"Bodice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw and perceived something that I had never noticed before. A fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from sight beneath the edge of her bodice. But my sense of perception dug a modest diamond, and I could even dig the tiny initials engraved in ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... wear, where one is not to occupy a box, one may wear a handsome reception gown, or a handsome bodice and skirt. Shirt and lingerie waists are not appropriate theatre wear, unless one patronizes some second-class house ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... best; but now the very earth, perhaps, will never receive her. Oh yes, anything you like—the body trimmed with jet, if you wish it, and let me see, a gauze bodice, goffered, fastened to the throat. That is all, I think; the sleeves confined at the wrist just enough not to expose the arm, and yet look ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... had the innkeeper retired than the old woman, with remarkable dexterity, rummaged about among the disordered furniture, and seized a certain number of papers, which she hid in her bodice. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... without feasting or music. Widows are permitted to marry again. Married women do not wear bangles nor toe-rings nor the customary necklace of beads; they put on no jewellery, and have no choli or bodice. The Bhope or Bhoall, the third division of the caste, are wholly secular and wear no distinctive dress, except sometimes a black head-cloth. They may engage in any occupation that pleases them, and sometimes act as servants in the temples ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... rendered supple by wringing. The women wear straw hats in shape like those used by the Chinese. Their defensive armour consists of a helmet of double bulls hide shaped like a broad-brimmed hat; a tunic or bodice of hardened skin three or four fold, which is very heavy, but effectually resists the arrow and spear, and is even said to be musquet proof. When on foot, they have likewise a large unwieldy shield of bulls hide. The Tehuelhets and Huilliches sometimes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown—which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of—till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... chaff which at one time rendered his verdicts of such dread power among social aspirants; it may be the irony of mockery that to-day his family are conspicuous upon only two points. One relative goes clamorously into the divorce court while another wins celebration by the showy style of a bodice. ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... good cheer. Nouns! Dick, Doll Lister is a delightful lass, and if you can only get Alizon out of your head, would be just the wife for you. She sings like an angel, has the most captivating sigh-and-die-away manner, and the prettiest rounded figure ever bodice kept in. Were I in your place I should know where to choose. But you will see her at Hoghton to-day, for she is to be ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... shoes, white stockings. Several very full underskirts. Long skirt of dark blue, made very full around the bottom. This skirt is patched with squares of dark red and striped goods. Large blue gingham apron edged with stripes of dark red. White waist. Blue bodice of same material as skirt. Small white cap fitting close to head in back, but turned back in front with points over each ear. Face round and rosy. If the wooden shoes are not easily obtained, fair substitutes ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... you are really going, are you?" she said. She put her arms round his neck, and drew down his head against her bodice. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the delicate transparent ears and defined the outlines of a blue-veined throat. These luxuriant locks brought into strong relief the dazzling eyes and the scarlet lips of a well-arched mouth. The bodice of the country set off the lines of a figure that swayed as easily as a branch of willow. She was not the Virgin of Italy, but the Virgin of Spain, of Murillo, the only artist daring enough to have painted ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... labor. The luxuries of life on the island were air and water, and the glories of evening and morning. People who could buy them got such gorgeous clothes as were brought by the Company. But usually Jenieve felt happy enough when she put on her best red homespun bodice and petticoat for mass or to go to dances. She did wish for shoes. The ladies at the fort had shoes, with heels which clicked when they danced. Jenieve could dance better, but she always felt their eyes on her moccasins, and came to regard shoes as the chief ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... young bride looked charming in a handsome gown of heavy white satin, of the kind that "could stand alone," of the "block" pattern then in vogue, and made in the fashion of the day, with full long-trained skirt and tight low-necked bodice trimmed with a rich lace bertha. Her hair was worn in curls, fastened back from the face on each side. The groom, who is seldom mentioned in these affairs, deserves a word or two, for he made a gallant figure in a blue ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... sitting-rooms, and to call their mistresses, who were enjoying their undress in their own apartments. When they appeared, I could scarcely believe that one half were gentlewomen. As they wear neither stay nor bodice, the figure becomes almost indecently slovenly, after very early youth; and this is the more disgusting, as they are very thinly clad, wear no neck-handkerchiefs, and scarcely any sleeves. Then, in this hot climate, it is unpleasant to see ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... glanced down at the hollows of her young bosom, at the scantiness of her bodice suspended only by bands of sheerest gauze. She wondered what Mamma would say, if she could see her so, without that drape of net. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... encased in a steel-colored satin bodice her plump shoulders appeared to start directly beneath her ears, and her hands were not only ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... sentimental, and extraordinarily pretty. Her hair was dressed in a bygone fashion, drawn smoothly up from the little ears, coiled high and falling across her forehead in a light, straight fringe. Her wonderful white shoulders rose from a wonderfully low white bodice; a bracelet of emeralds was on her arm, a spray of jasmine in her fingers; she was evidently a girl, yet in her apparel was a delicate splendor, in her gaze a candid assurance, that marked her as an American ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... knight had perhaps forgotten when he came courting his love to 'spier at her brither John'; and when she stoops from horseback to kiss this sinister kinsman at parting, he thrusts his sword into her heart. The rosy face of the bride is wan, and her white bodice is full of blood when the gay bridegroom greets her, and he is left 'tearing his yellow hair.' More often, death itself does not ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... (Tallow Ball). Short and round, fat as a pig, with puffy fingers constricted at the joints, looking like rows of short sausages; with a shiny, tightly-stretched skin and an enormous bust filling out the bodice of her dress, she was yet attractive and much sought after, owing to her fresh and pleasing appearance. Her face was like a crimson apple, a peony-bud just bursting into bloom; she had two magnificent dark eyes, fringed with thick, heavy lashes, which cast a shadow into their depths; ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... came for—at least, so I understood it—and I answered you, "Dinner," and that's what I am here for. Oh, do make haste, Miss Sarah! You could keep on that white skirt, and just slip on this pretty bodice; master won't never notice. There's the gong! Oh dear, oh dear!' said Naomi, getting quite flustered in her anxiety to get Sarah ready ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... Dorothy thought she had never seen so sweet and adorable a creature in all her life. The maiden's gown was soft as satin and fell about her in ample folds, while dainty lace-like traceries trimmed the bodice and sleeves. Her flesh was fine and smooth as polished ivory, and her poise expressed ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... in 1714; that movement of civilization did not take place until 1764. Places were known by their signs, or their vicinity to a sign. "Blue Boars," "Black Swans," and "Red Lions" were in every street, and people lived at the "Red Bodice," or over against the "Pestle." The Tatler tells a story of a young man seeking a house in Barbican for a whole day through a mistake in a sign, whose legend read, "This is the Beer," instead of "This is the Bear." Another tried to get into a house ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress. It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's ploughing, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... them. They deceived and maddened her half-drunken lout of a husband. Her dress, too, was something shameless. She wore above her scarlet skirt (which I verily believe was the same she had ridden in) a bodice of the same bright colour, low as a maid-of-honour's, that displayed her young neck and bust. About her neck she had fastened a string of garnets. She had loaded her fingers with old-fashioned rings, of which the very dullness made me wince to see them employed in this ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the front of her bodice as his resting place. She saw the point glisten towards her bosom, and seemingly enter it. Bathsheba closed her eyes in the full persuasion that she was killed at last. However, feeling just as usual, she opened ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the dearest village!" She was a beautiful little girl of a dainty porcelain type, her colouring low in tone. She wore no jewels, but her little, undeveloped neck and shoulders, of an exquisite immaturity, rose from the tulle bodice of her ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... was both happy and sad when the dear maid took a flower from her bodice and gave it to him as a token of remembrance. He solemnly tucked it away in a pocket, stammered his farewells, and went to join his uncle who waited in the yawl at the wharf. Once on board the Plymouth Adventure, they were swept into a bustle and confusion. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... park, as in the grounds of other noblemen. There was not one that spread such delicate and graceful tresses on the breeze as our White Birch; not one that fanned it with such a gentle, musical flutter of silver-lined leaves; not one that wore a bodice of such virgin white from head to foot, or that showed such long, tapering fingers against the sky. I was glad to see such justice done to a tree in the noblest parks in England, which with us has been treated with such disdain ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... and white; one saw nothing but great dark eyes in their faces. The mother was crouched on the floor close to the children. She hardly moved at first, and was really a terrifying object when she got up; half savage, scarcely clothed—a short petticoat in holes and a ragged bodice gaping open over her bare skin, no shoes or stockings; big black eyes set deep in her head, and a quantity of unkempt black hair. She looked enormous when she stood up, her head nearly touching the roof. I didn't ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... off, I turned my attention to the collar which apparently caused her much uneasiness. The collar, as I discovered, was a part of the bodice and could not be taken off without removing the whole garment, which task required considerable time, patience, and careful maneuvering to perform. This I finally accomplished, however, with the aid ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... front of the hall and quite near the stage sat Marie dressed in the pretty Bernese costume with its velvet bodice, and silver pins and chains. Before her was a table covered with Swiss carved work, bears, paper-knives, picture-frames, watch-stands and dainty edelweiss pins. Her eyes were sparkling and a faint color stole into her cheeks ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... equanimity and in sign of her good will unfastened a golden brooch and pinned it on the Indian's broad shoulder. Then the chief broke off from his girdle a string of wampum, and before any one realized what he intended doing, he had fastened it to a pearl pin on the Queen's bodice. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... of tuition, was in the act of removing her dress. She was in too indulgent a mood to withhold her "Come in," and as Miss Macy crossed the threshold, Lizzie felt that Vincent Deering's first letter—the letter from the train—had slipped from her loosened bodice ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... him, far off and sweet and melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm air—the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A little surprised, he asked ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... mirror, and caught the reflection of a bright face, surrounded by heavy chestnut curls, and lighted with clear hazel eyes, and flashing teeth, a head of queenly shape and poise, and a firm, graceful figure, well set off by its white dress, black bodice, and scarlet ribbons,—a charming picture, with the quaintly decorated chamber for background, and the heavy black frame of the old mirror for setting: and a brighter color washed into the young girl's cheek as she recognized the ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... dress to call her father, that he might get ready to take her to the altar, to give her to you, and she found him here murdered—weltering in his blood. It was enough to have killed her, or unseated her reason forever," said the lady, as she busied herself with unfastening the rich, white, satin bodice ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... flowers, birds were swinging on blossoming vines, bees were hovering round their hives, and doves were billing and cooing on the roof of their cots. One of the beaux in the neighborhood expressed his admiration of it by saying "It beats all natur'." It was made in bodice-fashion, with a frill of fine linen nicely crimped; and the short, tight sleeves were edged just above the elbow with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... in a white, gold-stitched robe, its bodice tight, its skirts voluminous, she welcomed him in the hall. The reception over, old Baldo spoke with the crone who served Madonna Gemma ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... charming than ever. The fashion of lighting drawing-rooms and dining-rooms gives ample opportunity for a harmless deception in these days, and the blue half-circles were not seen round Helena's eyes, nor would any of the company in the drawing-room have guessed that the heart under that silken bodice ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... through his horn spectacles and watched me, for he knew the writing! it was his son's, the writing of Franz. And I felt the blood rush up hot to my face, and the tears blind me as I placed in my bodice the little letter that I dare not open while there were questioning eyes to ask: "What is he to thee, Lisba, and ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... with, she put on her best dress—a low bodice of black silk relieved with white and a single scarlet rose from the hothouse. Round her neck also, fastened by a thin chain, she wore a large blood-red carbuncle shaped like a heart, and about her slender ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... lover was almost ignorant of the fact, that he loved, and had no well-defined hopes of any description. That is nothing to your true Corydon. Not in the least. Will he not discourse with rising and kindling eloquence upon everything connected with his Phillis? Will not the ribbons on her bodice, and the lace around her neck, become the most important and delightful objects of discursive commentary?—the very fluttering rosettes which burn upon her little instep, and the pearls which glitter in her powdered hair, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... all who pretended to keep up Order or Rule to the Interruption of Love and Honour. This is his way of Talk, for he is very gay when he visits me; but as his former Knowledge of the Town has alarmed him into an invincible Jealousy, he keeps me in a pair of Slippers, neat Bodice, warm Petticoats, and my own Hair woven in Ringlets, after a Manner, he says, he remembers. I am not Mistress of one Farthing of Money, but have all Necessaries provided for me, under the Guard of one who procured for him while ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... gateway of the White Hart, into the court, but before listening to them, the monk exchanged greetings with the hostess, who stood at the door in a broad hat and velvet bodice, and demanded what cheer there ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... nothing of the original structure remained, and clasped on his feet with two massy silver buckles. If the dress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his granddaughter was gay, and even rich. She wore a bodice of fine wool, wrought round the bosom with alternate leaf and lily, and a kirtle of the same fabric, which, almost touching her white and delicate ankle, showed her snowy feet, so fairy-light and round that they scarcely seemed to touch the grass where she stood. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... back to consciousness when Mrs. de la Vere joined the kindly women who were loosening her bodice and ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... cap of lace and flowers, fastened by a diamond-headed pin; the ringlets that half hid the contours of her face added to her look of youth, and suited her style of beauty. Her foulard gown, designed by the celebrated Victorine, with a pointed bodice, exquisitely fringed, set off her figure to advantage; and a silken lace scarf, adroitly thrown about a too long neck, partly concealed her shoulders. She played with the dainty scent-bottle, hung by a chain from her bracelet; she carried ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... baggage and outraging several centuries of devilishly fine history by running—positively running—from ill-armed footpads who had never worn breeches. She would frown, her bosom would swell till her bodice would appear to crackle at the armpits, the seven hairs on her upper lip would bristle all the worse against her purpling face as she cried it was the little Lyons shopkeeper in his mother's grandfather that was in his craven legs. Doubt it who will, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... marble. The figure is fourteen feet in height and represents the bold navigator wearing the dress of the period, the richly embroidered doublet, or waistcoat, thrown back, revealing a kilt that falls in easy folds from a bodice drawn tightly over the broad chest beneath. Not only the attitude of the figure but the expression of the face is commanding, and as you look upon the clearly cut features you seem to feel instinctively ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... called on him on her way home from a ball, and they went out for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the weather was beautiful. The odor of her bodice embalmed the warm air—the odor of her bodice, and also a little, the odor of her skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A little surprised, he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... have looked perfectly ghastly in this last night, when you were as pale and hollow-eyed as a sick nun; but to-night," and she raised her eyes to my face, "I believe you will do. Don't you want the bodice cut lower?" ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... society social worker who taught poverty sweet forbearance every Tuesday from four until six, wore a forty-eight-diamond bar pin on her under bodice (on Tuesday from four until six), and whose gray-suede slippers were ever so slightly blackened from the tripping trip from front door to motor and back, took him up, as the saying is, and for two weeks Jason disported ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... falling over a skirt of white silk crepe, a green satin calyx girdle about her waist, and golden petals drooped again from the neck of her low bodice and over her shoulders. ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... life, that is behind the scenes, the ballerini are called Miss Helvet and Monsieur Mastropinnuzza. Miss Helvet first danced alone; she had six strings and two wires, not rods, and was dressed like the conventional ballet-girl with a red bodice and a diamond necklace, and she wriggled her white muslin skirts and waved a broad green ribbon. Monsieur Canguiu then danced alone; he was slightly less complicated, and kissed his hand with great frequency. They wound ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... stained brown with streaks of coffee; a crumbled crescent roll; some balls of silver paper which had contained cream chocolates; ends of cigarettes, and a scattered grey film of ashes. At her feet a toy black Pomeranian lay coiled on the torn bodice of a red dress; and all the room was in disorder, with an indiscriminate litter of hats, gloves, French novels, feather boas, slippers, ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... it wasn't a practised writer, You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, As if it held but the might of a child; You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. Tell him — No, you may quibble there, For it would split his heart to know it, And then ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... Jocelyn Percy came into the great room, like a sunbeam strayed back to earth. Her skirt was of flowered satin, her bodice of rich taffeta; between the gossamer walls of her French ruff rose the whitest neck to meet the fairest face. Upon her dark hair sat, as lightly as a kiss, a little pearl-bordered cap. A color was in her cheeks and a laugh on her lips. The rosy light of the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... if you'll believe me, I'm not so sure I've got a heart at all. There's something that beats in here"—tapping lightly on her white bodice—"but for going frantic with love or hate, or jealousy or sorrow, or any of those hysterical things that other people's hearts seem made for, I don't believe I have. I tell you this frankly"—glancing sideways at Sir Roger Trajenna—"in order to warn you and everybody ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... a richness such as no other house in Seville could have boasted. She had arrayed herself for the interview with an almost wanton cunning that should enhance her natural endowments. Her high-waisted gown, low-cut and close-fitting in the bodice, was of cloth of gold, edged with miniver at skirt and cuffs and neck. On her white bosom hung a priceless carcanet of limpid diamonds, and through the heavy tresses of her bronze-coloured hair was coiled a string of lustrous pearls. Never ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Wilkes had a small, round face, with melting eyes, and when she lifted her head, her ringlets seemed to vibrate and shiver like the bells of a pagoda. She had a charming way of clasping her hands, and holding them against her bodice, while she said, 'Oh, but—really now?' in a manner inexpressibly engaging. She was very earnest, and she had a pleading way of calling out: 'O, but aren't you teasing me?' which would have brought a tiger fawning ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... pleasure club," she explained, turning to me—"my pleasure club, 'The Moonlight Maids,' give a ball to-night." Which fact likewise explained the curl-papers as well as the slattern shirt-waist, donned to save the evening bodice worn to the factory that morning and now tucked away in a big box ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... other instances, chief among which was the fact that the first time she had beheld the handsome face of the Jack she was to marry to-morrow she had worn a bunch of her favourite flowers in the bodice of her white silk dress. Afterwards, on the day of the County Ball, at which function he had proposed, he had sent her a bouquet composed entirely of pink carnations, and had chosen one of those blooms ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... one, which turns its head to her, expectant of a handful of fresh hay, which she has brought for it in her blue apron, fastened up round her waist; she stands with her pail on her head, evidently the village coquette, for she has a neat bodice, and pretty striped petticoat under the blue apron, and red stockings. Nearer us, the cowherd, barefooted, stands on a piece of the limestone rock (for the ground is thistly and not pleasurable to bare feet);—whether ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... as she was giving up the quest in despair, her eyes or her fingers discovered a little opening inside the prisoner bodice, and there sure enough was a pocket, and in the pocket a slip of paper! She drew it ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... forward, letting her gloved arms lie along her knees; and above the jet-trimmed line of her bodice, he saw her white chest rise and fall. At a slight sound behind, she turned and looked expectantly ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... not malice, but charity, that bids us remember that, during his whole maturity, he could neither dress nor undress himself, go to bed or get up without help, and that on rising he had to be invested with a stiff canvas bodice and tightly laced, and have put on him a fur doublet and numerous stockings to keep off the cold and fill out his shrunken form. If ever there was a man whose life was one long provocation, that man was the author of the Dunciad. Pope had no means of self-defence ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... colour, fair and startling. She did not decorate her eyebrows and eyelashes, which were darker than her hair. And she wore high corsets, because her bosom, although firm, was inclined to be over-flowing. The bodice of her dress fitted closely and emphasised what was still a very shapely figure. She was what would be called a fine woman. Her eyes were full and clear; her lips were well-moulded; her teeth, rather protruding, were unimpaired. Sally was ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... at this moment a knock at the front door. Emmy swayed, grew pale, and then slowly reddened until the colour spread to the very edges of her bodice. The two girls looked at one another, a deliberate interchange of glances that was at the same time, upon both sides, an intense scrutiny. Emmy was breathing heavily; ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... the right is the mantle of St. Cecilia; others are the bodice of St. Agnes, St. Stephen's robe, a prophet's tunic; and above these, before reaching the lapis-lazuli border of sky, the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing; Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... the stress of strong emotion—the struggle of a noble soul in a conflict of forces which must end in tragedy. Her hair is brushed back from the face and ornamented with a tiara like a royal diadem. A rich rope of pearls falls across her beautiful neck and is gathered in a knot on her bodice. A mantle lies across her lap draped somewhat like that in the portrait of Lady Cockburn, and, like it, inscribed with the name of the painter, who gallantly said that "he could not resist the opportunity of going down to posterity on the hem ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... her life should be free and chainless as the winds. Never more should needle and thread tempt her to a womanish inactivity. As Hercules, whose counterpart she was, changed his club for the distaff of Omphale, so would she put off the wimple and bodice of her sex for jerkin and galligaskins. If she could not allure manhood, then would she brave it. And though she might not cross swords with her country's foes, at least she might levy tribute upon the unjustly rich, and confront an ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... picture inclosing a brownish landscape with a blue and white sky, and the broad black frame of the picture of Cupid tell strongly, yet fall into plane behind the figure in white satin—quite a different quality of white, and warmer and brighter than the wall. The bodice is a steely blue silk, which is repeated in the velvet seat of the chair; while the blue and white landscape upon the open lid of the spinet repeats the blue and white landscape on the wall, and the blue and white motive is subtly re-echoed in a subdued key in the little tiles lining the base of ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... her hair; the soft tones of the velvet lost in the shadows of the floor, and melting into the walls behind her; the high lights on the bare shoulder and arms divided by the severe band of black; the subdued grays in the fall of lace uniting the flesh tones and the bodice; and, more than all, the ringing note of red sung by the japonica tucked in her hair and which found its only echo in the red of her lips—red as a slashed pomegranate with the white seed-teeth showing through. The other side of her beautiful self—the side that lay hidden under her soft lashes ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... housemaid, not bad-looking, but very stout and snub-nosed; in a white dress, of which the bodice is short and ill-fitting. About her neck is a little red kerchief; her hair ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... inclosure, guarded by a company of braves with long spears. We were ushered into the royal presence without either ceremony or delay. The queen was sitting in a hammock with her feet resting on the ground. She wore a bright-colored, loosely-fitting bodice, a skirt to match, and sandals. Her long black hair was arranged in tails, of which there were seven on each side of her face. She was short and stout, and perhaps thirty years old, and though in early youth she might have been well favored, her countenance now bore the impress of evil passions, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... mother had told them a tale about this old custom of bracelet-sending in Rajputana:—how, on a certain holy day, any woman—married or not married—may send her bracelet token to any man. If he accepts it, and sends in return an embroidered bodice, he becomes from that hour her bracelet brother, vowed to her service, like a Christian Knight in the days of chivalry. The bracelet may be of gold or jewels or even of silk interwoven with spangles—like Tara's impromptu token. The two who are ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... paused before a cottage. The front of this cottage was overgrown with climbing roses, just then in full bloom, and a disorderly patch of overgrown blossom and shrub lay on each side the thread of gravel-walk which led from the gate to the door. A little personage, attired in a tight-fitting bodice and a girlish-looking skirt, was busily reducing the redundant growth to order with a pair of quick-snapping shears. It gave his lordship an odd kind of shock when this little personage arose and ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... ways, I get hot all over when an ordinary discussion is going on, thinking that blows are about to be exchanged. The Mother-Aunt had hung a wonderful satin skirt out of window for decoration; and when she leaned over it in a bodice of the same color, it looked as if she were sitting with her legs out as well! I suppose it was this peculiar effect that, when the King and Queen came by earlier in the morning, won for her a special bow ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... old man," said Van Reypen, gravely, "they've got to go through with that green velvet, now they've begun on it. Proceed, Mona. The tunic was trimmed with peplum, wasn't it? and the bodice was cut en train——" ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... the drama had now arrived, and everybody stood aside for the wretched Fidelia. Mrs. Slapman proved equal to the great occasion. Directing one look to heaven, as if for strength, and pressing a hand over the jewelled bodice which covered her bursting heart, she walked with firm steps toward the fatal table. Never in her life had she been more ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... seemed much disturbed. However, the magister ordered him to retire into the next chamber and remove his doublet. Item, he bade the young maiden likewise to take off her robe, seeing that the sleeves were very tight. It was a blue silk bodice she had on, trimmed round the bosom with golden fringe, and a mantle of yellow silk embroidered in violets and gold. Now the maiden was angry at first with the magister for his request, but laughed ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... in the billowy silken skirts, puffed sleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carried off well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effort to disguise the fact that she was deeply wounded ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... On condition that you are under twenty-five and that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time you appear in Broadway with the hat and balzarine, we will pay the bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done as this letter, and you may 'snuggle' down ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... page "While I wrestled ... with a bodice as snug as the head of a drum, the lord of all it contained ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... again, and her little heart beat under her bee's-wing bodice as if it would break. The prince had a melancholy air, and he sat apart from the banquet, gazing ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... material, trimmed with old cream lace. The material of a woman's dress had never interested him before. He knew calico from silk, but beyond that he never ventured an opinion. To colour alone he was responsive. This combination of red and creamy white, with the bodice cut low, showing the lines of her beautiful white shoulders, and the great mass of dark hair rising in graceful curves from her full round neck, heightened her beauty to ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come This camphor, storax, spikenard, galbanum; These musks, these ambers, and those other smells, Sweet as the vestry of the oracles. I'll tell thee: while my Julia did unlace Her silken bodice but a breathing space, The passive air such odour then assum'd, As when to Jove great Juno goes perfum'd, Whose pure immortal body doth transmit A scent that fills both heaven and earth ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... turning her head away from the touch of his hand. She had never looked more attractive than at that moment,—she wore the white gown in which he had before admired her, and a cluster of roses which were pinned to her bodice gave rich contrast to the soft tone of her smooth, suntanned skin, and swayed lightly with the unquiet heaving of the beautiful bosom which might have served a sculptor as a perfect model. A faint, quivering ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... was a long, rambling tale of a hard-hearted dressmaker who, having had a new frock back for alteration, had taken upon herself to return the skirt, without the bodice, with an intimation that she was retaining the delayed portion until her long account was settled. Hence Mrs. Vivian found herself with what she called a most important engagement, without the equally important new ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... a procession to Lord Hunsdon. This procession is led by Lady Hunsdon, who no doubt was the leader likewise of the fashion; but it is impossible, with our ideas of grace and comfort, not to commiserate this unfortunate lady; whose standing-up wire ruff, rising above her head; whose stays, or bodice, so long-waisted as to reach to her knees; and the circumference of her large hoop farthingale, which seems to enclose her in a capacious tub; mark her out as one of the most pitiable martyrs of ancient modes. The amorous Sir Walter Raleigh must have found some of the maids of honour the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... flew to meet her. His eager, nimble fingers unfastened the blue frock. He slipped the next costume over her head without mussing a single beloved blonde hair. The second costume was a tight-fitting silver bodice with a fluff of green skirt underneath. Freddy had it fastened up in a twinkling. Florette ran out again and pulled herself up ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... a fair disguise The danger darkly lurking, And maiden bodice dreaded more Than warrior's steel-wrought jerkin. How keen to scent the hidden plot! How prompt wert thou to balk it, With patriot zeal and pedler thrift, For country and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and thin with extraordinary green eyes sunk deep in their shadowy sockets. Her dress was black, the bodice open in a point back and front, and in her hair, which was blond cendre, she wore a great diamond crescent like Diana. She waved a huge fan of red feathers hastily to and fro as ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... hand in the world—on the ledge of the open window, and her little finger provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it wondered why Joe didn't squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one or two of the modest snowdrops would have become that delicate bodice, and how they were lying neglected outside the parlour window! To see how Miggs looked on with a face expressive of knowing how all this loveliness was got up, and of being in the secret of every string and pin and hook and eye, and of saying it ain't half as real as you think, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... clinging crepes and indescribably brilliant brocades shot with silver or with gold. For nearly fifty years Mrs. Shears had worn dresses made from these romantic stuffs and she was wearing them yet—in Cherryvale! They were all made after the same pattern, gathered voluminous skirt and fitted bodice and long flowing sleeves; and, with the small lace cap she always wore on her white hair. Missy thought the old lady looked as if she'd just stepped from the yellow-tinged pages of some fascinating old book. She wished her own grandmother dressed like that; of course she loved Grandma Merriam dearly ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... woman, with a despairing movement, laid her face down on the table, with her forehead touching the wood. Then she lifted it up. The paroxysm seemed to have passed. She took out a handkerchief from inside the bodice of her dress and dried her eyes. Ruffo struck the table with his glass. An attendant came. He paid the bill, and the woman and he got up to go. As they did so Ruffo presented for a moment his full face to Artois, and Artois swiftly compared it with the face of the woman, and felt sure that they ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... the out-door Cafe-Chantant, and we heard Paulus in the days when all Paris went to hear him, and Yvette Guilbert when she was still slim and wore the V-shaped bodice and the long black gloves, as you may see her in ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... recognized it, mooch. It es ze same. Of no change—not even of a leetle. No, she ess always—esso." She stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed her fan below a spray of roses on her full bodice as if to indicate some thrilling memory beneath it, shook her head again, suddenly caught sight of Demorest's serious face, said: "Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs himself at me," and then herself broke into a ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... water's side she holds her place, Her bodice bright is set with Genoa lace; O'er her rich robe, through every satin fold, Wanders an arabesque in threads of gold. From its green urn the rose unfolding grand, Weighs down the exquisite smallness of her hand. And when ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... exchanged a despairing look with Cyril. Anthea detached a pin from her waistband, a pin whose withdrawal left a gaping chasm between skirt and bodice, and handed it furtively to Robert—with a grimace of the darkest and deepest meaning. Robert slipped away to the road. There, sure enough, stood a bicycle—a beautiful new one. Of course Robert ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... to have been that he was more eager for an exchange of compliments than for friendship. He affected the attitude of a man in love, when Lady Mary saw in him only a monkey in love. He is even said to have thrown his little makeshift of a body, in its canvas bodice and its three pairs of stockings, at her feet, with the result that she burst out laughing. Pope took his revenge in the Epistle to Martha Blount, where, describing Lady Mary as Sappho, he declared of another lady that her different aspects agreed as ill ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... three chops in a loin of pork; and then, raising a small cleaver with her strong hand, dealt three sharp blows which separated the chops from the loin. At each blow she dealt, her black merino dress rose slightly behind her, and the ribs of her stays showed beneath her tightly stretched bodice. She slowly took up the chops and weighed them with an air of gravity, her eyes gleaming and her ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... account of the glare caused by the reflection on the water, he grunted with pleasure and content. Malva was coming. A few minutes more and she would be there, laughing so heartily as to strain every stitch of her well-filled bodice. She would throw her robust and gentle arms around him and kiss him, and in that rich sonorous voice that startles the sea gulls would give him the news of what was going on yonder. They would make a good fish soup together, and drink brandy as they chatted ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... naturally much less sumptuously dressed than the Members of the Royal family, but still, in her quaint double-peaked head-dress, fantastically slashed bodice, and long hanging sleeves, with her bright hair, too, waving loosely over her temples, its rich masses confined at the back by a network of pearls, she was dainty and bewitching enough to attract more than her due share of attention—Clarence's ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... the shoulder, completes the costume of most of them, stockings and shoes not being thought of. Some, however, we saw with trousers and long yellow boots, turned over at the tops. They were evidently the dandies of the population. The women appeared in coloured petticoats, with a well-fitting bodice and a red cape. Some wore handkerchiefs instead of the funnel cap, and others mantillas and black hoods, by which the whole face and figure can be concealed. In consequence of the steepness and hardness of the roads, wheeled vehicles cannot ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... scarlet lacquer glowing, That o'er the Katashiha's stream is laid, All trippingly a tender girl is going, In bodice blue and crimson skirt arrayed. None to escort her: would that I were knowing Whether alone she sleeps on virgin bed, Or if some spouse has won her by his wooing:— Tell me her house! ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... back a lovely picture. The costume was one of the prettiest Patty had ever worn, and was exceedingly becoming. There was a short, quilted skirt of white satin and a panniered overdress of gay, flowered silk, caught up with blue bows. A little laced bodice and white chemisette completed the dress. Then there was a broad-leafed shepherdess hat, trimmed with flowers, and under this Patty's gold curls were bunched up on either side and tied with blue ribbons. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... being the common possession. The matrons, young and old, wore heavy satins or brocades, either red or yellow, but the maids were in flowered silks, sometimes with coquettish little jacket, generally with long pointed bodice and full flowing skirt. Concha's frock was made in this fashion, but quite different otherwise; an aunt in the City of Mexico being mindful at whiles of the cravings of relatives in exile. It was of a soft shimmering white ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... up from her writing to where the dark girl, her figure raked very much back in her stiff bodice, played daintily with the tassels of the curtain next ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... to say," observed Alwyn, "pearls will mightily beseem her highness's youthful bloom; and lo! here be some adornments for the bodice or partelet, to sort with the collar; not," added the goldsmith, bowing low, and looking down,—"not perchance displeasing to her highness, in that they are wrought in the guise of the fleur ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tried to soften her; she raged at him like a tiger-cat. Yes, I was one of the little crowd that stood round them on the quay, I saw it all. Her black eyes flashed, she stamped and bit her lips at him, her full bosom heaved as though it would burst her laced bodice. She was only a market-girl, but she gave herself the airs of a queen. 'I am tired of you!' she said to him. 'Go! I wish to see you no more.' He was tall and well-made, a powerful fellow; but he staggered, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... satellite to Cecile,—and Mademoiselle Herbelot, sister of the second notary of Arcis, an old maid of thirty, soured, affected, and dressed like all old maids; for she wore, over a bombazine gown, an embroidered fichu, the corners of which, gathered to the front of the bodice, were knotted together after the well-known fashion under ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Polenka, it's slipped down on your shoulders," she observed, panting from coughing. "Now it's particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia, with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite deformed by it.... Why, you're all crying again! What's the matter, stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Alan Rush instead of the quadrille in which the four debutantes were to dance. She sent a message to Helena, and Mrs. Cartright scribbled back that the poor dear child had altered the trimming on her bodice at the last moment, and would not be ready for an hour yet. Caro took her place in the quadrille, as she ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... diamonds from the Queen of Spain and from the Empress of Russia and sundry grand duchesses. No lady violinist ever appeared before an American audience more gorgeously arrayed. "Fastened all over the bodice of her soft white woollen gown she wore these sparkling jewels, and in her hair were two or three diamond stars," said the account in Dwight's Journal of Music. Yet with all this the criticisms of her playing ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... and gazed at steadily, until his companion was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye. Then he passed it over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his distant relative at some period before he ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... he himself at that time was making a bare thousand a year), and that strange, irresistible attraction which had drawn him on, till he felt he must die if he could not marry the girl with the fair hair, looped so neatly back, the fair arms emerging from a skin-tight bodice, the fair form decorously shielded by a cage of really ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... garden-palings, or about Castlewood: it was, "Lord, Mr. Henry!" and "How do you do, Nancy?" many and many a time in the week. 'Tis surprising the magnetic attraction which draws people together from ever so far. I blush as I think of poor Nancy now, in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and a canvas petticoat; and that I devised schemes, and set traps, and made speeches in my heart, which I seldom had courage to say when in presence of that humble enchantress, who knew nothing beyond milking a cow, and opened her black eyes with wonder when I made one of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blooming as a rose, Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows, Just as her cuckoo-clock was striking nine. Above her head, resplendent on the sign, The portrait of the Earl of Halifax, In scarlet coat and periwig of flax, Surveyed at leisure all her varied charms, Her cap, her bodice, her white folded arms, And half resolved, though he was past his prime, And rather damaged by the lapse of time, To fall down at her feet and to declare The passion that had driven him to despair. For from his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... yet the light seems still to cling about her beautiful form. In a brighter light you might see that her lips are crimson with the glow of youth, though her face is pale. Her hair, parted in the middle and dressed straight back, and her white gown give her the appearance of a Madonna. In her bodice, she wears a white rose which from time to time she caresses ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... her on a stool). She had fair, fluffy hair, cut short behind her neck; large, round eyes, heightened by a fringe of dark lashes; rough, ruddy cheeks, and a rosy, full-lipped, unstable mouth. She was dressed quite simply, in a black, close-fitting bodice, a little frayed at the sleeves. Her hands and neck were coarsely fashioned: her comeliness was brawny, literal, unfinished, ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Rosario, the sister-in-law of the proprietor, came in to entertain me presently, dressed in a bodice of blue pina, with the wide sleeves newly starched and ironed, and with her hair unbound. She sat down opposite me in a rocking-chair, shook off her slippers on the floor, and curling her toes around the rung, rocked violently back and ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... day he may appear in silken jerkin and tight hose, like a well-to-do burgess. No greater contrast perhaps, unless indeed we should compare his sweetheart, Lorenzo's beautiful Nenciozza, with her box full of jewels, her Sunday garb of damask kirtle and gold-worked bodice, her almost queenly ways towards her adorers, with the wretched creature, not a woman, but a mere female animal, cowering among her starving children in her mud cottage, and looking forward, in dull lethargy, after the morning full of outrages at the castle, to the night, the night on ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... like to see such an advertisement, I say, Sir! Now, what's the use of using the words that belonged with the thumb-screws, and the Blessed Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and sleeves and bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire, if we can't have the things themselves, Sir? What's the use of painting the fire round a poor fellow, when you think it won't do to kindle one under him,—as they did at Valencia or Valladolid, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... played the violin, and there were piano solos and songs from other members. Everyone acknowledged, however, that Gipsy was the star of the occasion. She was dressed specially for her part in a kind of half-Spanish costume, with a red skirt, a black velvet bodice over white sleeves, and a muslin fichu trimmed with lace. Her rich dark hair was allowed to hang loose, and a gold-embroidered gauze scarf was twisted lightly round the top of her head, the long ends falling below her waist. She wore sequin ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil |
