"Duenna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the carriage door and bear the bride's train. In one moment's parting of the silken walls the girl saw a sun-flooded cluster of staring faces, thronging for her arrival, and then the damask intervened and through its lane, followed by her duenna and her maids of honor, she entered the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... their weight in gold in Russia, and especially at Nizhni,—together with bottles of champagne, out to the veranda. When we were satisfied, we went to bed, but not to sleep. The peaches kept that party on the veranda and in the rooms below exhilarated until nearly daylight. I suppose the duenna did her duty and sat out the revel in the distant security of the dining-room. Several of her charges added a number of points to our store of information the next day, at the noon breakfast hour, when the duenna was ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... dance, which was generally a long waltz, was over, he seated his partner, and then went to a little counter at the end of the room and bought his dulcinea a plate of the candies and sweetmeats provided. Sometimes she accepted them, but most generally pointed to her duenna or chaperon behind, who held up her apron and caught the refreshments as they were slid into it from the plate. The greatest decorum was maintained at these dances, primitively as they were conducted; and in a region so completely cut off from the world, their influence was undoubtedly ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... before that blue eyes had so much of fire in them. I think, my little saint, 'tis time I sent you back to your old duenna." ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... brought up on a tray by the waiter, and some for Martha also, and the two ate in silence, until Stella suddenly burst into a merry peal of laughter, it was so grotesquely comic! A grown up English girl in these days locked in her room with a dragon duenna gaoler! ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... the Count, "thinking more of propriety than of my enjoyment, had kept a frightful old duenna with her. So that, while you two, between looks and words, got on extremely well together, my lot, in the meanwhile, was far ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it. The stake which Stebbins had hitherto held, was too precious to be parted with on slight conditions. The jealous vigilance with which Lilian had been guarded along the route—amounting, as I had incidentally ascertained, to a positive espionage—her yellow duenna at once acting as spy and protectress—all were significant of the intent already suspected by us, but of which the young girl herself was perhaps happily ignorant. The failure of his design—and now for the second ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... you, child? What a silly idea!" exclaimed Zenobia, laughing. "No, indeed! But, my dear Priscilla, you are getting to be so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna; and, as I am older than you, and have had my own little experience of life, and think myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place of a maiden aunt. Every day, I shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in length, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be to see how she and our little deformed gentleman get along together; for, as I have told you, they sit side by side. The next thing will be to keep an eye on the duenna,—the "Model" and so forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The intention of that estimable lady is, I understand, to launch her and leave her. I suppose there is no help for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how to ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... dans ses meubles by the Duc de Bourbon there began one of the most remarkable turns in her career. In 1811 he took a house for her in Gloucester Street, Queen's Square, with her mother as duenna, and arranged for the completion ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... has ever been seen to stride, ending by throwing herself across an arm-chair as rigid as marble thereby assuring the audience that she is in a "dead faint"—I say, that when we see all this performed by a travelling "star," and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions, even in the slightest degree, forgetting that perhaps the most placid, most commonplace ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... adored the boy, let him escape by the underground passage. He came out in the church. She had gone there to pray, knowing nothing of the underground way—it was kept a profound secret in those days. As the girl knelt, Giovanni appeared suddenly beside the altar. Her duenna thought him an apparition, and the two fled up to the monastery—that one you see ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... act. "If I hold my tongue, I shall look like a fool, or, at any rate, like a very middling sort of Don Juan: if I persist, I shall perhaps cause the poor girl some disagreeable scene. Can she be afraid of the duenna? Hardly. When that amiable old sorceress devoured my comfits, she became in some sort an accomplice. It cannot be she whom my infanta dreads. Is there a father, brother, husband, or jealous lover in the neighbourhood?" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... a guide and cicerone, almost equal to Greatheart in the Pilgrim's Progress, in no less a person than Donald MacLeish, the postilion whom I hired at Stirling, with a pair of able-bodied horses, as steady as Donald himself, to drag my carriage, my duenna, and myself, wheresoever it was ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... the notes which I have taken this morning," said Florine, putting a paper into the duenna's hand. "Happily, I have ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... cold all over with wrath and shame. Were there any more disgraceful scenes in her past that Susan could rake up? As for Ken, he could have howled over Susan's speeches, but he would not so insult the duenna of his lady, so he sat with a preternaturally solemn face which seemed to poor Rilla ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... girl does not need a duenna to watch her; that is what I think. And an American girl, pure and free, would not suffer herself to be watched by any woman, old or young. Her lover comes boldly into her home; she is too proud, to ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... herself a figure out of a picture by Velasquez, had said of her sadly; for she saw in Fleda's rare qualities, in her strange beauty, happenings which had nothing to do with the life she was living. So this duenna of Gabriel Druse's household, this aristocratic, silent woman was ever on the watch for some sudden revelation of a being which had not found itself, and which must find itself through ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hunt for them, that the following pages are to treat. It is a subject more closely connected with the taste for curiosities than with art, strictly so called. We are to be occupied, not so much with literature as with books, not so much with criticism as with bibliography, the quaint duenna of literature, a study apparently dry, but not without its humours. And here an apology must be made for the frequent allusions and anecdotes derived from French writers. These are as unavoidable, almost, as the use of French terms ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... other guests were ladies, and one of them, Miss Blanchard, belonged also to the artistic fraternity. She was an American, she was young, she was pretty, and she had made her way to Rome alone and unaided. She lived alone, or with no other duenna than a bushy-browed old serving-woman, though indeed she had a friendly neighbor in the person of a certain Madame Grandoni, who in various social emergencies lent her a protecting wing, and had come with her to Rowland's dinner. Miss Blanchard had a little money, but she was not above selling her ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered Centinel,[96] Duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts,[df] Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen, (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,) With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... you to butt in on this little argument?" There was an ominous note in her slow drawl. "No one asked you to sit in, Senor Duenna, I'm playing my own hand. You durn fool, don't you see I had the coyote covered ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... His retirement from the mastership of Harrow Drury, Mark Drury Lane Theatre 'ADDRESS, spoken at the opening of' Dryden, his praise of Oxford, at the expense of Cambridge Eulogy of his 'Fables' by Lord Byron 'Duenna,' Lord Byron's partiality for the songs in Duff, Colonel (Lord Byron's god-father) ——, Miss Mary (afterwards Mrs. Robert Cockburn), Lord Byron's boyish attachment for Dulwich, Lord Byron at school there Dumont, M Duncan, Mr., Lord Byron's writing-master at ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... stepmother of the traditional type, and had never known a happy home life. She was of a loving and trusting and at the same time a coquettish nature, and she attracted young Walton's eye while out for a walk with a "Miss Brown" order of duenna. The duenna saw the little embryo flirtation, and became very much horrified, and preached the girl a long sermon, and set a ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he replied to her, "it is almost a pity Fabio is dead! While he lived he played an excellent part as a screen—he was an unconscious, but veritable duenna of propriety for both of us, as no one ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... 'the services of Senorita Anabela's duenna, whose name is Francesca. You have a reputation in this country, Judson,' says Fergus, 'of being a great ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... will make me the duenna of my maid of honor," said Amelia, laughing. "I shall be the chaperon of my good Marwitz, and shield her from the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... one day, unseen by the duenna, he obtained a distinct view of Virginia, watering her roses and tending her bees. Struck with her uncommon beauty, he approached carefully to the thicket in which the cottage was enclosed, and found a lair, where ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... conscious that she was being looked at, but not apparently disturbed by it, was talking to another lady, the only person with her, a tall, gaunt woman, also dressed in black and gifted abundantly with the forbidding aspect which beauty requires in its duenna. ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... barbarous natives. The servants, armed to the teeth, are my guards. The commissary is my purveyor, and," she added, glancing at his rotund figure, "I have no fear of starving in his company. Mrs. Shortridge, though she does not look sour enough for the office, is my duenna, punctilious and watchful—" Here she suddenly broke off her discourse, and fixed her eyes on old Moodie, who now entered the court, leading in a powerful horse of her father's, with a pair of huge holsters at the saddle-bow. Being a small and an old ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... I said to her, 'Be easy, Caroline! Do not worry yourself about the perfidious element. We will cross Russia, Turkestan, and China, without leaving terra firma!' And that pleased her, the little darling, so brave and so devoted, so—I am at a loss for a word—well, a lady who will play the duenna in case of need, rather than leave the manager in a mess! An ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... school-days endure through life. This association of the sexes operates as a restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old, wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she witnesses in wedded life, and which is ever present all around her. Her warnings are in violation of nature. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... other places go to the parks and matinees nowadays, for it seems to have been a notorious fact that had even spread to other countries, that the girls of Nahor came down to the well in the blushing sunset, and that too, without chaperon or duenna. And I suppose the young men went down too, to flirt with the charming damsels, from the fact that the servant of ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... romance of human existence, I greatly doubt; the lanky girl teacher at the Vermont academy had enough to do to push herself forward without entangling girl friendships or confidences, and so became a prematurely hard duenna, paid to look out for, restrain, and report, if necessary, any vagrant flirtation or small intrigue of her companions. A pronounced "old maid" at fifteen, she had nothing to forget or forgive in others, and still less to learn ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... brilliancy to the court, either in her person or in her retinue, which was then composed of the Countess de Panetra, who came over with her in quality of lady of the bedchamber; six frights, who called themselves maids of honour, and a duenna, another monster, who took the title of governess to ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... this slave hoodwinketh me, the better to please thee; but I will send and see which of them be dead." And he answered, saying, "Send one who shall see which of them is dead." So the Lady Zubaydah cried out to an old duenna, and said to her, "Hie thee to the house of Nuzhat al-Fuad in haste and see who is dead and loiter not." And she used hard words to her."[FN73] So the old woman went out running, whilst the Prince of True Believers and Masrur laughed, and she ceased ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... on the ground. Then the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten, giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely, "Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had half a mind to turn and run out ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... striking. "You must ACT, my dear; in your situation the great thing is to act," said Mrs. Penniman, who found her niece altogether beneath her opportunities. Mrs. Penniman's real hope was that the girl would make a secret marriage, at which she should officiate as brideswoman or duenna. She had a vision of this ceremony being performed in some subterranean chapel— subterranean chapels in New York were not frequent, but Mrs. Penniman's imagination was not chilled by trifles—and of the guilty couple—she liked to think of poor ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... maids now!) house-warming together. If Florry could by this time do without a chaperon—she had two latchkeys and went alone on the top of omnibuses, and her name was in the Red Book—she was enough of a duenna for another girl. Biddy referred with sweet cynical eyes to the fine happy stride she had thus taken in the direction of enlightened spinsterhood; and Nick hung his head, immensely abashed and humiliated, for, modern as he had fatuously supposed himself, there were ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... to her to see all her girl friends married before her," replied the mother, with a duenna's air. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... "She is only their duenna," Matteo said carelessly. "She has been with them since they were children, and their father places great confidence in her. And he had need to, for Maria will ere long be receiving bouquets and perfumed notes ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... post, and, snatching the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we discussed traveling third class and continued to travel first. Get into that clean, hard-seated, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... so arch. The old lady was not even a faithless duenna. It was an invitation to an assembly, or something of the kind, at a place, somewhere, as Theodore Hook or Mr. Croker would say, 'between ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... seems I must look elsewhere for the brains of this party, and to find a solution of this young man's mystery; and, if I judge correctly, it is with this beautiful young agitator of revolutions and her oratorical duenna I must deal." ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... such delinquency was made a matter of jest, the following story is related. At the time of the French invasion, during the early days of Alexander's pontificate, Giulia and Girolama Farnese, two members of what we perhaps may call the pope's domestic circle, were captured, together with their duenna, Adriana di Mila, by a certain Monseigneur d'Allegre, who was in the suite of the French king. He came upon them near Capodimonte and carried them off to Montefiascone, where they were placed in confinement; while Alexander was notified ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... the chaperone in America is peculiarly perplexing. The consternation of the hen whose brood of ducklings took to the water is a fit symbol of the horrified amazement with which an old-world "duenna" would be filled if she attempted to "look after" a bevy of typical American girls, with their independent—yet confused—ideas of social requirements ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... mere "Children of Time," can abide by Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, "how in her soft, fervid bosom the Lovely found determination, even on hest of Necessity, to cut asunder these so blissful bonds." He even appears surprised at the "Duenna Cousin," whoever she may have been, "in whose meagre hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts was, from the first, faintly approved of." We, even at such distance, can explain it without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer this one question: What ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... would make an admirable Eden. Besides, there is something in the story of what happened in the Garden that rings true; not that all women would adopt Eve's bold method, but much may be forgiven a woman who had no mother or maiden aunt to play duenna, and who lived before either was fashionable, or, according to ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... wildness or eccentricity. Melodrama, etc., may be very successful at a trans-pontine theatre, but it is unpardonably out of place in our salons. The Tresilyan understood the duties of her social, if not of her moral position (so long as the first was not forfeited) as well as the strictest duenna alive. Though she might choose to defy the world's censure, she never dreamed of giving an opening to its ridicule; she was less capable of gaucherie than of a crime. In her bearing toward others she was just the same as ever; if any thing, rather ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... When this duenna had made all preliminary arrangements, she took from the well-filled pouch of my conductor, which he had hung up by the door, one or two salmon, or GRILSES, as the smaller sort are termed, and selecting that which seemed best and in highest season, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... daughters especially, took a great interest in the young man, for to get a girl married to the "Young Savage of Champdoce" would be a feat to be proud of; but unluckily his father watched him with all the vigilance of a Spanish duenna. But there was a young girl who had long since secretly formed a design of her own, and this bold-hearted beauty was Diana de Laurebourg. It was with perfect justice that she had received the name of the "Belle of Poitiers." She was tall and very ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... he with a wry grin, "but I'm hanged if I ought to be expected to remember all of my accomplishments." They were sitting in her room, attended by the faithful duenna, Constance. "First, the eyeglass; then the English language, with which I find I'm most unfamiliar; then a deafness in one of my ears—I can't remember which until it's too late; and now I'm to be ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... well-known to the family as quite to be trusted, and only to such parties as are presided over by responsible patronesses. This should be exceptional for any but the young woman who has been left without immediate family and who has been already in society more than one season. The duenna who acts as her natural guardian and ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... deeply hurt and scandalized, but my offence was nothing to the shock he received when young Lowell ran to the carriage and caught up my hand. He looked at me with a smile that would have softened a Spanish duenna. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... maid-of-honor; she is a highborn lady, not without royal blood indeed, but with rather a bend sinister; not precisely beautiful, but very fastidious; encased over her whole person with a gelatinous covering, literally a starched duenna. Sometimes she is suspected of conspiring to drive her mistress from the throne; for we have observed certain slow watercourses where the leaves of the water-lily have been almost wholly replaced by the similar, but smaller, leaves of the water-shield. More rarely seen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... lighted at intervals by oil lamps hung from the vault by small chains; they cast a broad black shadow beneath them, and shed a feeble light above. Several times persons passed them, and Dolores' heart beat furiously. A court lady, followed by a duenna and a serving-woman, stopped with a winning smile, and dropped a low courtesy to Don John, who lifted his cap, bowed, and went on. They did not look at Dolores. A man in a green cloth apron and loose slippers, carrying five lighted lamps in a greasy ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... stirrup, she reined in and faced him, after a hurried glance that told her her duenna had failed her. The ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... they pass? But this is not all. The sultan, in his kiosk, sits at one end of the drive, inspecting the whole panorama. Still, it is not yet complete; at the lower end of the colonnade there is a woman-market, where each slave, attended by a duenna, passes and parades, casting her languishing eyes through the files of lounging officers and merchants, who crowd this part of the promenade. All this is essentially Turkish, and probably without any thing like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... a Squire of Dames was occasionally a service of some danger. The long hair-pins which the ladies wore in their capillary towers were, as it appears from the following story, "as sharp as any swords." "Pardon me, good signor Don Quixote," says the duenna Donna Rodriguez to that unrivalled knight, "but as often as I call to mind my unhappy spouse, my eyes are brim-full. With what stateliness did he use to carry my lady behind him on a puissant mule, for in those days coaches and side-saddles were ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... cavalcade rode old Martiarena himself, and behind him came a peon or two, then Manuela, the aged housekeeper and—after a fashion—duenna. Then at her side, on a saddle of red leather with silver bosses, which was cinched about the body of a very ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... Duenna we find this thought differently illustrated; by no means imitative, though the satire is congenial. Don Jerome alluding to the serenaders says, "These amorous orgies that steal the senses in the hearing; as they say Egyptian embalmers serve mummies, extracting the brain ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... turned on her elbow. "Colonel Boyce—Mrs. Weston, Alison's companion. Faith, duenna, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... most efficient attendant in the old gray-haired man, whose primitive appearance and manner seemed to indicate that he was a country servant. The stranger was scarcely placed in the boat when, somewhat to his surprise and pleasure, he saw this old man carefully depositing the duenna of his young friend in a seat near him; and in another moment there was a light footfall on the ladder, a waving of white garments, and she was herself placed beside him, whilst the sailors, pushing off from the side ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... rather imposing, though, despite precautions, for first came Larry with Madame, then Dorette with Joyce, and lastly Camille leading Dodo, with Ellen stalking at their side, the very picture of a duenna. Somewhat in the rear Gilbert and two other maids, Kate and Thyrza—this latter from the Bonnivel house—followed with dubious looks, feeling probably that they were neither "fish flesh, nor good red herring," in this motley assemblage, which offered no such companionship ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you need a duenna to ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... Jane, our serious housekeeper, And sage Duenna to the maids and scullions, We must have leave to laugh; our brains are younger, And undisturb'd with care of keys and pantries. We are ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... aside and commenting on the main action is a familiar situation and often productive of good fun. An excellent example is Most. 166 ff., where Philematium is performing her conventionally out-door toilet with the aid of her duenna Scapha. Philolaches stands on the other side of ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... invasion of 1494 brings the domestic circumstances of a Pope of the Renaissance vividly before us. Monseigneur d'Allegre caught the ladies Giulia and Girolama Farnese, together with the lady Adriana de Mila, who was employed as their duenna, near Capodimonte, on November 29, and carried them to Montefiascone. The sum fixed for their ransom was 3,000 ducats. This the Pope paid, and on December 1 they were released. Alexander met them outside Rome, attired like a layman ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... disposed to take the office, he thought it was rather his duty and privilege,—especially, he added, with a slight smile, as he was quite sure that it was not very disagreeable to us. As for the gossips, he didn't think they would make much out of it, with such an excellent duenna as Cousin Mary,—and, indeed, he heard the other day that he was paying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... her; and the chief of them came forward and asked, "What aileth thee, O my lady?" Answered the Princess, "O wretched old woman, where is my beloved, the handsome youth who lay last night in my bosom? Tell me whither he is gone." Now when the duenna heard this, the light starkened in her sight and she feared from her mischief with sore affright, and said to her, "O my Lady Budur, what unseemly words are these?" Cried the Princess, "Woe to thee pestilent crone that thou art! I ask thee again where is my beloved, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... into the ears of the victim of a modern disease the fact that he ought at that moment to be waiting for Dolores on her pious way to Mission Los Angeles. He pictured her with some ancient missal in her slender hands, and flanked on one side by her sympathetic duenna of a mother. The certainty that her American father would be safe at home did not detract from the charm ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... ready as were her brilliant quips and sallies, there was no levity in her demeanour, and she kept Mistress Margery Wimpole in discreet attendance upon her, as if she had been the daughter of a Spanish Hidalgo, never to be approached except in the presence of her duenna. Poor Mistress Margery, finding her old fears removed, was overpowered with new ones. She had no lawlessness or hoyden manners to contend with, but instead a haughtiness so high and demands so great that her powers could scarcely ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... And this is the way the ladies at present dress their heads in a morning. [Takes the head.] A lady in this dress seems hooded like a hawk, with a blister on each cheek for the tooth-ach. One would imagine this fashion had been invented by some surly duenna, or ill-natured guardian, on purpose to prevent ladies turning to one side or the other; and that may be the reason why now every young lady chooses to look forward. As the world is round, every thing turns round along with it; no wonder there should be such revolutions in ladies' head-dresses. ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... respective lovers, the Viceroy's two nephews, Don Cinthio and Don Charmante, as being men of men of mere terrestial mould. The girls are, however, secretly assisted in their amours by Scaramouch, the doctor's man, who is himself a rival of Harlequin, Cinthio's valet, for the hand of Mopsophil, duenna to the young ladies. Harlequin, hoping to find his way to his mistress, gets to Bellemante's chamber but when she appears conceals himself. The doctor, however, who has been hastily summoned to the bedside of his brother, reported dying, returns a moment after ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... a shrouded Moorish maid Showed melting eyes, as limpid as a lake; A brow untouched by care; a band of jetty hair, And nothing more. The all-concealing haik Fell to her high arched instep. At her side An old duenna walked; her withered face Half covered only, since no lingering grace Bespoke the beauty once ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... gave me little news of Paragot. It was hardly to be expected that she should write romantically, like a young girl foolishly in love, gushing to a bosom friend. Paragot himself, who disliked pen, ink, and paper, merely sent me the casual messages of affection through Joanna. He took the view of the Duenna in "Ruy Blas" as to the adequacy of the King's epistle to the Queen: "Madame. It is very windy and I have killed six wolves. Carlos." What more was necessary? asked ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... royal personages included. Two of our company, Mr. Craven and Mr. St. Aubin, were really good actors; the rest were of a tolerably decent inoffensiveness. Mrs. Bradshaw, the charming Maria Tree of earlier days, accepted the few lines that had to be spoken by Donna Sol's duenna, and delivered the epilogue, which, besides being very graceful and playful, contains some lines for which I felt grateful to Lord Ellesmere's kindness, though he had certainly taken a poet's full license of embellishing his subject in his laudatory ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the dramatist. In the following year, in conjunction with his father-in-law, he purchased from Garrick the Drury Lane Theatre. They brought out several operas together; Linley's music in "The Duenna" and "The Beggar's Opera," being especially fine. Hazlitt speaks of the songs in them as having a joyous spirit of intoxication, and strains of the ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... now pretty well modernized into the Scottish language, is originally, and in the early editions, a bungling low imitation of the Scottish manner, by that genius Tom D'Urfey, so has no pretensions to be a Scottish production. There is a pretty English song by Sheridan, in the "Duenna," to this air, which is out of sight ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... "You look at me with that warm light in your eyes, because you think I am not human. I am a mere duenna, a ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... rival has not been a dangerous one, but Mrs Lupin here has played duenna for some weeks; not so much to watch your love as to watch her lover. For that Ghoul'—his fertility in finding names for Mr Pecksniff was astonishing—'would have crawled into her daily walks otherwise, and polluted the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... nothing of its fierce impatience when she came a little later to address me. All my ideas of Fanchette were upset by the appearance of this woman, who, rustic in her speech and ways, seemed more like a duenna, than the waiting-maid of a court beauty, and better fitted to guard a wayward damsel than to aid her in such an escapade as we had ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... send her up," said he; no doubt this was some trembling debutante, accompanied by an ancient duenna and a roll of music. And then he went to the window, to try to get ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... was patent that Dorothea had been too much her own mistress. Without admitting that he had been wrong in his methods hitherto, he confessed that the time had come when the duenna system must be introduced, as a matter not only of propriety, but of prudence. He assured himself of his regret that no American lady who could take the position chanced to be on the spot, but allayed his sorrow on the ground that any fairly well-mannered, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... that we find in this extract, word for word, the same extravagant comparison of the effects of music to the process of Egyptian embalmment—"extracting the brain through the ears"—which was afterwards transplanted into the dialogue of the Duenna: "Mortuum quondam ante aegypti medici quam pollincirent cerebella de auribus unco quodam hamo solebant extrahere; sic de meis auribus non cerebrum, sed cor ipsum exhausit lusciniola, &c., &c." He mentions, as the rivals most dreaded by her admirers, Norris, the singer, whose musical ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no guardians or aunts were haled forth o' nights to [v]duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it was not ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... that on the evening of Mr. Sheridan's grand display in the House of Commons, The School for Scandal and the Duenna were acted at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and thus three great audiences were at the same moment amused, agitated, and, as it were, wielded by the intellect of one man. As this triple triumph of talent—this ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Florino literally threw himself at the feet of the fair Donna Paltravi; and she was delighted with him. He was somewhat younger than she was, but that had been the case with her first lover, and she had not objected. The two young people got on famously together, although there was now a duenna as well as a maid on the second floor. Jaqui was greatly comforted. He spent a good deal of his spare time going about Florence looking for a desirable house with two floors. The courtship went on merrily, and there was talk of the wedding; ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... London man about town. 'Well, I will say,' said he, 'you country gentlemen are pretty independent of public opinion. You are not ashamed of your little transactions being known!' 'What do you mean?' I asked. 'Why, I mean your talking to that girl and her duenna on an open platform.' 'Why, that is Miss ——, an intimate of friend of ours.' 'Well, then, I can tell you,' said the Londoner to me coolly, 'her friend is Madam ——, one of the most noted procuresses in ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... teacher; and these she turned into larks when she shared in them. Twice in one winter she had hopped upon a passing street car and rolled away in triumph from her meek and horrified companions and their outraged duenna. She encouraged by means the subtlest, the attentions of a strange young gentleman who followed the school's peregrinations afar off. She carried on a brief correspondence with this cavalier, a fence corner in Pennsylvania ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... He creaked into his great leather-upholstered desk chair, himself. "If you had left without seeing me I'd have excommunicated Casey. Between you and me the man's mad. His job ought to be duenna to a Spanish maiden, not assistant to a priest with ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... playing chess, while an old duenna looks on, was in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte and is said to be now in a private gallery in England. Her religious pictures are rare; a "Marriage of St. Catherine" is in the gallery at ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Maritornes; "and, faith, I relish hearing these things greatly too, for they are very pretty; especially when they describe some lady or another in the arms of her knight under the orange trees, and the duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead with envy and fright; all this I say is ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... know what you mean by duenna, Mr. Brudenell, but I know what is due to your mother," replied the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... sisters are in a convent;—they had neither money nor beauty; so they are dead to me. My brother is a Jesuit, so he is dead to me. My father fell by the hands of Indians in Mexico; my mother, a penniless widow, is companion, duenna—whatsoever they may choose to call it—carrying fans and lapdogs for some princess or other there in Seville, of no better blood than herself; and I—devil! I have lost even my sword—and so fares the house ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... province. Most of our neighbours in Quercy were likewise from home, having gone to Paris to be witnesses on one side or the other of the royal wedding. And consequently we young people, not greatly checked by the presence of good-natured, sleepy Madame Claude, Catherine's duenna, were disposed to make the most of our liberty; and to celebrate the peace in our ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... affections on him. So he waits patiently, and one morning, whilst his brother is reading the "Vie tres-horrifique de Pantagruel," and he himself is taking a guitar lesson from the Signor Uberto Vinibella, a wrinkled duenna brings him a scented note, closed with a gold thread, and a large green seal, bearing a Cupid with finger on lips, and the Spanish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the remonstrances of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador. Somewhat later the Restoration stage borrowed situations from the Spanish love-intrigue comedy, not so much directly as by way of Moliere, Thomas Corneille, and other French playwrights; and the duenna and the gracioso became stock figures in English performances. The direct influence of Calderon and Lope de Vega upon our native theatre was infinitesimal. The Spanish national drama, like the English, was self-developed and unaffected ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... I know so little of myself, when I sent my Duenna to forbid your coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little of you, Diego, as to imagine you would not have staid one day in Valadolid to have given ease to my doubts?—Was I to be abandoned, Diego, because I was deceived? or was it kind to take ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... songs to the accompaniment of the mandolin; or else she would dance like a fairy, her foot scarce seeming to touch the floor as she floated along, to the sound of the tambourine played by her old negro duenna. She was too beautiful for him to restrain, in dancing, riding, or anything. Too beautiful!" he repeated, becoming more and more enthusiastic. "I have seen her often, when summoned to the plantation on professional ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... very suspicious. Was she the duenna, the mother or an old relative? At any rate she was very ugly, not because her head was like a stone mask with spiral eyebrows, and lips slashed like the fossa of a heraldic dolphin, but vulgarity had stamped the mask, making its features common, coarse ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... We hear faint echoes of the last pages of Tristan and Isolde; no sooner do three women begin to sing than is conjured up a vision (aural, of course) of the Rhine maidens. In Feuersnot the legendary tone was unavoidable, yet there is too much of Die Meistersinger in this early work. Does a duenna appear with the heroine, at once you are reminded of Eva and Magdalena; and in the balcony scene, so different in situation from Lohengrin, Elsa nevertheless peers from behind the figure of Diemut. As for the lovers, Kunrad and Diemut, they, taking advantage of the darkness, as Mr. Henderson ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... a woman with eyes so clear, and an expression of such honesty and truth. The original is said to be masterly in its drawing and execution. Sofonisba is represented in a simple black dress, and wears no jewels. She touches the keys of a harpsichord with her beautiful hands; a duenna-like figure of an old woman stands behind the instrument, apparently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... that would have arrested my attention, even had I not been riveted by her countenance. She was on the opposite side of the street to myself, and was attended by an old Moorish woman, who carried an illumined missal. Of these women, several may yet be seen in Malta, looking very Oriental and duenna-like. As I stopped to admire her, she suddenly attempted to cross to the side of the street where I stood. At the same moment, I observed a horse attached to a caleche galloping furiously towards her. It was almost upon her ere Acme saw her danger. The driver, anxious to pass before ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... cried the agitated duenna, and peremptorily summoned one of the tray-bearing stewards. "I ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... day Caroline was in bed with one of her worst headaches. Mary felt that she had been a cruel and prim old duenna, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... symmetry and loveliness, of whom he was mad-jealous, and who contrived successfully to keep him from travel. At last an occasion compelling him to leave her, he went to the bird market and bought him for one hundred gold pieces a she parrot which he set in his house to act as duenna, expecting her to acquaint him on his return with what had passed during the whole time of his absence; for the bird was kenning and cunning and never forgot what she had seen and heard. Now his fair wife had fallen in love with a young Turk, [FN91] who used to visit her, and she feasted him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no guardians nor aunts, were haled forth o' nights to duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do. It ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... glimpse of her face. She played her game with such consummate skill, that Marie was always placed as a barrier between Norbert and herself, as in the farce, when the lover wishes to embrace his mistress, he finds the wrinkled visage of the duenna offered to his lips. Sometimes he grew angry, but Diana always had some excellent reason with which to close his mouth. Sometimes she held up his pretensions to ridicule, and at others assumed a haughty air, which always quelled incipient ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... me. At any rate I have nothing with me but this bandbox with a night-rail and a change of apparel, such as is suitable for posting-inns. You have, I see, plenty of men-folk to escort you, and, as I jalouse, more to follow—but what you need is a well-born gentlewoman of comfortable means for a duenna! Oh, ye will try to come round me with your 'Miss Aline's,' and your coaxing. But as long as ye are under my care, off to bed ye shall march at a reasonable hour. Then I shall lock the door on ye and keep the key under my pillow. I lost ye once out of Ladykirk when ye slippit out at the back ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... always ready, like a candlestick, arranged for her duty like a chest which never moves, and opens to order. Nevertheless, the advocate had placed her under the guardianship and pursuing eye of an old servant, a duenna as ugly as a pot without a handle, who had brought up the Sieur Avenelles, and was very fond of him. His poor wife, for all pleasure in her cold domestic life, used to go to the Church of St. Jehan, on the Place de Greve, where, as everyone knows, the fashionable world ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... more closely than they had ever been before by Madame de Bleury, a decayed gentlewoman and distant relative of Madame de Valricour, who had for some years past lived at the chateau, and discharged the multifarious duties of housekeeper, chaperone, duenna, and private secretary to the baroness as occasion required. More than once during those few days Madame de Valricour went over to Beaujardin, but did not take either of the young ladies with her, a circumstance at which Clotilde chafed ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... quickly as may be. Their two heads are over close together for discretion. I fear I shall have the task and expense of providing a duenna for ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... modesty. So bashfulness, like soft and sloping ground, being unable to repel or avert any attack, lies open to the most shameful acts and passions. It is a bad guardian of youth, as Brutus said he didn't think that person had spent his youth well who had not learnt how to say No. It is a bad duenna of the bridal bed and of women's apartments, as the penitent adultress in Sophocles said ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the whole constellation attracted considerable attention from the men of the various nationalities represented on board. Soon a few couples circling the decks together came into notice. Amongst them were the lanky gentleman and the short, very vulgar lady, who looked like a maid or a duenna. As they passed in front of the other couples, one could sometimes notice slightly ironical glances and meaning smiles. But "our" American had a most self-satisfied, even somewhat victorious look. My companion, well-versed in English soon made a few acquaintances. Most often I saw ...
— The Shield • Various
... summers, who had determined to be carried off after the form of young damsels in the times of chivalry; at another, that she was the parent of some lord, who could only be brought to concede something to the Warden by the force of the impledgment of his mother; and, again, that she was the duenna of an heiress, who could only be got through the confinement of the old hag. Be who she might, however, Christie's Will declared, upon the faith of the long shablas of Johnny Armstrong, that he would carry her off through fire and water, as sure ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... Hermitage Danae there is a replica in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. In yet another version (also a contemporary atelier piece), which is in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, and has for that reason acquired a certain celebrity, the greedy duenna is depicted in full face, and holds ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... odds the most eligible young man in town; good looking in a spare, ruddy, sandy-haired Scottish fashion; important, incorruptible, "rising." But he took good care of his heart. Precisely that; like a sharp-eyed duenna to his own heart. One felt that here was the man, if ever was the man, who held his destiny in his own hand. Failing, of course, some ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... grasping the drift of this epistle, exhibited symptoms of distress. She flung out her arms in a dramatic attitude, and confided to the audience her disinclination to take over the unwelcome task of becoming duenna to her niece. There was no other course open to her, apparently; the idea of sending the girl home by the next train, or of hastily packing her own box and departing somewhere on urgent business did not seem to occur to her. She grumbled, ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... amid the crowd, with a plain cousin at her elbow for foil and duenna, Lady Judith met Mr. Topsparkle walking with no less a person than ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Steen is represented by his favorite subject, a doctor feeling the pulse of a lovesick girl in the presence of her duenna. It is an admirable study of expression, of piquant, roguish smiles. The doctor's face seems to say, "I think I understand;" the invalid's, "Something more than your prescriptions are needed;" the duenna's, "I know what she wants." Other ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... your father must respect himself. Thank you, yes; just a leetle, leetle tiny—thanks, thanks; you spoil me. But, as I was saying, Richard, or was about to say, my daughter has been allowed to rust; her aunt was a mere duenna; hence, in parenthesis, Richard, her distrust of me; my nature and that of the duenna are poles asunder—poles! But, now that I am here, now that I have given up the fight, and live henceforth for one only of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Brown, as his natural prop and supporter in the University, whose one object in life just now would be to take trouble off his hands, and who was of that rare and precocious steadiness of character that he might be as safely trusted as a Spanish duenna. To a very considerable extent the victim fell into the toils. He had many old friends at the colleges, and was very fond of good dinners, and long sittings afterwards. This very evening he was going to dine at St. John's, and had been much ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... saw poor Susan in the hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about her, and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps at her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her voice—for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished aversion of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want to follow it, and testify an impossibility of conviction ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... her indolent walk, the walk of the woman without occupation, but in the movements of which one devines all the pleasure that lies asleep. Well, she turned back again, she saw me, once more she adored me, once more trembled, shivered. It was then I noticed the genuine Spanish duenna who looked after her, a hyena upon whom some jealous man has put a dress, a she-devil well paid, no doubt, to guard this delicious creature.... Ah, then the duenna made me deeper in love. I grew ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... a system, which, if not perfect, has so much in it that is excellent, originates in the most praiseworthy feelings. Call it if you will the prejudice of education, it is still a prejudice honourable in itself, and useful to the public. I only find fault with it, because, like the Friars in the Duenna monopolising the bottle, these English monks will not tolerate in their lay brethren of the north the slightest ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... men talk late. The two young people on the porch have no duenna, for Mrs. Grandon retired early,—indeed, she has left Miss Murray quite to Violet, and she thinks if Eugene lets slip this chance he will be foolish above what is written. He plays at love,—it is no new thing ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... will not reproach you with anything that is past, because I feel that it is really I who am more to blame than anybody else for it. I have never thought it necessary to provide my daughter with any staid female companion—any duenna—to watch and control her actions; she has been allowed to run wild about the place from her infancy, and to have her own way in everything. I ought to have remembered this, and to have provided against all that has happened, before I ventured to introduce two young men beneath my roof. However, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... proceeded in her narrative of the history of her life in the doctor's house. 'We are five in the harem, besides our mistress,' said she: 'there is Shireen, the Georgian slave; then Nur Jehan,[41] the Ethiopian slave girl; Fatmeh, the cook; and old Leilah, the duenna. My situation is that of handmaid to the khanum,[42] so my mistress is called: I attend her pipe, I hand her her coffee, bring in the meals, go with her to the bath, dress and undress her, make her clothes, spread, sift, and pound tobacco, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the living-room of the middle-aged housekeeper until such time as Max and the boys should arrive. Joanna, with her neat black dress and smooth hair, was certainly fitted in appearance for the duties of duenna, and Sally had felt no hesitation whatever in requiring her to assume ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... exquisitely braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among them like a gem, show that earth divides with Heaven the empire of her thoughts. Keep an eye upon her, careful mother, or virgin aunt, or vigilant duenna, whichever you may be, that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... damsels brought meat and drink and they ate and drank and washed their hands, after which they set her a royal chair and she sat down; and all played on instruments of music and with ravishing voices incomparably sang. Presently, out ran an old woman, a duenna, and clapped hands and danced, whilst the girls pulled her about, till the curtain was lifted and forth came Jamilah laughing. Ibrahim gazed at her and saw that she was clad in costly robes and ornaments, and on her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... which there was the following inscription in large gold letters: "The illustrious Don Quixote of La Mancha has, by merely attempting it, finished and concluded the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed Duenna; Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of the duennas are now smooth and clean, and when the squirely flagellation shall have been completed, the white dove shall find herself delivered from the pestiferous ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... extolling the wit of her audacious speeches, and extremely resenting all poor Honora's attempts to counteract this terrible spoiling, or to put a check upon undesirable diversions and absolute pertness. Every conscientious interference on her part was regarded as duenna-like harshness, and her restrictions as a grievous yoke, and Lucilla made no secret that it was so, treating her to almost unvaried ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... many posts and fortresses the French had captured in Spain, and to keep open the various lines of communication. It was agreed upon by the British and Spanish commanders to march themselves against the French under Marshal Victor, while at the same time Vinegas advanced against Fuente Duenna on the Upper Tagus, in order to draw Sebastiani thither, that he might not aid Victor; or if that general refused to move, Vineeas was to march on Madrid from the south-east, while Sir Robert Wilson menaced it from the opposite quarter. The combined armies of Sir Arthur ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... having nearly passed round them, came to the portal denoted by Xarisa. He paused and looked around to see that he was not observed, and then knocked three times with the butt of his lance. In a little while the portal was timidly unclosed by the duenna of Xarisa. "Alas! senor," said she, "what has detained you thus long? Every night have I watched for you; and my lady is sick at heart ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... is exquisitely beautiful, and demands are eagerly made as to who she may be. No one can answer—and no clue is given by her companion, for the elderly dame by whom she is attended, and who resembles a duenna, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... chanced on a day of festival In the capital of Valladolid That their eyes met at a crossing And their two souls rushed together. By the greed of a bought duenna And the interchange of love-notes And the help of a hempen ladder They ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... painter Antonio Pereda married Dona Maria de Bustamente, a woman of some rank, and greater pretension, who would associate only with people of high fashion, and insisted on having a duenna in constant waiting in her antechamber, like a lady of quality. Pereda was not rich enough to maintain such an attendant; he therefore compromised matters by painting on a screen an old lady sitting ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... of right to the edifice, and stretched itself out grandly, with two pretentious wings, which certainly gave it a just claim to be called a mansion. It required a great many servants to keep it in order, and the numerous servants required an experienced duenna, almost as grand in appearance as Lady Aylmer herself, to keep them in order. There was an open carriage and a closed carriage, and a butler, and two footmen, and three gamekeepers, and four gardeners, and there was a coachman, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... uneasy pleasure I experienced in gazing on her was disturbed by the arrival of a duenna, a certain Mademoiselle Leblanc, who performed the duties of lady's maid in Edmee's private apartments, and filled the post of companion in the drawing-room. Perhaps she had received orders from her mistress ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... their destination long before her husband, and without waiting for him, but constantly in the society of her old duenna, she gave herself up with the freedom and eagerness of her fresh youth to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking at a bare gravelled court, with an enormous "pas de geant" in the middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a boys' school-house round. Not only then, but many a time after, especially ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... 1816, entitled, The Mother's Girl Plucking a Crow, or German Flesh and English Spirit. The Princess Charlotte, as we have seen, had an undoubted will of her own, and could, as we have also seen, assert it when occasion demanded. Here she is presented to us at the moment when a hideous German duenna, catching her in the act of writing to her mother abroad, orders her at once to desist. The princess, however, in plain terms, enforced with a clenched fist, gives her clearly to understand that she fully intends to have her own way. Another ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Montreal. He flushed with the recollection of the historian's phrase; but in that moment there came forth from the cabin a pretty young person who gave every token of being a pretty young actress, even to the duenna-like, elderly female companion, to be detected in the remote background of every young actress. She had flirted audaciously during the day with some young Englishmen and Canadians of her acquaintance, and after ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... of her mistress, the duenna gave the order and the carriage turned back. There stood the old man as before, but this time he did not ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... supposed wealth of the bridegroom, Then none of us saw Luisa for a week at the bathing-place, and her non-appearance was discussed with interest at the nightly kava-drinking at half-caste Johnny Hall's public-house. Old Toi'foi, duenna of the kava-chewing girls, used to say solemnly that the old man had Luisa locked up in her room as she was vale (obstinate), and sat on a chair outside and looked at her through a hole ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... by her Swiss duenna, penetrated almost furtively into Marien's studio, her heart beat as if she had a consciousness of doing something very wrong. In truth, she had pictured to herself so many impossible scenes beforehand, had rehearsed the probable questions and answers ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... simple ballad music lasted throughout his life. As a boy at Harrow, he was famous for the vigour with which he sang "This Bottle's the Sun of our Table" at Mother Barnard's. He liked the Welsh air "Mary Anne," sung by Miss Chaworth; the songs in 'The Duenna'; "When Time who steals our Years away," which he sang with Miss Pigot; or "Robin Adair," in which he was accompanied by Miss ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... the subject when Henry Crawford entered the room, fresh from the Parsonage, calling out, "No want of hands in our theatre, Miss Bertram. No want of understrappers: my sister desires her love, and hopes to be admitted into the company, and will be happy to take the part of any old duenna or tame confidante, that you may not like to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... true and faithful servant of the crown, at the tidings of his liege lord's death speedily taken me away, and hidden me in the house of a friend where he bade me remain concealed. Two days afterwards, having fitted out a ship, he embarked me therein with a Kahramanah—an old duenna—and set sail for a country whose King was of my father's friends, to the intent that he might consign me to his charge, and obtain from him the aid of an army wherewith he might avenge himself upon the ungrateful and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... tisane of herbs that was good for fever and had been brewing all night, and she was wonderfully good-humoured at the patient's fretful refusal, though between coaxing and authority 'Leddy Lindsay' managed to get it taken at last. After Margaret's experience of her as a stern duenna, her tenderness in illness and trouble ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the burden of approaching catastrophe at the hands of the Khania Atene. She had made no love to Leo since that night in the Gateway, and, indeed, even if she had wished to, this would have been difficult, since I took care that he was never left for one hour alone. No duenna could have clung to a Spanish princess more closely than I did to Leo. Yet I could see well that her passion was no whit abated; that it grew day by day, indeed, as the fire swells in the heart of a volcano, and that soon it must break loose and spread its ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard |
