if we went wading, but we certainly went and had a good time doing it, though we had to dry our feet with my petticoat. But from the way his face went he must have made it convenient to walk in that direction and must have seen us, or he wouldn't have known anything about our going, as we were careful to look around before we took off our shoes and stockings. I can't endure him, but he is ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... hate me and lay snares against my life. Go—sound the fellows of thy trade; see if thou canst not smell out some plot on foot against me. Visit the brothels—Doria often frequents them. The secrets of the cabinet are sometimes lodged within the folds of a petticoat. Promise these ladies golden customers. Promise them thy master. Let nothing be too sacred to be used in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Jooteewallah, who comes round so regularly to keep your boots and shoes in disrepair, and of all the vociferous tribe of borahs? There is the Kupprawallah, and the Boxwallah, and the Ready-made-clotheswallah ("readee made cloes mem sa-ab! dressin' gown, badee, petticoat, drars, chamees, everyting, mem sa-ab, very che-eap!") and the Chowchowwallah and the Maiwawallah or fruit man, with his pleasant basket of pomeloes and oranges, plantains, red and white, custard apples, guavas, figs, grapes, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... that; besides, even if they did, they would not come hammering here in the middle of the night. Descend at once and admit them. Assume a bold front, Brisson! Do not let them suspect that you have fear! Go at once! Hasten! I will come as soon as I have found a petticoat." ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... tumbled masses about her. The arm that held the cigarette was stretched up above her, and the wide, loose sleeve of the kimono had slipped back, leaving it bare to her shoulder. Her white frilled petticoat showed beneath, as she had pushed her feet out before her to the warmth of the fire. Peter's ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... swore; and, sighing, on he slipped A pair of trousers of flesh-coloured silk;[ff] Next with a virgin zone he was equipped, Which girt a slight chemise as white as milk; But tugging on his petticoat, he tripped, Which—as we say—or as the Scotch say, whilk.[295] (The rhyme obliges me to this; sometimes Monarchs are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... with the tinder-box, and lighted the fire, which was already laid. She then set off to the other cottage to get something to bathe the leg with. She found an old flannel petticoat hanging up to dry, and this she carried off, and tore up into slips, which she wrung out in warm water, and laid them tenderly on Cap's swollen leg. It was not long before the poor dog felt the benefit ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... and a half apast ten! Seffy, I'm glad you ain't breaking your reputation for being fastnachtich. Chust about a quarter of an inch too late for the prize wiss flour on its hair and arms and its frock pinned up to show its new petticoat! Uhu! If I had such a nice petticoat—" he imitated the lady in question, to the tremendous delight of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... a short petticoat constitute the chief dress of the women, who also wear gaiters like the men. Their hair, which is of jet-black colour, they suffer to grow to its natural length; but they do not pierce their noses, nor disfigure their ears. ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... introduced, upon his return, a tall, strapping wench of eighteen or twenty, dressed, fantastically, in a sort of blue riding-jacket, with tarnished lace, her hair clubbed like that of a man, a Highland bonnet, and a bunch of broken feathers, a riding-skirt (or petticoat) of scarlet camlet, embroidered with tarnished flowers. Her features were coarse and masculine, yet at a little distance, by dint of very bright wild-looking black eyes, an aquiline nose, and a commanding profile, appeared ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the king himself as his superior. This son of Africa was presented to me by the duc de Richelieu, clad in the picturesque costume of his native land; his head ornamented with feathers of every colour, a short petticoat of plaited grass around his waist, while the richest bracelets adorned his wrists, and chains of gold, pearls, and rubies, glittered over his neck and hung from his ears. Never would any one have suspected the old marechal, whose parsimony ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... mantua-silk, manufactured in Spitalfields; her petticoat the same; her binding, a piece of chequered-stuff, made at Bristol and Norwich; her under-petticoat, a piece of black callamanco, made at Norwith—quilted at home, if she be a good housewife, but the quilting ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... ever tempted to forget my lessons. If you fail to send me letters, or if those you send are not what they ought to be, I think the desk will cry shame upon you. And if you ever go an hour with a hole in your stocking, or a tear in your dress, or a string off your petticoat, I hope the sight of your ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... or whatever the fashion requires, with suitable ruffles and handkerchief." In 1752 Lady Gooch, wife of Governor William Gooch, while in London bought for Mrs. Thomas Dawson a fashionable laced cap, a handkerchief, ruffles, a brocade suit, a blue satin petticoat, a pair of blue satin shoes, and a fashionable silver girdle. But it was not always necessary to send to England for clothing, for there were tailors in Virginia who advertised that they could make gentlemen's suits and dresses for the ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... pale, hollow face, to which the fixedness of the white and sightless eyes gave almost the appearance of death, and three or four solitary and projecting teeth made menacing, was framed by a little hood of brown printed cotton, quilted like a petticoat, trimmed with a cotton ruche, and tied beneath the chin by strings which were always a little rusty. She wore a cotillon, or short skirt of coarse cloth, over a quilted petticoat (a positive mattress, in which were secreted double louis-d'ors), and pockets sewn to a belt which she unfastened ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... looked as though she had come straight out of the Bible via Bond Street, and his host, who looked as though he had never come out of Petticoat Lane at all, both accused him of being unable to work out the problem of "Find Calcutta Time given the Standard Time," and he professed to be proud to be able to acknowledge ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... trousers of red serge, and a piece of leather tied with strings for a shoe—a coarse kind of moccasin. The women, though sad-looking and mournful, had rather agreeable features, without much expression. They wear a bodice and petticoat of somber vadmel. When unmarried they wear a little brown knitted cap over a crown of plaited hair; but when married, they cover their heads with a colored handkerchief, over which ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... officiating minister had read his text preparatory to the delivery of his hour and a quarter sermon. The redoubtable Duncan of Knockdunder was making his preparations also for the sermon. "After rummaging the leathern purse which hung in front of his petticoat, he produced a short tobacco-pipe made of iron, and observed almost aloud, 'I hae forgotten my spleuchan—Lachlan, gang doon to the Clachan, and bring me up a pennyworth of twist.' Six arms, the nearest within reach, presented, with ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... when a man hides his wive's corset and petticoat, it is governin' without the "consent of the governed." And if you don't believe it, you ort to have peeked round them barrells, and seen Abagail's eyes. Why, they had hull reams of by-laws in 'em, and preambles, and "declarations ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... president APOLLO, And other gentle folks, that follow: Such as URANIA and CLIO, To whom my fame poetic I owe; With the whole drove of rhyming sisters, For whom my heart with rapture blisters; Who swim in HELICON uncertain Whether a petticoat or shirt on, From vulgar ken their charms do cover, From every eye but Muses' lover; In name of every ugly GOD; Whose beauty scarce outshines a toad; In name of PROSERPINE and PLUTO, Who board in hell's sublimest grotto; In name of CERBERUS and ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... women have the singular habit of raising the hinder part of the upper petticoat, the suncurinu, when they go abroad, and bringing it over the head and shoulders, so as to form a sort of hood. So far from this fashion giving them, as might be supposed, a dowdy appearance, it ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the rugged order, and therefore, one that is rather lacking in virtue. Yet he has a passionate relish for radishes and honey. Once he also possessed a friend named Pelagea Antonovna. Do you know Pelagea Antonovna? She is the woman who always puts on her petticoat wrong side outwards." ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Farnese were made cardinals the same day. To his sister's adultery this young libertine owed his advancement in the Church, a fact so notorious that the wits of the Roman populace called him the "petticoat cardinal." The jubilant kinsmen of Giulia Farnese saw in her only the instrument of their advancement. Girolama Farnese, Giulia 's sister, wrote to her husband, Puccio, from Casignano, October 21, 1493, "You will have received letters from Florence before mine reaches ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... around and came nearer screaming than she ever had been in her life, upon seeing the apparition that stood before her. Was it man, woman, beast or demon? She could not tell! It was a very tall, spare form, with a black cloth petticoat tied around the waist, a blue coat buttoned over the breast, and a black felt hat tied down with a red handkerchief, shading the darkest old face she had ever seen in ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... all eager to enter their place of rest. The wave-like movement of these animals is particularly graceful and cleverly done. A little shepherdess is guiding them, as anxious to get them in as they are to enter, for this means the end of her day's work. Her worn-out blue petticoat is lighted up by a moonbeam; in her hand she appears to have a hoe. It is a most harmonious picture; every line is in ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... you (said Miss Sukey Snuffle) for you are the greatest hog of the two; I dare say, if the truth was known, you are brothers."—"I declare I never was so exposed in all my life (said Miss Delia Doldrum.) There's my beautiful bloom petticoat, that never was rumpled before in all my life—I'm quite shock'd!"—"Never mind, (said the landlord) nobody cares about it; tho' I confess it was a shocking affair."—'I wish he and his pigs were in the horse-pond ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... see if the warrior weeps,' at length said one of the girls with a laugh; 'perhaps he will ask for a petticoat, and ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... horses were found. Mr Duppo had a housekeeper—now if Mrs Hensor had been like that housekeeper there could have been no cause for jealous scandal. An aged dame, long, bony—dressed in a short green petticoat and tartan jacket, with a little checked shawl over her head and pinned under a bearded chin. She poured tea out of a tin teapot and leaned over her master's chair at meal times to carve the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed |
