"Counterpane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same rich material were composed the tester and the lightly-quilted coverlet, thrown across the foot of the bed, over a fine white Marseilles counterpane. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... like stars, and on each cheek burned a bright red fever-spot. An old shawl was thrown on the bed for a counterpane. She had neither sheets nor blankets, and the chill night air blew through the broken window-panes, making her cough so fearfully that I ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... two returned to the house Albert was shown to a room that reminded him of his boyhood home, the old-fashioned bed, spotless counterpane, and muslin curtains all seemed so sweet and wholesome. A faint odor of lavender carried him back to the time when his mother's bed linen exhaled the same sweet fragrance. He lighted a cigar and sat down by a window where crisp salt sea air came in, and tried to fathom what ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... signalizing her kindness and her doctorship. What drenchings did not the poor Wolfert undergo, and all in vain! It was a moving sight to behold him wasting away day by day, growing thinner and thinner and ghastlier and ghastlier, and staring with rueful visage from under an old patchwork counterpane, upon the jury of matrons kindly assembled to sigh and groan ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the reader and her listener, both of whom were sitting on the floor, was instantaneous. Each started and sat rigidly intent for a moment; then, as the sound of approaching footsteps became audible, one girl hastily slipped a little volume under the counterpane of the bed, while the other sprang to her feet, and in a hurried, flustered way pretended to be getting something out ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... objects which must not be forgotten, and above all a mattress, bolster, and counterpane, as the berths are generally unfurnished. These can be purchased very cheaply ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... carved flowers and fruit; and the four bed-posts, finely fluted and crowned with Corinthian capitals, supported a cornice of entwined roses and cupids. It was a monumental couch, and yet was very graceful, despite the somber appearance of the wood darkened by age. The counterpane and canopy, made of old dark blue silk, starred here and there with great fleurs de lis embroidered in gold, sparkled like ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the stillness every beating of her heart. She stood by the bed. It was covered, not with its usual counterpane of patchwork stars, the work of Elspie's diligent hand through many a long year, and on which her own baby-fingers had been first taught to sew—but with a large white sheet. She stood, scarce knowing whether to fly or not, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... It is as though one stood on the very confines of life, and could one trace but one step more, one single step, one would unveil the eternal secret. I would not listen long; the torture was too sweet, too exquisite, and I would gently slide back to my place.... His hand was on the counterpane, near to my breast—the broad hand of the pianist, with a wrist of incredible force, and the fingers tapering suddenly at the end to a point. I let my own descend on it as softly as snow. Ah, ravishing contact! He did not move. And while my small hand touched his I gazed into the spaces of the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... her pale lips murmured faintly, then the heart-throbs beneath Beth's ear were still; the slender hand fell helpless on the counterpane; the brilliant eyes were ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... for maybe an hour—the time of year, as I told you, being near about mid-summer—and the Parson, that never wanted for pluck, jumped out and into his breeches in a twinkling, while his wife pulled the counterpane over her head. Down along the passage he skipped to a little window opening over ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... into bed, and Ginger 'adn't been in his five minutes afore the dog started to get in with 'im. When Ginger pushed 'im off 'e seemed to think he was having a game with 'im, and, arter pretending to bite 'im in play, he took the end of the counterpane in 'is mouth and tried to drag ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... were yellow, every ornament upon the mantel-shelf was yellow, down to a china shepherdess who wore a yellow china gown and carried a basket filled with yellow flowers, and bore a yellow crook. The bedstead was brass, and there was a counterpane of white lace over yellow, the muslin curtains were tied back with great bows of yellow ribbon. Even the pictures represented yellow flowers or maidens dressed in yellow. The rugs were yellow, the furniture upholstered ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... side of the poor chamber. There were no trees near the house, and a full November moon streamed in at the unblinded, uncurtained windows, lighting up the bare interior—the unpainted floor, the gray plastered walls, and the white counterpane. ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... anything she could recognise as a towel, she pulled at a huge drapery hanging like a counterpane in front of a coil of pipes extending half-way to the ceiling. The pipes were too hot to touch and the heavy drapery was more than warm and obviously meant for drying purposes. Sitting wrapped in its folds, dizzy and oppressed, she ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... seems to unfold itself to our view like an immense and variegated map, the predominant colour of which is green in all its shades and tints. The irregular division of the country into fields made it resemble a patchwork counterpane. The size of the houses, churches, fortresses, was so considerably diminished as to make them resemble nothing so much as those playthings manufactured at Carlsruhe. This was the effect produced by a microscopic train, which whistled very faintly to attract our attention, and ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... satisfaction at her bits of finery on Sundays? But a girl must always need the mother's care. It couldn't possibly be Lizzie. Or should it be little Ben, lying there with eyes sunk deep in his head, and one arm outside the counterpane? Why, Ben was only three. A few months ago he had been the baby. It couldn't possibly be little Ben. And then there was the baby herself—well, of course, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... at the unconscious man. The dark-brown hair was tangled, the white face drawn with pain, the lips dry with fever, one hand, clenched, opening and shutting spasmodically, on the counterpane. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... shawl on, just like redness dipped in milk, and all worked over with flowers of the same colour. It didn't shine much, it was silk, but it kept in the shine. When she came to my bedside, she sat down, just where you are sitting, Diamond, and laid her hand on the counterpane. I was sitting up, with my table before me ready for my tea. Her hand looked so pretty in its blue glove, that I was tempted to stroke it. I thought she wouldn't be angry, for everybody that comes ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... arrived off the head of the Gaboon estuary in this calm, for had we had wind to deal with we should have come to an end. There were one or two wandering puffs, about the first one of which sickened our counterpane of its ambitious career as a marine sail, so it came away from its gaff and spread itself over the crew, as much as to say, "Here, I've had enough of this sailing. I'll be a counterpane again." We did a great deal of fine varied, spirited navigation, details of which, however, I will not ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... up my head, I rose to go home, but she persuaded me to lie down a while. I was not unwilling to comply. What a sense of blissful repose pervaded me, weary with running, and perhaps faint with loss of blood, when I stretched myself on the bed, whose patchwork counterpane, let me say for Turkey's mother, was as clean as any down quilt in chambers of the rich. I remember so well how a single ray of sunlight fell on the floor from the little window in the roof, just on the foot that kept turning the spinning-wheel. Its hum sounded sleepy in my ears. I gazed at ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... crochetted lace, smiled sheepishly down at the world. There was a table covered with books of the kind whose gilt edges invariably stick together, because they are never opened, and on the little table on the left of the broad bed, with its scarlet counterpane and huge, soft-looking pillows, were an old black crucifix ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... turned into a nice little bourgeois, hasn't he, Blanquette? He knows how to make polite conversation. He is tidy in his habits in the Rue des Saladiers, eh? He does not spit on the floor or spill absinthe over the counterpane. Ah! je suis un vieux salaud, hein? Don't say no. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... side. "Opens hot-air register. No applause necessary. But this is a little, comforting idea of my own. Protection from sudden change of temperature without bodily exposure." Extending his hand he pulled the other rope, which, running through the pulley over his head, brought the counterpane quickly over him. "How's that? No sitting up, reaching down, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... tiredness," he said, with sudden impatience, beating upon the counterpane with his fist. "Amy—you're not behaving fairly. You must talk to me. I ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... poured through the sluices all green and solid, as if it had been cut with a knife, and where it fell on the water underneath the white foam spread like a moving counterpane. When we had finished the lock we did the weir—which is wheels and chains—and the water pours through over the stones in a magnificent waterfall and sweeps out all round ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... present, she resumed her examination of the apartment, and was more and more attracted by it as she proceeded. For, thanks to her eminence as a local beauty, she had not that fear of beautiful and rich things which renders abject people incapable of associating costliness with comfort. Had the counterpane of the bed been her own, she would have unhesitatingly converted it into a ball-dress. There were toilet appliances of which she had never felt the need, and could only guess the use. She looked with despair ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... hospital rounds early in the morning, rather to the outrage of various head nurses, who did not like the staff to come a-visiting until every counterpane was drawn stiff and smooth, every bed corner a geometrical angle, every patient washed and combed and temperatured, and in the exact ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on its little stand, while on the counterpane were spread out some twoscore portraits of more or ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... delivered into his hand, and he presented it to me with two very thin pieces of wrought-gold. Of this gold I believe there is but little here, though I suspect there is a place at no great distance which produces a great deal, and whence they procure it. Believing he might like a carpet or counterpane which lay on my bed, I presented it to him, together with some fine amber beads which I wore about my neck, a pair of red shoes, and a bottle of orange-flower water, with all of which he seemed very much pleased. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... came home from church, she found her little daughter up in her room on her knees beside her bed, her arms stretched out over the white counterpane, asleep. She had suffered until nature had taken her into her own soothing arms and put her to sleep through sheer weakness. Her cheeks were still burning and her eyelids red from weeping. Mary thought her in a fever, and gently helped ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... handling the white counterpane and noting the delicate French pattern upon it, and seeing at one corner the little red silk coronet embroidered, which made me smile. I remember putting my hand upon the cool linen of the pillow-case and smoothing it; then I got into that bed ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... appalling shroud, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head the rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly, turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might, when he brought the evening meal, believe that he was ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... round, caught sight of Kate, and, without another word, leapt at one bound into a bed which stood behind the door, and drew the counterpane over his face: kicking ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... drifted in, and they began to eat. There happened to be every single thing Tavy liked best to eat. After supper there was music and singing, and Tavy, having kissed a white, soft, furry forehead, went to bed in a gold four-poster with a counterpane of butterflies' wings. He awoke at home. On the mantelpiece sat the White Cat, looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth. And all her furriness had gone with her voice. She ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... folding his little hands on the counterpane, "it is worth while to have had this indisposition (except for the trouble it has given others) just to see how good every one is. Gifford has been exceedingly kind and thoughtful. His gentleness—for I have been very troublesome, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... sensitive nature. To a sympathetic friend, who lent her kindly aid in this time of need, we owe a graphic but pathetic picture of Poe's home shortly before the death of his almost angelic wife: "There was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but a snow-white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... but it was papered, it was rugged, its floor was painted and waxed, its window—opening into the court, by the way—was hung with chintz and net curtains, its bed was garnished with sheets and counterpane, its chairs were upholstered and in perfect repair and polish. It was not Arizona, emphatically not, but rather the sweet and garnished and lavendered respectability of a Connecticut village. My dirty old cantinas lay stacked against the washstand. At sight of them I had to grin. Of course ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... Hinderers were cut off from all communication with their fellow-missionaries in the Yoruba country. Supplies ran short, and they were compelled to sell their personal belongings to obtain food for themselves and the children. 'We sold a counterpane and a few yards of damask which had been overlooked by us;' runs an entry in Anna Hinderer's diary, 'so that we indulge every now and then in one hundred cowries' worth of meat (about one pennyworth), and such a morsel seems ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... there in that little white bed, with her golden curls scattered on the pillow and the soft whiteness of her neck and hands shaded by the delicate Valenciennes with which her night robe was profusely decorated. A quantity of hot house flowers lay scattered on the counterpane, where the girl had flung them, one by one, from a bouquet she was still tearing to pieces. A frown was on her pretty forehead, and her large violet eyes shone feverishly. It was seldom anything half so lovely appeared in the confined sleeping rooms of that highly fashionable boarding school. ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... private rooms and soon her loud breathing told Nell Beecroft that she was in the heavy sleep of drink. The nurse opened the door and stood by the bedside looking down upon her as she lay dressed as she had come from the dance, on the outside of the counterpane. One bare arm was thrown over her head, the other was hanging limply over the edge of the bed, her loose hair was a snarled mass upon the pillow and her open mouth gave her face an empty, sodden ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... plesance, all hanged with white silk and linen cloth, and all the floors covered with carpets. There was ordained a bed for himself of as good down as could be gotten. The sheets of Rennes cloth and also fine fustians; the counterpane, cloth of gold, furred with ermines. The tester and ceiler also shining cloth of gold; the curtains of white sarcenet; as for his head-suit and pillows, they were of the Queen's own ordonnance. In the second chamber was likewise another state-bed, all white. Also, in the same chamber, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... proud to show Jennie their neat little bedroom, with its snowy curtains and white counterpane, and its pleasant view from the windows. There were two windows with wide seats, where they could sit and work, or study, and these looked out upon a beautiful garden, and the sweet odor of the flowers came up and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... be in Peace Maythorne's room one day when the bustle of preparation for the holidays was busiest. Peace hid something under the counterpane as she came in, flushing a little. Gypsy sat down in her favorite place on the bed, just where she could see the cripple's great quiet eyes—she always liked to watch Peace Maythorne's eyes—and in doing so disturbed the bedclothes. A piece of work fell out: plain, fine sewing, in which the needle ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... hand, but what it touched was not simply a counterpane—it was a counterpane with something underneath it like the outline of a human leg. Silas withdrew his arm and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to screw in the ends of the clubs, and to replace the latter in the fender where we had found them. When I had done the counterpane was glittering with diamonds where it was not ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... of window high up in the prison wall, one sentinel star looked down into the narrow cell. It peeped in upon a small white figure straight and slim amid the surrounding blackness of the cell, with 'dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the counterpane'; but Mary's eyes were wide open, her ears were listening intently for her ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... seem to come to anything." Billie gazed wistfully at the counterpane. "Do you know, father, I'm beginning to think that I'm rather impulsive. I wish I didn't do silly things in ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sailor. He examined these closely, and was rather pleased to find them valuable old prints. And, better to his mind than all these, was the deft, mysterious touch or suggestion of a woman's hand. He saw it in the pillows on the lounge, in the curtains dropping from the windows, in the counterpane on ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... every pupil shall pay ten dollars. He shall bring a mattress, a pillow, two pillow cases, two pairs of sheets, four blankets and a counterpane, or pay $6.00 per annum for the use of bed and bedding. He must also bring with him one suit of clothes, as a uniform—which is in winter a blue cloth coat and pantaloons with a black velvet waistcoat; in summer white pantaloons with a black silk waistcoat are used. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... embellishing their home against his return. The wardrobe and old-shelved beds were all done up afresh, waxed over, and bright new fastenings put on; she had put a pane of glass into their little window towards the sea, and hung up a pair of curtains; and she had bought a new counterpane for the winter, with new ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... mountain under the counterpane with an enormously distended stomach, lay a man, black-bearded, and with his large, capable, useless hands spread out on the coverlet—hands ready and willing, but debarred from work. Without moving his body, he turned ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... at farming had done me up. Still, it's no use to cover up your head from trouble; it's right here by the bed the minute you peep over the top of the sheet. I woke up, feeling that the whole world must be camping on the top of my crocheted lace counterpane; but soon I realized that it was only Peter's play. Peter is stuck in the mud at the beginning of the third act, and he thinks it is quicksands that are going to drown him. The last few sentences of the letter sound like a beautiful funeral oration to ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he had lived in some degree of comfort; but as soon as his deprivation was declared, Gardiner ordered that he should be confined in one of the common prisoners' wards; where "with a wicked man and a wicked woman" for his companions, with a bed of straw and a rotten counterpane, the prison sink on one side of his cell and Fleet ditch on the other, he waited till it would please parliament to permit the dignitaries of ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... they clasped them around it, and urged him to "try;" but they instantly fell away, the pen dropped upon the snowy counterpane making a great, unsightly blotch of ink, and they knew that he was past putting his signature, or even his mark, to ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... late, so late that the sun entering at the south windows of the room shone glaringly upon the white counterpane of his bed when Craig awoke the next morning. Breakfast had long been over, but throughout the unplastered ranch house the suggestion of coffee and the tang of bacon still lingered. At home those ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... sigh of relief. From the brightened expression upon his pinched face, it seemed as if, even now in the jaws of death, he leaned upon his old schoolfellow and looked to him for assistance. He put a wasted hand above the counterpane and laid ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me with something of anxiety in her eyes as I straightened the counterpane of her spotless bed; but she said nothing more, and, lowering the shades at the windows lest the sunlight bother her, I went out of the room and left ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... nearly time for them, he ordered Giovanna to make the room of a beautiful and perfect neatness, hiding all the medicine bottles and humble signs that one is mortal. She was directed to lay across his white counterpane that square of brocade which often formed a background for his portraits. She was asked to brush his hair and beard, and wrap his shoulders in an ivory-white shawl, thick with silk embroideries, which had been his mother's. In a little green bronze tripod a black pastille ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... vanished as they had come, and Mrs. Crickett set to work; she dragged off the counterpane, blankets and sheets, and stooped to lift the pillows. Thus stooping, something arrested her attention; she looked closely—more closely—very closely. 'Well, to be sure!' was all she could say. The clerk's ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... turned back towards her bed. It was too early to get up. It was too late to go to sleep again. Eunice, her hot-water bottle, she knew, lay cold as a serpent to shock her feet if she returned. Besides, the Dog David was asleep on the middle of the counterpane, and she was too good a mother to wake him. There are a good many things to do when you find yourself awake too early. It is said that some people sit up and darn their stockings, but I refer now to ordinary people, not to angels. Utterly resourceless people find themselves reduced ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... loan of a traveling writing-case, which he said he had with him, and, bringing it to the bed, shook the note-paper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual careless way. With the paper there fell out on the counterpane of the bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-color ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... their two dear little round heads on a couple of comfortable pillows. The three Magi in the very interesting frescoes behind the choir in the church of S. Abbondio at Como are, if I remember, all in one bed when the angel comes to tell them about the star, and I fancy they have a striped counterpane, but it is some time since I saw the frescoes; at any rate the angel was not a lady. We had often before seen the Virgin appear to a lady in bed, and even to a gentleman in bed, but never before to a lady and a gentleman both in the same bed. She is not, however, so much appearing to ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... any of my relations give a tea I am always tethered to a tray and a plate of biscuits." She stopped suddenly and looked at Helen keenly, with a stare that puzzled the girl. Then she jumped up and seated herself upon the bed, rumpling the counterpane. In the few minutes since she had entered the room she had made the place look as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and Helen felt a nervous fear of Miss Armstrong's walking in ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... cannot suppose to have been universal. The inventories of household furniture belonging to Reginald de la Pole, after enumerating some bed-hangings of costly stuff, describe: "Item, a pane" (piece of cloth which we now call counterpane) "and head-shete for y'e cradell, of same sute, bothe furred with mynever,"—giving us a comfortable idea of the nursery establishment in the De la Pole family. The recent discovery in England of that which tradition ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... her early joyousness, at that dear mother's death. But now she sang continually, very soft and low. She went from one childish ditty to another without let or pause, keeping a strange sort of time with her pretty fingers, as they closed and unclosed themselves upon the counterpane. She never looked at any one with the slightest glimpse of memory or intelligence in her face; no, not ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... at that day, what was emphatically called its best room, and this had been allotted, by the unseen influence of Sarah, to Colonel Wellmere. The down counterpane, which a clear frosty night would render extremely grateful over bruised limbs, decked the English officer's bed. A massive silver tankard, richly embossed with the Wharton arms, held the beverage he was ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the regular respiration of a sleeper warning her, she at length peered stealthily within; simultaneously she pressed the button of an electric hand-lamp. Its circumscribed blaze wavered over pillows and counterpane spotless ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... quilt is a curious sort of a monument—'bout as perishable as the sweepin' and scrubbin' and mendin'. But if folks values things rightly, and knows how to take care of 'em, there ain't many things that'll last longer'n a quilt. Why, I've got a blue and white counterpane that my mother's mother spun and wove, and there ain't a sign o' givin' out in it yet. I'm goin' to will that to my granddaughter that lives in Danville, Mary Frances' oldest child. She was down here last summer, and I was lookin' over my things and packin' 'em away, and she happened to ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... gentle spirit may forgive me, but I never can forgive myself for the reckless haste that has wrought all this ruin!" groaned Herman, sinking on his knees and burying his face on the counterpane, overwhelmed by grief and remorse for the great, unintentional wrong he had done; and by the impossibility of explaining the cause of his fatal mistake to this poor girl whose minutes ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... engaged in examining other things as they came forth from a lower drawer, which creations interested her so much that Virginia went still deeper into the family treasury and finally brought forth a sampler and counterpane which her own grandmother had wrought. The examination of these things, together with reminiscence of her own early achievements, kept Grandma Plympton so long that by the time she reached the sitting-room the absorbing topic had ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... paint all night—Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. There came a hurry of feet, and little feet, a sweep of lutestrings, laughs, and whifts of song,"—etc. In his eagerness to join in the fun, he tears into shreds curtain, and counterpane, and coverlet, makes a rope, descends, and comes up with the fun hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met. On his way back toward daybreak, he is throttled by the police, and it is to them the monologue is addressed. He ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... her head farther out of the window, and screamed in a queer voice that echoed like a parrot's, "Oh, 'Melia! 'Melia! it's Mrs. Liscom's, it's Mrs. Liscom's, and the wind's this way! Come, quick, and help me get out the best feather bed, and the counterpane that mother knit! ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all these things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over his counterpane. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation and covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and he interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but stands, ever, near the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... not very bad, and have been sent on here from another hospital. They are enchanted with their quarters, which indeed do look uncommonly nice. One hundred and thirty beds are ranged in rows, and we have a bright counterpane on each and clean sheets. The floor is scrubbed, and the bathrooms, store, office, kitchens, and receiving-rooms have been made out of nothing, and look splendid. I never saw a hospital spring up like magic in this way before. There is a wide verandah where the ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... besides the wagons, there was "a large number of nondescript turnouts, the motley makeshifts of poverty; from the unsuitable heavy cart that lumbered on mysteriously, with its sick driver hidden under its counterpane cover, to the crazy two-wheeled trundle, such as our own poor employ in the conveyance of their slop barrels, this pulled along, it may be, by a little dry-dugged heifer, and rigged up only to drag some such light weight as a baby, a sack of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... an end, Mrs. Gurley rose, smoothed down her apron, and was just on the point of turning away, when on the bed opposite Laura's she espied an under-garment, lying wantonly across the counterpane. At this blot on the orderliness of the room she seemed to swell like a turkey-cock, seemed literally to grow before Laura's eyes as, striding to the door, she commanded an invisible some one to send ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... impossible,—everywhere, in short, capable or incapable of affording a retreat to humanity; but discovered nobody. All he observed was that a light stood on the low table by her bedside; that on the bed lay an open Prayer-Book, the counterpane being unpressed, except into a little pit beside the Prayer Book, apparently where her head ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... stretched my arm out against the counterpane. She ran her fingers over it—the old "laying on of hands." If she were the real thing, I knew what it was—perception at a level a TK can't match. The real healers feel the nerves themselves. I'd been worked ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... would be noted. Indeed, only those who might be in the waggons, and looking through the draw-string aperture in the rear of the tilts, would be likely to see us at all. But most of these apertures were closed, some with curtains of common canvas—others with an old counterpane, a blanket, or such rag as was ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... lay on the counterpane; one of them moved as Emma came to the bedside, and rested when the warmer fingers clasped it. There was eager inquiry in the sunken eyes; her hand tried to raise itself, but ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... "why I sleep in my jacket, that's the best counterpane; and I use my head for a pillow. He-he, funny, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... knowed you would, or any true gentleman that don't hold with screwing poor folks. Just go and say that to him inside there for the love of God. Tell him to think what he's doing, driving poor creatures to despair. Summer's coming, the Lord be praised, but yet it's bitter cold at night with your counterpane gone; and when you've been working hard all day, and nothing but four bare walls to come home to, and all your poor little sticks of furniture that you've saved up for, and got together one by one, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... de Vacaro, of the name of Pablo Blanco, of Palamos, who had often acted as my servant during my geodesic operations. My false passport would become from this moment useless, if Pablo should recognize me: I went to bed at once, covered my head with the counterpane, and lay ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... of my nephew, because, Mr. Masham being a brother of our Society, his son, you know, is consequently a nephew. Mrs. Masham sat up dressed in bed, but not, as they do in Ireland, with all smooth about her, as if she was cut off in the middle; for you might see the counterpane (what d'ye call it?) rise about her hips and body. There is another name of the counterpane; and you will laugh now, sirrahs. George Granville came in at supper, and we stayed till eleven; and Lord Treasurer set me down at my lodging in Suffolk Street. Did I ever tell you that ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... adding: "At least, I am grateful that I did not die at sea." Then he closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them, and said, looking at Justine: "You have helped to nurse me, have you not?" His wasted fingers moved over the counterpane ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... way, for it leads to nothing but misery and disappointment. I should like to find out the secret of being happy and contented like other people." Her eyes filled with tears, those blue eyes which had been so full of confidence, and she clasped her fingers upon the counterpane. The roll of the organ sounded through the house, and the girls' clear voices singing a familiar tune. She listened unthinkingly, until suddenly one verse struck sharply on her ear, and startled her into ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Even her breathing revealed her peculiar idiosyncrasy: no actual movement on her surface was discernible. Her breathing involved the least possible disturbance of the pink and white contours that bulged the sheets and counterpane. Her face was calm, expressionless, and even dull, yet wore a certain look as though she knew so much that she had no need to maintain her position by the least assertion. Exertion would have been ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... his return from the hotel "post-office," she was startled by what seemed to be a groan issuing from his room. Instantly running to the door and tapping, when she entered she found him sitting on the side of the bed, white as the counterpane that covered it, and breathing heavily. She flew at once to his side, applied the restoratives at hand, and had the joy of seeing him almost instantly recover breath and voice. Then it was that she observed that he held a letter in his hand, and that ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... explosion on the previous evening. The brick floor was strewn with broken glass and was damp with the fine rain, driven through the lattice by the southwest wind during the night. Even the rush-bottomed chair was all wet, and the edge of the white counterpane on the little bed. It was ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... a little over four and a half, one evening, as I came home from school, you ran to me, and asked, "Father, is not 4 and 4 and 4 and 4, 16?" "Yes, how did you find it out?" You showed me the counterpane which was napped. The spot of four rows each way was the one you had counted up. After this, for a week or two, you spent a considerable number of hours every day, making calculations in addition and multiplication. The ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... there was a deep bed with its counterpane, pillows, and sheets heavily edged with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the humblest of these strange people lavish upon this single item of their household. I stepped beside it and saw George lying, as I had seen him one before, peacefully at ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... better. I shall never be any better in this world. There is a weakness all over me this morning, and I cannot lift my hand to touch you—see?" and he tried to raise the thin, wasted hand lying so helplessly upon the counterpane. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... and lips had festered and broke out, as we say in Scotland; my head was bound round with a napkin—none of the cleanest, you may swear; my dress was a pair of dirty duck trowsers, and my shirt, with the boat—cloak that had been my only counterpane on board of the little vessel, hanging ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... stood a second inside the door. Then he went to the side of the bed, and knelt, his lips to the cold, white hand on the counterpane. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the blue silk eider-down counterpane was adjusted to our satisfaction, and one or two little ornaments added to the bureau and chimney-piece—"Cupid" in the Naples Gallery, and my dear Lela's portrait, both framed in blue velvet, and a beautiful ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they were tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind had made ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. An effusion of coppery light on the summit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a bed there, in which the Regent slept when in Ireland, and a room which was tenanted by Lord Normanby, when Lord Lieutenant. There is, moreover, a satin counterpane, which was made by the lord's aunt, and a snuff-box which was given to the lord's grandfather by Frederick the Great. These are the lions of the place, and the gratification experienced by those who see them is, no doubt, great; but ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... various devices wrought into fantastic images of flowers, angels, and seraphim. A large, fresh-gathered posy in the bosom of the deceased had a most striking effect, when contrasted 30with the pallidness of death; over the lower parts of the corpse was spread a counterpane, covered with roses, marigolds, and sweet-smelling flowers; whilst on his breast reposed the cross, emblematical of the dead man's faith; and on a table opposite, at the extreme end, stood an image ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the next morning upon a distinctly pleasing sight. At the foot of her bed was an enormous basket of pink carnations. On the counterpane by her side lay a smaller cluster of twelve very beautiful dark red Gloire de Dijon roses. Attached to these ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in soft garments rolled, In hollow trees they lie, And sing, when nestled from the cold, To while the season by. There, while they sleep in pleasant trance, 'Neath mossy counterpane, In dreams they weave some fairy dance, Till ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... was standing by the bedside, and on the counterpane lay the 'Requiem,' concerning which Mozart was still speaking and giving directions. As he looked over its pages for the last time, he said, with tears in his eyes, 'Did I not tell you that I was writing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... to. She looked so real to him, so natural, so tangibly alive! When she put her face down by his he trembled, and burst out crying like a child. He was afraid she would go away. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands about one of his. The other hand lay bandaged on the counterpane. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... corresponding. He is lying upon a catre, or camp bedstead, rendered soft by a mattress of bearskins, while a serape of bright-coloured pattern is spread over him, serving both for blanket and counterpane. In the apartment is a table of the rudest construction, with two or three chairs, evidently from the hand of the same unskilful workman, their seats being simply hides with the hair on. On the table is a cup with a spoon in it, and two or three small bottles, that ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... heart-shattered body: "There, you see, whenever you break the law people will hurt you like this. So take notice." She moved about the room, leaving it as it should be left for the night, opening the windows and folding up the counterpane, while he lay face downwards on his pillow. Just as she was closing the door ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... were they that it seemed as if the smoke must have already stifled them, and left them in these startling attitudes. One—a very old lady—was kneeling by the bedside, her head bent forward in despair, her hands flung out over the counterpane. The other—a tall, heavy-looking woman—was standing bolt upright by the window. Neither spoke nor stirred, and the kneeling woman did not even raise her head at the noise of his entrance; the other, with eyes utterly expressionless and awful, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the bedroom of his ranch house, in the white-painted iron bedstead with its blue-grey army blankets and red counterpane, Annixter was still asleep, his face red, his mouth open, his stiff yellow hair in wild disorder. On the wooden chair at the bed-head, stood the kerosene lamp, by the light of which he had been reading the previous evening. Beside it was a paper bag ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. In the center of it, just visible under the silken counterpane,—quite straight and still,—with its head on the lace pillow, lay a small figure, something like wax-work, fast asleep—very fast asleep! There was a number of sparkling rings on the tiny yellow hands, that were curled a little, helplessly, like a baby's, outside ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... he might get into trouble by being there, never came to him. Use was not theft! The room and its contents were to him as the water and the fire which even pagans counted every man bound to hand to his neighbour. There was the bed! Through all the cold time it had been waiting for them! The counterpane was very dusty; and oh, such moth-eaten blankets! But there were sheets under them, and they were quite clean, though dingy with age! The moths—that is, their legs and wings and dried-up bodies—flew ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... was ringing for evening service when he landed in a market town which reversed the natural order by dozing all summer and waking up for the hunting season. And now the famous grass country was lying in its beauty-sleep, under a gay counterpane of buttercups and daisies, and leafy coverts, with but one blot in the sky-line, in the shape of a permanent plume of sluggish smoke. But the works lay hidden, and the hall came first; and Thrush, having ascertained that this was it, abandoned the decrepit vessel he had boarded at the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... curtains along the iron rod, and threw them in thick folds behind the head of the bed. She gazed upon the comte's pallid face; remarked his right hand enveloped in linen whose dazzling whiteness was emphasized by the counterpane patterned with dark leaves thrown across the couch. She shuddered as she saw a stain of blood growing larger and larger upon the bandages. The young man's breast was uncovered, as though for the cool night air to assist his respiration. ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... largely mountains and hills. Level land for rice paddies can be economically obtained in many parts of such a country by working it in small patches only. There is no minimum size for a Japanese paddy. I have seen paddies of the area of a counterpane and even of the size of a couple of ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... used to beg, whose name was Tryballot, but to whom was given the nickname of Le Vieux par-Chemins, or the Old Man of the Roads; not because he was yellow and dry as vellum, but because he was always in the high-ways and by-ways—up hill and down dale—slept with the sky for his counterpane, and went about in rags and tatters. Notwithstanding this, he was very popular in the duchy, where everyone had grown used to him, so much so that if the month went by without anyone seeing his cup held towards them, people would say, "Where is the old man?" and ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... asleep. But when she awoke again in broad daylight, what a sight met her eyes! She was lying in a splendid room furnished with royal splendour; the walls were covered with golden flowers on a green ground; the bed was of ivory and the counterpane of velvet, and on a stool near by lay a pair of slippers studded with pearls. The maiden thought she must be dreaming, but in came three servants richly dressed, who asked what were her commands. 'Go,' ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Polish princess, and there my mother married an English gentleman. Well, it was always the Court, in France and in England. Always the Court—do you know what that means? It's a place where women are pretty pink and white candies that men are always picking over. It's a great bed with a rose silk counterpane and closed draperies. Champagne and music and scent and masques. Little plays with the intrigue in the audience; favours behind green hedges. I was in it when I was fourteen, and I had a lover the first year. He showed me how to make pleasure. Don't think ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very quiet, or ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... weight, so as not to be too easily displaced, either by the person fidgeting in his sleep or by the blowing of the wind. In dry weather there is nothing like furs; but in a rainy country I prefer a thick blanket bag (see "Sleeping Bags"), a large spare blanket, and a macintosh sheet and counterpane. It may be objected that the bag and macintosh would be close and stuffy, but be assured that the difficulty when sleeping on mother earth, on a bitter night, is to keep the fresh air out, not to let it in. On fine nights I should ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... polished once a year on Election Friday, by "rug-riding." This is accomplished by rolling a fellow up in a counterpane, here properly called a rug. To either end of him is attached a rope, to which five or six boys are harnessed. The floor is now well smeared with tallow-grease, over which the warm mummy, rendered ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... 474).—The following are different counterpane patterns which should be worked in coarse cotton; our engraving represents a single square, worked in two colours, in raised crochet. By joining a number of such squares together, 4 or 6 colours can be introduced into one covering ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... stepped out for a moment, reappeared, bringing a counterpane and towel, one of which was spread upon the bed, while the other covered the old pine stand, marred and stained with ink and tallow, the result of ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... on to spread the upper sheet over the bed, and the blanket over that, and the counterpane over that, as if she had quite concluded her story. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... you are ill, but your mother says you are getting better. If you like, I shall let you have my book with the poem called "The Land of Counterpane." It is about a sick little boy who is playing with his toy soldiers and people and villages. In the picture they seem to be making ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther |
