"Skirt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trusting that he might find her niece in the vicinity. Halfway down he stopped again; he had recognised his sister, who fanned herself languidly, seated on one of two chairs partially concealed by a great mass of exotic shrubbery, in pots, which formed almost an alcove. She removed her long soft skirt, which she had thrown over the vacant seat, as he approached; and at this tacit invitation he ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... brought her her supper, and ate his own on his knees beside her, watching eagerly for ways to serve her, laughing because she cringed when, from an overhanging bough, a spider let himself down upon her skirt, and hurrying to bring her a fresh cup of coffee, because an unhappy ant had scalded himself to death in her first cup. Afterward he would not let her "hurt her hands" by washing the dishes. When this was over, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Her skirt was o' the grass-green silk, Her mantle o' the velvet fine, At ilka tett of her horse's mane, Hung fifty siller ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... if the door took pity on me and opened of itself. I will lose no time, but enter. [She looks in.] What? a candle? Oh dear, oh dear! [She puts it out with her skirt ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... behind her small ears. The neck of her white, alpaca dress, cut square according to the then prevailing fashion, was outlined with flat bands of pale, blue ribbon, and filled up with lace to the base of the round column of her throat. Blue ribbons adorned the hem of her simple skirt, and a band of the same colour encircled her shapely, though not noticeably slender, waist. Her bosom was rather full for so young a woman, so that, notwithstanding her perfect freshness and air of almost childlike simplicity, there was a certain statuesque quality in the effect ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... white frock, with a skirt of walking length, showing her neat, laced, brown boots. If there was any colour about her costume it was just a bit of blue perhaps. No exertion seemed to distress her. I have seen her land from the dinghy after a long pull in ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... mother of Dora Holmes, was the original owner of the dresses. She died at the age of ninety-eight two or three years ago. One of the dresses is still in the possession of the daughter. It has a skirt with nine gores and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... that the skirt and knickerbockers were made of the same kind of stuff. If she had, I could have understood it, and my natural delicacy would for ever have kept me from the slightest ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... will prove like the other girls here. They can not be brought to realize how much such trifles have to do with one's manner. Short curls bobbing over one's shoulders and dignity can never go together. But let me put my hair up high and get on a trained skirt and you will see what you will see. People are bound to live up to their clothes. That is why, on general principles, I disapprove of bathing and gym suits. They give the wearer such a sense of freedom." She laughed again. Elizabeth knew not whether she were serious or ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... and called an intelligent assistant to relieve our distress. With his help I swiftly selected an outfit that was not half bad for ready-to-wear garments. There was a black morning-coat, snug at the waist, moderately broad at the shoulders, closing with two buttons, its skirt sharply cut away from the lower button and reaching to the bend of the knee. The lapels were, of course, soft-rolled and joined the collar with a triangular notch. It is a coat of immense character when properly worn, and I was delighted to observe ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... two days ago: that young lady, who had flashed on Somerset for so brief a while but with so conquering a charm; and whose engaging grace, communicative eyes, and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt, remained imprinted ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... hair, a foolish thing have we done, To bind what gods have sundered unkindly into one. Why should a lowly lover have touched Taheia's skirt, Taheia the well-descended, and Rua child ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... graceful and altogether attractive figure in a trim, short skirt and long, tan boots. But what Glenister first saw was her eyes; large and gray, almost brown under the electric light. They were active eyes, he thought, and they flashed swift, comprehensive glances at the two men. Her hair had fallen loose and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... not disguised. I am disguised when I am forced to wear those things, which do not suit me," said Jacqueline, pointing to her gray jacket and plaid skirt which were hung up on a hat-rack. "Oh, I know why mamma keeps me like that—she is afraid I should get too fond of dress before I have finished my education, and that my mind may be diverted from serious subjects. It is no doubt all intended for my good, but I should not lose much time if I turned ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... putting her up better than any one else, she said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... where hundreds of people were at work in tiny, dark rooms, to pay much attention to the first stops at stations that their train made. They knew they were still some distance from Mrs. Curtis's. Madge was completely fascinated at the spectacle of a fat, frowsy woman holding a baby by its skirt on the sill of a six-story tenement house. Just as the car went by the baby made a leap toward the train. Madge smothered her scream as the woman jerked the child out of danger just in time. Then it suddenly occurred to her that this was hardly the kind of neighborhood in which ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... cylindrical shape, tell you what it is—a glorious Palmiste; one of those queens of the forest which you saw standing in the fields; with its capital buried in the green cloud and its base buried in that bank of green velvet plumes, which you must skirt carefully round, for they are a prickly dwarf palm, called here black Roseau. {137a} Close to it rises another pillar, as straight and smooth, but one-fourth of the diameter—a giant's walking-cane. Its head, too, is in the green cloud. But near are two ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... sensible of the perfection of the turn-out; Agatha chiefly felt that her more decorated skirt and mantle had their inconveniences in walking through the red mud of the lanes, impeded by books and umbrella, which left no leisure to admire the primroses that studded the deep banks and which delighted Thekla in the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... he watched Kasya. She was walking on the left side of the lake; against the background of the sandy banks she stood out in relief as if in a picture. Her white waist and red striped skirt and yellow kerchief glistened in the sunlight like a variegated flower. Though it was spring the heat was unbearable. After she had gone about half a mile she turned aside and disappeared into the woods. The afternoon ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... two peculiar shades of blue, so arranged that patches of light and dark distracted the eye. The upper skirt was tied so lightly back that it was impossible to take a long step, and the under one was so loaded with plaited frills that it "wobbled" no other word will express it ungracefully, both fore and aft. ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... armed with slings and darts as well as swords, and commonly wore a shaggy cap, in imitation of the head of some wild beast, of which the skirt hung over their shoulders. The troops of the line wore greaves on the legs and heavy iron-bound sandals on the feet. These last were called caligae, from which the emperor Caius Caesar obtained the name ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... colour of the rainbow had a place in her costume for the occasion: The bodice was of light blue silk; the skirt orange; encircling her small waist was a green sash; while her jet-black hair was fastened with a crimson ribbon. Diamonds flashed from the earrings in her ears as well as from the rings on her fingers. All in all, it was scarcely to be wondered at that her charms stirred to the very depths ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... family remained at home, except for one hour after dark, when the men retired from the streets and the women came out. Working women went to and fro, with their faces shielded by green jackets thrown over their heads. Their usual dress was a white skirt coming high up and a very short jacket. The breasts and the flesh immediately below the breasts were often freely displayed. Fishing and farming supported ninety per cent of the population, and the Korean farmer ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... decidedly. "Thank goodness you know what suits you, and haven't got your skirt tied in at the ankles so that you ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... not think, Sir, how much blood had stain'd Old England, since we left her, finding thus All things so peaceful; but one thing I mark'd As we did skirt ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... Anne interrupted. "It was a great deal too perfect, my preux chevalier. Only you see, Julien, only you see, mother, Julien offered me exactly what I left home to escape from. I have come to the conclusion," she went on, smoothing her skirt about her knees, "that it is most indecent and wholly improper even to think of marrying a man who does not love you and whom ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... country, you can't go to a shop and you have nothing like the piece you want to mend. A Scout would turn it inside out and undo a little of the hem, and ravel out the edge. Suppose you were to cut a hole in the front of your blue serge skirt; if you darn it with the ravelings of the turnings of the seam or the hem, that will be exactly the same color and the same thickness as your dress. No wool you could buy would match as well. Or if you want to mend a jersey or knitted gloves, you never could buy such a good match—the ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... demanded of the MAGDALEN, And with a fairer reason. But restrain The weariest waif from entrance to the fane Where pure young girls come for a special grace, Whither the smug-faced citizen may pace, The modish lady trail her silken skirt? Nay, Sir, it is too arbitrary-rash, This caveat, and with Charity must clash, Here sinful souls and spirits sorely hurt Find their last refuge and sole hope. Wherefore Against no soul that suffers close that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... been the property of some great man of the previous century, for it was braided and embroidered, and trimmed to an extent rarely seen in the present age; and the immense holes in the elbows, and the tatters in the skirt, laughed heartily at the rusty trimmings which it bore. It was so long and large too, that it almost precluded the necessity of any other clothes, for it quite enveloped his whole person, as he swung along between his crutches, dragged on the ground behind like the train of a lady's dress. His ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... says that when you are going to have an important interview with a man you ought to look your very best," said the Story Girl, giving her skirt a lustrous ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it was one of the days when she could hardly see at all. Aunt Lavina Dow was unusually clumsy of movement, and stiff in the joints; she had not been so far from the house for three years. The morning breeze filled the gathers of her wide gingham skirt, and aggravated the size of her unwieldy figure. She supported herself with a stick, and trusted beside to the fragile support of Peggy's arm. They were ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... this, a gentleman was known to be engaged for an early marriage, and hence declined to volunteer. When his betrothed, a charming girl and a devoted lover, heard of his refusal, she sent him, by the hand of a slave, a package inclosing a note. The package contained a lady's skirt and crinoline, and the note these terse words: "Wear ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... Distant about three hundred yards on his right is a large, oblong square building, resembling in appearance the red low roofed blockhouses peering above the outward defences of the fort. Surrounding this, and extending to the skirt of the thinned forest, the original boundary of which is marked by an infinitude of dingy half blackened stumps, are to be seen numerous huts or wigwams of the Indians, from the fires before which arises a smoke that contributes, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... "If they don't set the place on fire they'll come here. Troops may not be here for an hour yet. Fifty per cent. Hooligans in the crowd, and the more furnished flats they go into the better they'll like it. Obviously.... They mean a clear out. You put this skirt and bonnet on, Bensington, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... shouldn't have thought it would have got so much jammed, coming fifty miles," she soliloquized. "But they seemed to take a pleasure in seeing how much they could bang the trunks." She rose to her feet and shook out the dress, and drew the skirt several times over ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... reluctantly obliged to abandon the idea of attempting to reach Collier Bay. The mainland we had explored, since leaving Port Usborne, may be described as forming eight bays, varying in depth from three to eight miles, and in width from two to five; their general trend is East-South-East; many islets skirt their shores, and almost more than can be counted fill ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... with the debonnair Prince Kaululaau when he attempted force in his wooing. He found Pele watching the surf-riders at Keauhou, and was ravished by her loveliness. Her skirt glittered with crystal, her mantle was colored like a rainbow, bracelets of shell circled her wrists and ankles, her hair was held in a wreath of flowers. His admiration was not returned. She was contemptuous toward him,—one could almost say cold, but Pele was seldom that, for when ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... the Bosporus brought us beyond the Allah Dagh mountains, among the barren, variegated hills that skirt the Angora plateau. We had already passed through Ismid, the ancient Nicomedia and capital of Diocletian; and had left behind us the heavily timbered valley of the Sakaria, upon whose banks the "Freebooter of the Bithynian hills" settled with his four hundred tents and ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... me ever again, Mr. Snowden," Milly flamed. She sat bolt upright in her corner of the seat, drawing her skirt under her as if afraid it might touch him. Snowden drove rapidly, and thus without a word exchanged they returned. As they came near the corner of West Laurence Avenue, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... hearing not the feet which followed, nor feeling him who clung to the skirt of his toga. He stood silent, with dagger drawn. As he felt about him, he touched a pair of great, trembling hands. He stood motionless, expecting every breath to feel a point plunging into his flesh. Suddenly some one blew a sharp whistle close beside ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... Dat I believe. But not in Europe. Ve Europeans are all tam fools. But I vill not svear!—no!—you onderstand, Fenwick; you haf never heard me svear?' And then a round oath, smothered in a hasty fit of coughing. And once he had cut off part of the skirt of his Sunday coat, taking it in his blindness for an old one, to clean his palette with; and it was thought, by the boys, that it was the unseemly result of this rash act, as disclosed at church the following Sunday morning, which had led to the poor ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... black envy at one's heart. It was during the bathing hour that the Monster again asserted himself—this time for no indefinite stay. As a rule, the bathing hour was one in which Dorothea reveled. Arrayed in her faded bathing suit, guiltless of skirt or sleeves, her prowess as an amphibious creature had been highly commended by that one for whose praise she would gladly have precipitated ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... young, and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded and with no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in an absurd way. She had on a dress of some light silky material, but put on strangely awry, not properly hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt, close to the waist: a great piece was rent and hanging loose. A little kerchief was flung about her bare throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was walking unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from side to side. She drew Raskolnikov's ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... madam, and most thankful I shall be to see you with a couple o' pounds' worth less of crape," said Tantripp, stooping to light the fire. "There's a reason in mourning, as I've always said; and three folds at the bottom of your skirt and a plain quilling in your bonnet—and if ever anybody looked like an angel, it's you in a net quilling—is what's consistent for a second year. At least, that's my thinking," ended Tantripp, looking anxiously at the fire; "and if anybody was to marry me flattering himself ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... revolver, a hunting knife, and some fishing tackle; one three and a quarter by four and a quarter folding pocket kodak, one panorama kodak, a sextant and artificial horizon, a barometer, a thermometer. I wore a short skirt over knickerbockers, a short sweater, and a belt to which were attached my cartridge pouch, revolver, and hunting knife. My hat was a rather narrow brimmed soft felt. I had one pair of heavy leather moccasins reaching almost to my knees, one pair of high seal-skin boots, ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... like the Missouri up which they had come, whereas the other fork was clear. But Lewis said that this showed that the Marias ran through plains country and did not lead close to the Rockies, from which the water would run clearer; and they did not want to skirt the mountains northerly, but ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... rose from them, as of some gentle presence that strove to reach the light and air once more. A pair of little white kid slippers looked as though they longed to twinkle in and out beneath a soft silk skirt. Angel's mischievous brown hands dived among the light folds, discovering opera glasses,—(treasures to be secured if possible, against some future South Sea expedition), an inlaid box of old-fashioned trinkets, a coral necklace, gold-tasselled earrings, and a brooch ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Between the valley of the Upper Nile and the low lands which skirt the south-western shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden is a region of elevated plateaus from which rise various mountain ranges. These tablelands and mountains constitute Abyssinia, Shoa, Kaffa and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... their coat sleeves invariably were too long for them, and hid their big hands almost to the knuckles. This is a characteristic I have everywhere noted among the German privates. If the French soldier's coat is over-lengthy in the skirt the German's is ultra-generous with cloth in the sleeves. I saw that their hair was beginning to get shaggy, showing that they had been in the field some weeks, since every German soldier—officer and private alike—leaves the barracks so close-cropped that his skin shows ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... all this?" gasps Mr. MCLAUGHLIN, struggling affrightedly in his suffocating cage of whalebone and alpaca. "What's this here old lady's hoop-skirt doing on me?" ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... visited every spot which has been consecrated by our interviews. I have found the very rail which, as I well remember, we disposed into a bench, at the skirt of a wood bordering a stubble-field. The same pathway through the thicket where I have often walked with him, I now ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... cut off. We sat down on the ground waiting for death. Poor fellow! he was very weak; his thirst was frightful, and I went to get him water. Some villagers came, and took my rupees and watch. I took off my wedding-ring, and twisted it in my hair, and replaced the guard. I tore off the skirt of my dress to bring water in, but was no use, for when I returned my beloved's eyes were fixed, and, though I called and tried to restore him, and poured water into his mouth, it only rattled in his throat. He never spoke to me again. I held him in my arms till he sank gradually ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... them up to the light—then dropped them into a pocket of her skirt. "I'll look at 'em in ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... time to kiss the hem of her skirt, but she stepped aside quickly, fumbling meanwhile in her purse for a bank-note, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... home equipped for walking in a white Empire coat with a deep ermine collar, a granny muff to match, and a little white hat with a tall aigrette. Her skirt was short, and her neat little feet were encased in high-heeled boots, that clicked on the gravel path as she hurried toward the Mall. She looked her best, and she knew it. She wanted Dick to take away ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Amy. She's the wise old bird," declared Amy. "I always did like those overalls. If I climb a ladder I don't want any skirt to bother me. If the ladder begins to slip I want a chance to slide down like a man. Do the 'Fireman, save my ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... the shore from the dam, Tom and Bob and the Warren boys, some distance ahead of the rear canoe, saw an odd little figure swinging and swaying in the top of a birch tree overhanging the water. The Ellison boys had passed her unnoticed. Her bit of skirt fluttering, and her hair waving, showed that the occupant of this novel swing ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... Beilby (our Veterinary officer) for some reason would keep to the wrong side of the street and was very nearly killed, the fuse of a shell landing with a whump on a door not two feet in front of him, and a shrapnel bullet going through his skirt pocket; but he was not touched. The shrapnel were in bursts of four, and luckily Moulton-Barrett noticed it, for he calmly held up the stream of men till the fourth shell had burst, and then let as many as possible past the open space there till ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... a piece of coarse blue broadcloth, disposed like a shawl. Esther had on her head a dark colored felt hat, such as is worn by laborers, from beneath which long black hair fell down upon her shoulders. A shawl, like the boy's, was thrown over her, a skirt, of the same material, extended half way down between the knee and ankle, and ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... castle was in a considerable degree clear, and the moonbeams slumbered on its close and beautiful turf, mixed with long shadows of the towers and trees. Beyond this esplanade lay the forest ground, with a few gigantic oaks scattered individually along the skirt of its dark and ample domain, like champions, who take their ground of defiance in front of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... from him. For the first time her wet skirt exposed her feet, encased in torn stockings. The dancer wore no shoes, and Bobby guessed why she had been so elusive, why she had left so ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... not help carrying himself like a swell, for all that; and Louise did not try to help it, for her part. She was an avowed worldling, and in this quality she now wore a drab cloth costume, bordered with black fur down the front of the jacket and around it at the hips; the skirt, which fell plain to her feet, had a border of fur there, and it swirled and swayed with her long, dashing stride in a way that filled all those poor girls who saw it, with despair. It seemed to interest almost as painfully a young man with a thin, delicate face, whom she ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... tension, too, and merely laid her hand on the patient, restrainingly, as he strove with small success to raise himself a little. Meantime the horse came nearer, its bridle dripping with flakes of spume. Its rider was sprinkled with snow and her skirt was besmeared with lather, but she came on at a gallop until she reined in the panting horse beneath the window, and flinging one arm aloft sat in the saddle with her flushed face turned towards the watchers. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the easy grace of a childhood's experience. Her habit, if such it can be called, is a "dungaree" skirt of a hardly recognizable blue, so washed out is it, surmounted by a beautifully beaded buckskin shirt. Loosely encircling her waist, and resting upon her hips, is a cartridge belt, upon which is slung the holster of a heavy revolver, a weapon ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... great, sunny field, which had no place of shelter in it but one rock on the other side of the little stream. As his eye wandered over it, something dark seemed to blow out from behind it, as if the wind played in the folds of a skirt, or a human limb moved. Away went Lita, and in a moment Ben had found Miss Celia, lying in the shadow of the rock, so white and motionless he feared that she was dead. He leaped down, touched her, spoke to her, and receiving no answer, rushed away to bring ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... stood for a moment with her face towards the wall, not knowing how to bear herself. It was but for a moment, and then slowly moving round, with her two hands clasped together, she sank on her knees at Mrs. Orme's feet, and hid her face in the skirt of Mrs. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... packed and locked, it was so light that I could easily carry it by its handle on top. I put my long black military cape, which I could carry over my shoulder, on it, with hat and veil and gloves. Then I went down stairs and shortened the skirt of my best walking-suit, an/d hung it and its jacket handy. I was ready to fly,—if I had to,—and in case of that emergency nothing to ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... mossy cave and mouldering tower, That skirt our native dells; The martyr's grave and lover's bower, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... more of a GRAVES solo (with of course the innumerable customary da capos) and a bright sketchy EVANS obbligato. As a Grand Duchess and Duke respectively the genial twain present themselves. Mr. GEORGE GRAVES, in a flounced skirt of green tartan check, copper curls and mahogany features, is a delectable creation; says some strangely unlady-like things (as is expected of him); is still oddly preoccupied with "gear-boxes" and other anatomical detail; and generally indulges ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... impendin crysis, Dutch cheeze, popler suvrinty, standard poetry, children's strainers, slave code, catnip, red flannel, ancient history, pickled tomaters, old junk, perfoomery, coal ile, liberty, hoop skirt, &c., you ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... mechanically were now rich and alive again, and as he answered the priest he perceived the spiritual vibration of them in the inner world of which his own soul was but a part. And then the climax was reached, and he lifted the skirt of the vestment with his left hand and shook the bell in his right; the last shreds of confusion were gone, and his spirit basked tranquil and content and certain again in the light that ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... at Nan again. Bess was crying frankly, with her gloved hands before her face. "Oh, Nan! Nan!" she sobbed. "I didn't do a thing, not a thing. I didn't even hang to the tail of your skirt as you told me. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... turning to strike a new-born flame behind her, swept her skirt across a tuft of smoldering grass and set herself afire. With the excitement of watching all points at once, and with the smoke and smell of fire all about her, she did not see what had happened, and must have ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... blame you for looking at me as you do," she went on, demurely and deprecatingly feminine at that moment. She smoothed her blouse with both hands and glanced down at her stained and ragged skirt. "It's my only warm dress and I've lived and slept in it—and I haven't minded a bit when the coffee slopped. I was trying to do ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... did not write it in text he could not have found it out so soone. His eye was no sooner in the inside but his arme flew out with an open mouth and his very fingers cryed "give me the gold"! which presumeing to be weight he put in his hocas pocas, a little dormer under his right skirt; and so takeing his word to come downe and turning over your horse to him, with caution not to be drunk and forgett your worship, I tooke my leave and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Maxwell's corps, with little loss on either side, was driven over the Brandywine below the ford. Knyphausen, who commanded this column, paraded on the heights, reconnoitred the American army, and appeared to be making dispositions to force the passage of the river. A skirt of woods, with the river, divided him from Maxwell's corps, small parties of whom occasionally crossed over, and kept up a scattering fire, by which not much execution was done. At length one of these parties, led by Captains Waggoner and Porterfield, engaged the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Fayalese in picturesqueness of costume. The men wear homespun blue jackets and blue or white trousers, with a high woollen cap of red or blue. The women wear a white waist with a gay kerchief crossed above the bosom, a full short skirt of blue, red, or white, and a man's jacket of blue, with tight sleeves. On the head there is the pretty round-topped straw hat with red and white cord, which is now so extensively imported from Fayal; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... gazed at it intently when she had shaken some of the dew from the frills and folds of her rather bedraggled skirt. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... whole table with his appearance. He was slow, solemn, and silent in his behaviour, and wore a raiment curiously wrought with hieroglyphics. As he came into the middle of the room, he threw back the skirt of it, and discovered a golden thigh. Socrates, at the sight of it, declared against keeping company with any who were not made of flesh and blood, and, therefore, desired Diogenes the Laertian to lead him to the ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... shaded by a man's straw hat, secured on her head by strings tied under her chin. She wore a very plain gown, coarse in texture, and of a light-blue color, which showed that it had been washed very often. Her voice and her shoes, the latter well displayed by her short skirt, creaked, but her gray eyes were bright, and moved about ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... newly starched and ironed, had looked so pretty to her when she had started from home, that she had not been able to bear the thought of wearing over it this lovely afternoon her faded, mud-stained riding-skirt; and it was so short that it showed, resting against the saddle-skirt, her little feet loosely fitted into new bronze morocco shoes. On her hands she had drawn white half-hand mittens of home-knit; and on her head she wore an enormous white scoop-bonnet, lined with pink and tied under ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... mercy would be shown them, they were determined to have it. They followed him across fields, and there they kept up with him. Then he reached a plain, a wild heath, and he distanced them, but at the other side of the heath was a wood—he must either skirt it or go through it. Fear drove him through it, and they rapidly gained on him again. They now were almost sure that they should catch him, but as they got to the farther edge of the wood they saw him tearing along, his horse all foam, and his clothes in shreds, and ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... hand as he smiled and nodded, but Mary Rose did not wait to hear whether he would like to change places with her, for she had to slip out of the plaid skirt and middy blouse into a white frock that Aunt ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... invention of gunpowder, the transports were also the ships of war; they were moved along at pleasure by using oars, were light, and could skirt along the coasts; their number was in proportion to the number of troops to be embarked; and, aside from the danger of tempests, the operations of a fleet could be arranged with almost as much certainty as those of an army on land. ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... get nearly to the top of the ladder before he regained his presence of mind. Then, in obedience to a powerful tug at the hem of her skirt, she came down again, and accompanied him meekly ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... when Daisy was next roused by the fairy music, and the ponies were standing at the door. "Are we going far?" she asked, as Wee put on her riding-skirt, and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... very fond of bright colors. Their dresses did not amount to much. They wore a short skirt and rebosa. Their head-dress covered their hair and came together in front under the chin and hung to the belt. What dress she wore must be very bright and gaudy and I have known a pretty Mexican girl with about $2.50 worth of dress on come in and purchase an $8.00 pair of shoes. If she ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... to the wall with a fish-pole and rescued the recalcitrant skirt, much to her delight. His mother mended the rents in it and his sisters fitted her out ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... hastily to go in search of "Don Quixote," but the other girls were too quick for her. They pitilessly tore the shielding apron from her shoulders, and the newly sponged and pressed middy jacket and khaki skirt stood revealed in all ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... novelties in war. Th' war fashions iv 1898 is out iv style. They ar-re too full in th' waist an' too long in th' skirt. Th' style has changed. There ar-re fifty thousand backward men in th' fair isles iv th' Passyfic fightin' to free th' Philippeen fr'm himsilf an' becomin' a casualty in th' operation, but no one is charterin' ar-rmy ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... disguised as common troopers and calling for cans of beer, till the sentinel they had placed outside came in and told them the man with the saddle had arrived; whereupon, going out, they collared the man, got possession of the saddle he carried, and, ripping up the skirt of it, found the King's letter to the Queen in which he quite agreed with her opinion of the two Army-villains he was then obliged to cajole, and assured her they should have their deserts at last. [Footnote: The story professes to have ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... for—something. She had done her best for an encore and the silence troubled her. She looked inquiringly towards the box. There was a movement of the curtains at the back; a messenger boy came in with flowers; a gentleman leaned over the railing and motioned to the child. She ran forward, holding up the skirt of her dress to catch the roses that were dropped into it. She smiled and said something. The tension in the audience gave a little; there was a low murmur of approval which increased to a buzz of conversation; the conductor ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... not say more; he could not look at her. Even at the rustle of her skirt, as she sank to the beach and sat gazing up at him, he did not turn. He was looking dully at the last bright cloud tip, sinking slowly ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... difficult Mr. Somerled was to please. One would have thought he took a real interest in my clothes; but of course it was owing to his artistic nature. We found a blue serge—I wouldn't have believed, after my deadly experience, that blue serge could be so pretty—and a coat and skirt of creamy cloth; and an evening frock of white chiffon, I think the girl called it. Actually it has short sleeves above my elbows, and quite a low neck, that shows where my collar-bone used to be when I was thinner than I am now. It seems an epoch to have a dress like that. It was ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up the hall to the lift. As the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an imprisonment. The beautiful head disappeared first, still buried in the muff, the long trailing skirt followed. A woman of undefinable rarity was going up heaven-ward, like a specimen in a bottle. And into what a heaven—a vault as of hell, sooty black, from which soots ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... sound of your breath, or hunt for broken bread under your table that I may grow drunk on what your fingers have touched! When I go raving at night, weeping by day, with a knife in my heart, tears that scald my eyes! When with these pains to endure, these perils to skirt, heights to fly, you will speak, touch me, breathe upon me, tempt me to greet you with kissing of the lips—ah, heaven and hell! it is over-much. I would be an honest man, look you. I have a master ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... ill-favoured, of middle age, thin; but every part of her was imbued with grace, expressive, from the tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers. The demands of the public sometimes forced upon her odious ballet-skirts, sometimes she wasted her talent on the futilities of skirt-dancing; but chiefly she loved the national measures, and her phenomenal leanness made her only comfortable in the national dress. She travelled from place to place in Spain with another woman whom she had taught to dance, and whose beauty she used cleverly as a ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... they wind, And ford wild creeks where men have drowned; They skirt the pool, a void the fen, And so till night, when down they lie, They steeds still saddled, in wooded ground: Rein in hand they slumber then, Dreaming ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... attired in heavy brocaded white silk inwoven with a silver thread. She wore a white satin quilted petticoat with heavy corded white silk over-skirt, and high-heeled shoes of white satin with buckles of brilliants. She had ruffles of rich point lace, pearl necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets, and was ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... to my aid, mother mine of the skirt of precious stones![1] What keeps thee away, gray ghost, white ghost?[2] Is the obstacle white, or is it yellow? See, I place here the yellow enchantment ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... flying into woods, which skirt the road, ran straight forward on the road itself: THIS, AGAIN, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... within the sheltering traverses of Dunderberg and the heights beyond, many of their number reappeared upon the promenade deck, and first among them was the bonnie little maid now clinging to the guard-rail at the very prow, and, heedless of fluttering skirt or fly-away curl, watching with all her soul in her bright blue eyes for the first glimpse of the haven where she would be. No eyes on earth look so eagerly for the grim, gray facade of the riding-hall ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... hurried to the second, and then to the third in order, repeating the manoeuvre with equal dexterity. The third presenting to his wine-troubled eye a patch overlooked by the apprentice, with a notable oath he rubbed it with the skirt of his overcoat, much as a horse-dealer polishes the coat of an animal that ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... with delight. "But I'll have to borrow some breeches from someone. You don't want me to ride in a skirt ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... said he. He stood Ojo in the middle of the road and placed Scraps just behind him, with her padded hands on his shoulders. After the Patchwork Girl came the Woozy, who held a part of her skirt in his mouth. Then, last of all, was the Glass Cat, holding fast to the Woozy's tail ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... beasts, human and equine, plunged together into a deep wide pool, where both of them went down below the water. On seeing what had happened, I set off running at full speed, scrambled with much difficulty on to the rock, and dangling over from it, seized the skirt of the scrivener's gown and pulled him up, for he was still submerged beneath the surface. He had drunk his bellyful of water, and was within an ace of being drowned. I then, beholding him out of danger, congratulated the man upon my having been the means of rescuing his life. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... respecting fringes will, as a reward, have two thousand eight hundred slaves to wait upon him; for it is said (Zech. viii. 23), "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... your guests to dress as foolish as possible. The hostesses costume can be combinations of several, as a decollete corsage, short walking skirt, one high-heeled slipper and one bedroom slipper, one side of her hair braided and hanging down and the other piled up high and decorated with feathers from the duster. Or she can dress as "Folly" with pointed black velvet bodice, white blouse, red and yellow ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... The next morning the Ras, accompanied by a large number of chiefs and soldiers, came to the spot to witness the execution of the sentence. The girl was thrown down on the ground, stripped of her skirt, and leather ropes tied to her feet and hands to keep her at full stretch. A strong, powerful ruffian was entrusted with the execution of the punishment. Each fall of the whip could be heard from our inclosure, resounding like a pistol-shot; ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a load under her arm from which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled critically. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... which this was said caused Susy to laugh, and to discover that her skirt had been caught by a nail in one of the flower-boxes. At the same time a vague suspicion for the first time entered the head of old Liz, causing her to wobble the fang with vigour and look at ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... she did the bulky leather case in the folds of her skirt. It was literally neck or nothing now. If she were caught on the stairs by one of the men nothing could save her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and six childer, and not a spot in the wide world to live in, if my honour did not let him live under me, in any bit of a skirt of the estate that would feed ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... her slowly—very slowly—into saddle. . . "Blame him! . . . Do you think I call it so?" and fell to arranging her skirt, and lingering over it so plainly that the Countess smiled in unreserved amusement. Yet she did not hurry him. And when he had dallied as long as he thought he dared, he stole a quick glance upward—and she let him see ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... company,—Indians in their best clothes, their faces shining from a liberal use of mission soap and water; soldiers in their leather suits freshened up for the holiday; a few ranchmen in the gay dress of the times, riding beautiful horses; women and girls each brilliant in a bright-colored skirt with shawl or scarf gracefully ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... embroidered handkerchief I had with me. The heat redoubled on me, so that my forehead sweated and the drops ran down on to my cheeks; but I could not wipe my face with my handkerchief, because I lay upon it. So I was about to take the skirt of my gaberdine and wipe my cheeks with it, when suddenly there fell on me from above a white handkerchief, softer to the feel than the zephyr and pleasanter to the sight than recovery to the sick. I seized on it and looking up to see whence it came, my ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... about, somewhat startled, and Boisrueil, with presence of mind, ran into the darkness to see if he could detect the person addressed; but though he thought that he saw the skirt of a flying cloak disappear in the gloom, he was not sure; and I, having no mind to be mixed up with the ambassador, called him back. I asked Vilain to whom he had called, but the young man, turning sullen, would answer nothing except that he knew naught ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... careful deliberation, took off her black calico bonnet, stepped into the aisle, slapped her hands together and began to spin around and around upon her toes with incredible celerity. Her homespun skirt ballooned about her, the ruffle of her collar stood out like a little frill of white neck feathers. She had a fixed, foolish expression, maintained an energy of motion that was persistent and amazing, and gave out at regular intervals ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... standing on the step before them, wringing the wet from her black calico riding skirt. "Nobody named it to me what they was tuck fer. I was talkin' to Creed Bonbright, and he 'lowed to find out. He ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... then stretched her hands over her lustreless satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation were defining itself. "Oh, sir, I am fond of my own ...
— The American • Henry James
... walk with disheveled locks. And when on the morrow the tiring-women of the mayoress arrayed Maria in a robe white as the driven snow and fine as the skin of an onion; and when they girt her slender waist with a sash of crimson silk, the ends of which hung down to the broad hem of the skirt; and when they crowned her smooth and white forehead with a wreath of white flowers, I warrant you that, what with the robe and the sash and the wreath, and the beautiful streaming hair and her lovely countenance and gracious mien, she seemed no female formed of flesh and blood, but a superhuman ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... a great deal about you lately," said she with a soft smile, unobtrusively rearranging a fold of her skirt. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett |
