"Mother-in-law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'The prince shall hae his ain again, his ain again!' That's a curious old Scotch song; it's always running in my head. 'The prince shall hae his ain again!' Well, but, you know, Morton, he didn't get his ain again; so I've heard nurse Bertha say. She's a wise woman, your mother-in-law, and my good cousin, too. Well, well; there are ups and downs in this life. All don't get their ain, that's poz; if they did, another'd be sitting on George's throne; but that's treason, ye ken; and another'd be ruling in Wardhill's ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... discarded as good for nothing, and over which the rats had long held their nightly revels, was brought to light, shaken, mended, and nailed down—then came a bedstead, which Mrs. Livingstone had designed as a Christmas gift to one of the negroes, but which of course would do well enough for her mother-in-law. Next followed an old wooden rocking-chair, whose ancestry Anna had tried in vain to trace, and which Carrie had often proposed burning. This, with two or three more chairs of a later date, a small wardrobe, and a square table, completed the furniture of the room, if ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... circumstances, the famine being now over in Judah, Naomi determined to return thither, and advised her daughters-in-law to return each to the house of her father. After some persuasion, the widow of Chilion did so; but Ruth, Mahlon's widow, expressed her determination to cling to the fortunes of her mother-in-law ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... side by side with the head of her doll, they would have encountered an elderly lady of considerable size, fast asleep and snoring in a vast armchair, with a book on her lap. The married men among the tourists would have recognized a mother-in-law, and would have set an excellent example to the rest; that is to say, the example of leaving ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us be ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... and her son-in-law, Dave Wolfe, were at the head of a great counterfeiting gang, and that they had been working up there in security for years, turning out spurious coins by the hundred. One night Dave up and killed his mother-in-law, and was hanged for his good deed before he could be punished for his bad ones. For thirty years the weather-beaten, ramshackle old cabin in the swamp had been unoccupied except by birds, lizards, and other denizens ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... society. Her salon was the landing of her flat and her acquaintances were the neighbours who happened to live next door to her. It is easy to imagine what she thought of the aristocrats who visited her mother-in-law. She was amusing when she joked and made parodies on the women she styled "the old Countesses." She had a great deal of natural wit, a liveliness peculiar to the native of the faubourgs, all the impudence of the street arab, and a veritable ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... as a son, my boy, and I think we can be happy in each other. But remember, a mother-in-law is a ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... instance, a young man will not introduce into conversation, a topic which has not already been touched upon by his elders. On the Fiji Islands, a woman does not talk to her mother-in-law, and among the Sioux, a young man does not talk at all unless someone else addresses him. These signs of courtesy in conversation have a certain distinct significance in the countries where ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... was a time when I had to console myself with the reflection that the course of true love never runs smooth. A lady whom in my mind I had selected as a mother-in-law, by no means reciprocated my feelings of respect and goodwill. But the young lady, her daughter, fortunately sided with me, and had, in fact, given her very willing consent to the change in her mother's position which I had suggested. I was naturally anxious to assure ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... spare the pains of a reply, a "Jenny Lind" passed them. Miss Belle recognized the carriage immediately as belonging to an elderly lady who was well known in St. Louis. Every day she drove out, dressed in black bombazine, and heavily veiled. But she was blind. As the mother-in-law of the stalwart Union leader of the city, Miss Belle's comment about her appearance in Camp Jackson was not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a room which was used occasionally as a barn and apple-chamber, into which the fowls sometimes found their way; and, in scratching among the chaff, scattered the dust on the pans of milk below, to the great annoyance of my mother-in-law. In this a favourite cock of hers was the chief transgressor. One day in harvest she went into the dairy, followed by the little dog, and finding dust again on her milk-pans, she exclaimed, 'I wish that cock were ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... her mother-in-law's choice—indeed, the late Mrs. Harrington had done a good deal more in the business than she had any right to, and only Phyllis' own sweetness and common sense and the fact that Allan and Phyllis fell in love after their marriage ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... soon after hinted to her, that though divines watched by the bed of the earl and publicly prayed for him in their pulpits, some of them "with speeches tending to sedition," his life was in no real danger. On this, she refused his sisters, his son, and his mother-in-law permission to visit him, and ceased to make inquiries after his health, which was in no long time restored. A rich new year's gift, which was sent "as it were in a cloud no man knew how," but thought to come from the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... lady countess understands these matters. Her mother-in-law, heaven rest her soul, taught her! Ah! that ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Antony after their first rupture [198], the armies on both sides insisting on a family alliance between them, he married Antony's step-daughter Claudia, the daughter of Fulvia by Publius Claudius, although at that time she was scarcely marriageable; and upon a difference arising with his mother-in-law Fulvia, he divorced her untouched, and a pure virgin. Soon afterwards he took to wife Scribonia, who had before been twice married to men of consular rank [199], and was a mother by one of them. With her likewise he parted [200], being quite tired out, as ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... County, Missouri, and other places, some of whom I had not met for more than twenty years. One of them was a brother whom I first met near Rolla, Mo. Seeing him reminded me of an incident that occurred in connection with his mother-in-law, old Sister Bell, at the time I was holding meetings in that part of the country. She was a large woman. One winter she slipped on the ice and came near breaking her back. The accident occurred in the middle of the week, and until ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... alone after his wife had undertaken to fulfil his abandoned filial duty at her parents' house, he felt a slight twinge of self-reproach. He could not deny that this was not the first time he had evaded the sterile Sabbath evenings at his mother-in-law's, or that even at other times he was not in accord with the cold and colorless sanctity of the family. Yet he remembered that when he picked out from the budding womanhood of North Liberty this pure, scentless blossom, he had endured ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... 26.—A meeting took place this morning at 7.30 to consider where church and school are now to be held. Lavarello first offered for his mother-in-law, Mary Glass, her room for school. Then followed a discussion as to where service should be held. Finally Repetto said they would be willing to give up their house entirely for church and school, they themselves living in the ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... years older than I. He drank some and was a very frail-looking man, but I was very ignorant of the world and did not think of anything but making a home for myself and husband. After eleven months I had a little girl born to me. I did not want more children, but my mother-in-law told me it was a terrible sin to do anything to keep from having children and that the Lord only sent just what I could take care of and if I heard of anything to do I was told it was injurious, ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... told me in private that she was perfectly happy, and I had every reason to believe that she was speaking the truth. She had made a rule to be most precise in fulfilling her wifely duties, and rarely went out unless accompanied by her husband or her mother-in-law. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "I'm his mother-in-law," and the door was slowly opened, but only wide enough to admit Sydney, when it was closed behind him with ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... foot concerning that miserable wretch that leaves his wife and child and mother-in-law ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... took the backbone out of Aunt Maria's funeral, which touched the extreme of modesty: a hearse and a one-horse coach. Mr. Povey was glad, because he happened to be very busy. An hour before his mother-in-law's departure he came into the parlour with the proof of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... The mother-in-law of Kwei-li was an old-time conservative Chinese lady, the woman who cannot adapt herself to the changing conditions, who resents change of methods, new interpretations and fresh expressions of life. ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... misunderstandings and miseries of the world come from that," said Mrs. Clarke, looking at the now buttered toast. "If my mother-in-law and my husband had any psychological faculty they would never have mistaken my unconventionality, which I shall never give up, for common, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... "His blessed mother-in-law, for one. And most of the Ladies Aid is a-follerin' of her example. They air sayin' he's nex' door ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... grandfather made the best barrels in New York, and I'm mother-in-law of a chap whose ancestors for three hundred and fifty years haven't done a stroke of work; but he's the Duke of Blanchmere, and I hope our friends here will come as near gettin' the worth of their money as we did. And if that chap"—she glanced ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Elizabeth Goose who is said to have lived in Boston about two hundred years ago, and who crooned her nonsense jingles to a large and happy family of grandchildren? We are told that their father, Thomas Fleet, who was a printer by trade, thought to turn an honest penny with his mother-in-law's popular verses, so he published them in a small volume under the title of "Songs for the Nursery: or, Mother Goose's Melodies." A goose with a very long neck and a wide-open mouth flew across the title page, at least so the story goes. But we have to ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... Valentine so suddenly to San Francisco, but a letter from his wife—or, rather, from his wife's mother, for Hetty herself never wrote—which had stirred a vague distrust and discomfort in his mind. Mrs. Scott, his mother-in-law, was a worldly, shrewd little person, but good-hearted, and as easily moved or stirred as a child. This was one of her characteristic letters, disconnected, ill-spelled, and scrawled upon scented lavender paper. She wrote that she and Hetty were sick of ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... all the horses that a young man steals or captures in war are brought by him to his sister. He can demand from his sister any object in her possession, even the clothing which she is wearing, and he receives it immediately. The mother-in-law never speaks to her son-in-law, unless on his return from war he bring her the scalp and gun of a slain foe, in which event she is at liberty from that moment to converse with him. This custom is found, says Maximilian, among the Hidatsa, but not among the Crow and Arikara. ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... with the representative of the bridegroom about the price to be paid. Likewise among several African tribes, the same as in the days of Jacob, the custom is that a man who courts a maid, enters in the service of his future mother-in-law. Even with us, marriage by purchase has not died out: it prevails in bourgeois society worse than ever. Marriage for money, almost everywhere customary among the ruling classes, is nothing other than marriage ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... to the house and inquired of her mother-in-law and the other members of the family if they had taken it. "No," they said, "we know nothing ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... tone is pretty short on sweetness and light, and I do not see why Grogan, who looks something like a gorilla's mother-in-law, takes such guff from a beanpole ...
— The Flying Cuspidors • V. R. Francis
... mother-in-law, and consequently a pretty old fowl in ferreting out things of this sort. She determined to discover the why and wherefore of ANN'S departure. If she could confront the Hon. MICHAEL with proofs of ANN'S indiscretion, it would be the loudest kind of ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... letter from a fellow yesterday morning who must be a lunatic, to the effect that he had been reading my essays, thought I was just the man to spend a month with, and was coming down by the five o'clock train, attended by his seven children and his MOTHER-IN-LAW! ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... odd face—not at all human. It reminded Bezdek a little of an immutably sad Bassett Hound he kept in his Hollywood kennel. It made Dorwin think of his mother-in-law. It was not a frightening face and the single eye in the center of the forehead held them with its mournful regard, held them, ...
— Reel Life Films • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... restored to her husband and to her child." He said this walking up and down the room, and waving his hand, as though he were making a speech that was intended to be eloquent,—as though he had conceived that he was to overcome his mother-in-law by the weight of his words and the magnificence of his demeanour. And yet his demeanour was ridiculous, and his words would have had no weight had they not tended to show Lady Rowley how little prospect there was that she should be able to heal this breach. He himself, too, was so altered ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... as I knows on, nor mother neither, nor brother, nor sister, nor aunt, nor wife—not even a mother-in-law. I'm a unit in creation, I is—as I once heerd a school-board buffer say w'en he was luggin' me along to school; but he was too green, that buffer was, for a school-boarder. I gave 'im the slip at the ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... propose to do here?" At the same time he whispered the little wench to call Mr. Lawford, the town-clerk, to come thither as fast as he possibly could. The good-daughter of Peg Thomson started off with an activity worthy of her mother-in-law. ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... within, for Absalom avoided the chill night air, and crouched over the smouldering fire. Peter's wife sedulously held aloof from the ostracized Quimbey woman. But her mother-in-law had fallen into the habit of sitting upon the porch these moonlit nights. The sparse, newly-leafed hop and gourd vines clambering to its roof were all delicately imaged on the floor, and the old woman's clumsy figure, her grotesque sun-bonnet, her awkward arm-chair, ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... me hear it again. It proves the Farnham blood in your veins, always sighing and grovelling after low objects. Go on, sir, I am listening—you intend to make me mother-in-law to a pauper; a miserable thing that I took to keep me company, as I would a poodle-dog, and dressed and petted just in the same way. Marry her! try it, and I'll make a beggar ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... sorely on him, for he loved his children, and hoped much from his boys. He wrote to his father-in-law, James Armour, at Mauchline, that he was dying, his wife nigh her confinement, and begged that his mother-in-law would hasten to them and speak comfort. He wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, saying, "I have written to you so often without receiving any answer that I would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I am. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with an indescribable thrill that I heard him add the details, one by one—the mortgage on his place, now rapidly being paid off, the brother who was a plumber, the mother-in-law who was not a mother-in-law of the comic papers. And finally he showed us the picture of the wife and baby that he had in the cover of his watch; a fat baby with its head ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... of etiquette to be practised after marriage among both the Kowraregas and Gudangs, a man must carefully avoid speaking to or even mentioning the name of his mother-in-law, and his wife acts similarly with regard to her father-in-law. Thus the mother of a person called Nuki—which means water—is obliged to call water by another name; in like manner as the names of the dead ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... and five sisters, and won her triumphantly in spite of the open and contemptuous opposition of one of the five sisters. For John himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever married John must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law's house, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "And nothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonald farm gave beside the McIntosh," the McIntosh sisters said. And, moreover: "The saint did not live that could get ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... May Lyon borrowed an old dress from Blair's mother-in-law, completing the disguise with a thickly veiled sunbonnet, and drove through Camp Jackson. That night he and Blair attended a council of war, at which, overcoming all opposition, answering all objections, and making all arrangements, they laid their plans for the morrow. When Lyon's ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... knew where he was, he had given the betrothal kiss, and one year afterward married the blonde Angelika. If you ever meet an old lady who says smoking is beneficial, you may be sure her name is Frau Baumann, mother-in-law of our theological student.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... (bog God; dat', davat' to give). One of the Russian equivalents for our hideous "father-in-law" is "god-given father" (bogodanny otets), and for "mother-in-law," bogodanny ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... son-in-law and mother-in-law is always a strained one. The wife's mother may live with her under very decided limitations. It is not permitted to her to eat in the presence of her son-in-law, or to enter a room where ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... is a most beautiful thing, and it does not seem to make very much difference who supplies it. Stepmother-love, Lincoln used to say, was the most precious thing that had ever come his way. I know a man who loves his mother-in-law, because she pitied him. Our Oneida friends had "Community Mothers," who took care of everybody's babies, just as if they were their own, and with marked success, for the genus hoodlum never evolved at Oneida. Grandmother-love served ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... place of my marriage, I consider one of the most trying of my life. I was opposed by friends and foes; my mother opposed me because she thought I was too young, and marrying she thought would involve me in trouble and difficulty. My mother-in-law opposed me, because she wanted her daughter to marry a slave who belonged to a very rich man living near by, and who was well known to be the son of his master. She thought no doubt that his master or father might chance to set him free before he died, which would enable him to do a better part ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... not quite sure how many constitute a "drove," and no official to whom I have spoken on this subject has felt himself competent to fix the exact number. I once put it to a German friend who was starting for the theatre with his wife, his mother-in-law, five children of his own, his sister and her fiance, and two nieces, if he did not think he was running a risk under this by-law. He did not take my suggestion as a joke. He cast an ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... left alone and let alone. But fate was not altogether against me. Death did me a friendly service. He called to her last resting-place an ancient dame who had severely played the role of grandmother and mother-in-law in our large establishment—unloved, tyrannical, unregretted. But custom bade us mourn. Then was my opportunity. Our doors were closed, but I was not idle—I studied myself, and, retrospectively, all of my friends. After several months of hard training and much serious ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... over-exerting herself, and must keep quiet,' he said to his mother-in-law when he next saw her at Hillside. 'I tell her that unless she is prudent, and takes things more quietly, she will not be fit for her journey to Scotland—and then all our plans ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the charge of this little flock here, gathered together in Christ's name, did not impede me, my coming should prevent my letter." (5) I say that this was written from Geneva; and yet you will observe that it is no consideration for his wife or mother-in-law, only the charge of his little flock, that keeps him from setting out forthwith for London, to comfort himself with the dear presence of Mrs. Locke. Remember that was a certain plausible enough pretext for Mrs. Locke to come to Geneva - "the most ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answers and finally chose one. "That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me every time I go out on a ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to follow this advice. She did love her daughter, who was her only child. The main interest of her life was centred in her daughter. Her only remaining ambition rested on her daughter's marriage. She had long revelled in the anticipation of being the mother-in-law of the owner of Tretton Park. She had been very ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... things may be abused. A servant maid in Aristaenetus spied her master and mistress through the key-hole [4995]merrily disposed; upon the sight she fell in love with her master. [4996]Antoninus Caracalla observed his mother-in-law with her breasts amorously laid open, he was so much moved, that he said, Ah si liceret, O that I might; which she by chance overhearing, replied as impudently, [4997]Quicquid libet licet, thou mayst do what thou wilt: and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... herself might openly occupy her place. Madame de Gisard had the requisite talent to carry out her plans, and to acquire full control over the otherwise rebellious and proud heart of the young man. She first began to lead him into open rupture with his father and mother-in-law. Through respect for them, the viscount had avoided appearing in public with Madame de Gisard, and betraying the intimacy which existed between them. Madame de Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness and submissive spirit; she considered this servility ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... ambition to see her girl become the Countess Lovel, and no feeling of gratitude should stand in her way. She would rather slay that lowborn artisan with her own hand than know that he had the right to claim her as his mother-in-law. Nevertheless, the slow tears crept down her cheeks as she thought of former days, and of the little parlour behind the tailor's shop at Keswick, in which the two children ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... supper, you shall be my guest, onely I will crave so much favour, as after supper for a pleasant sporte, to make relation what successe you have had in your loves. For that I will not sticke, quoth he, and so he conveyed Lionello to his mother-in-law's house with him, and discovered to his wive's brethren who he was, and how at supper he would disclose the whole matter; For, quoth he, he knowes not that I am Margaret's husband. At this all the brethren bad him welcome, and so did the mother to, and Margaret, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... of answer. But Mme. Chardon had touched the sore spot in a hidden wound which caused the poor lover cruel pangs. The cost of carrying out his ideas had far exceeded his estimates; he could not afford to build above the shed. His mother-in-law must wait awhile for the home he had meant to make for her. There is nothing more keenly painful to a generous nature than a failure to keep such promises as these; it is like mortification to the little vanities of affection, as they may be styled. David ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... suddenly, "I wish you'd come to Seacombe to live. It'd be nice to have you near." His eyes had been constantly wandering to his mother-in-law's face, and always with the same anxious look. The change in her since last he had seen her troubled him greatly. Her round cheeks had fallen in, her old rosiness had given place to a grey pallor. She stooped very much ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... surrounded me; for soon after his departure he begged my father by letter to turn me over to him entirely. My father readily consented, and towards the end of the year 1792 I went to him. He had early lost both wife and child, and only his aged mother-in-law lived in his house with him. In my father's house severity reigned supreme; here, on the contrary, mildness and kindness held sway. There I encountered mistrust; here I was trusted. There I was under restraint; here I had liberty. Hitherto ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... me," she wrote, "I am indebted to you for the rise in life that I have always desired. You may refuse to see me—but you can't prevent my being the mother-in-law ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... and how the coat wrinkled across the back, and how the bourgeois whiskers were indicated. This obscene drawing is matched by many equally odious. Abject domesticity, ignominies of married life, of middle-age, of money-making; the old common jape against the mother-in-law; ill-dressed men with whisky—ill- dressed women with tempers; everything that is underbred and decivilised; abominable weddings: in one drawing a bridegroom with shambling sidelong legs asks his ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... obdurate. And as he ran down the stairs, he heard her laugh in the drawing-room mingled with Harding Watton's. No doubt they were making merry over the "discipline" which Letty found it necessary to apply to her mother-in-law. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "My mother-in-law is away," he answered, "but my wife and I will give you our room to-night, and we will see that you ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... me. I am not to marry her. What she thinks, or why she thinks it, should not be so important. It is Dorothy whom I love, Dorothy who is to be my wife—none but Dorothy. No, I'll end a farce which no longer can defend its own existence. To-morrow I'll seek out my intended mother-in-law, and make her happy in the only way I may. I trust the good news may not kill her!" and Richard put on one ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... with that soft and gentle smile which constituted her principal charm, and as she did not approach sufficiently close, Anne of Austria signed to her to come nearer. Madame then entered the room, and with a perfectly calm air took her seat beside her mother-in-law, and continued the work which Maria Theresa had begun. When La Valliere, instead of the direction which she expected to receive immediately on entering the room, perceived these preparations, she looked with curiosity, if ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... keep quiet. Her blushed, permitted him to sit closer, and then told L. he was the dearest, sweetest, finest, biggest, noblest, bravest lovey in the wide, wide world. Later L. secured an embarrassing interview and visited a jewelry store. Diet: Poor. Ambition: A mother-in-law. Address: Her home. Clubs: None. Epitaph: For Men May ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... her time in the Clos de la Platiere, an ancient and humble country-seat belonging to the Roland family. Here, with her taxing domestic duties, the exactions of her husband, the care of her child Eudora, the tyrannies of her aged mother-in-law, this wonderful woman had little opportunity for the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... desirable family connection for the right man to step into,—a thriving, thrifty mother-in-law, who knew what was good for the sustenance of the body, and had no doubt taught it to her daughter; a medical artist at hand in case the luxuries of the table should happen to disturb the physiological harmonies; and in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... life, a professorship in a German university, seemed now easy of attainment. We should have liked a few more pages describing the joyous life of the young couple in the heyday of their life; we could have wished that he had not declined the wish of his mother-in-law, to have his bust made by Thorwaldsen, at a time when he must have been a model of manly beauty. But if we know less than we could wish of what Bunsen then was in the eyes of the world, we are allowed an insight into that heavenly life ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... home, and the prince had the stepmother brought to him, and said to her: "Mother-in-law, tell me what kind of a present you would like: a horse fed with barley or a knife with a ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... attempt to express zigguratu, a tower, in an ideographic way. A very similar case is where a lady takes a girl to be wife to her son but stipulates that the wife shall treat her as mistress. If she shall say to her mother-in-law, "Thou art not my mistress," she shall be branded and sold. As long as the mother lives, they two together shall support her.(321) One may suspect that such maternal power, as is here shown over the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... off to London. Loewenstein, a young Brussels banker, is to take me over in his racing car, which is a useful institution these days. We take along his mother-in-law, Madame Misonne, and A.B. It means getting up at five to motor to Calais to catch the boat. There the car will be slung aboard, so that we can be whisked up to London without waiting ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... spoke very kindly to Ruth, and told her to stay with his maidens, and freely drink of the water drawn for them, and Ruth bowed before him and asked why he should be so kind to a stranger. He told her that he knew all her kindness to her mother-in-law since the death of her husband, and how she had left her own family and country to come among strangers, and he blessed ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... were, sisters. The same nourishing milk flowed from both their fruitful bosoms. And gleams of light penetrated their mourning: they began to laugh when they saw those little cherubs laugh, and nothing could have been gayer than the sight of that mother-in-law and that daughter-in-law side by side, almost mingling, having but one cradle between them, amid an ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... sat gossiping on the sofa; and Fanny, who in the course of the day had received more than one reproving look from her mother-in-law for flirting with Delphin, was now doing penance with the old ladies, to whom Pastor ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... me by the rede of thy kin, and dower paid I for thee; yea, thirty goodly knights, and seemly maidens, and many men besides; and yet wert thou not content, but if thou should rule over the lands King Budli owned: and thy mother-in-law full ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... delighted," said he to the Queen, "that, as you are to be my mother-in-law, you should see the little house in which your Bellissima will live with me. With these thistles and nettles she can feed a donkey which she can ride whenever she likes; under this humble roof no weather can hurt her; she will drink the water of this brook ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... herself into a room and I would beat against the door, because I was frightened and dreaded the worst. Then there were reconciliations, the consequences of which were only to increase the miserable nervous tension in our home. One day I had to put my mother-in-law out of the house as a way of securing peace. Even my wife realised that it was necessary to do it. We loved each other, and in spite of all that happened, we both had the best intentions. We have three children, Albrecht, Bernhard and Annemarie. They came inside of three years, one very soon after ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... him Bertram's letter to his wife; it would have made him wish to kill the truant Count; but she went back to Rousillon and handed her mother-in-law the second letter. It was short and bitter. "I have run away," it said. "If the world be broad enough, I will be always ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... board, draw the plane towards 'em. I would like to see Ury try that on any of my lumber. And because we Jonesvillians wear black to funerals, they have to dress in white. Plow would I looked at my mother-in-law's funeral with a white night gown on and my hair braided down my back with a white ribbin on it? It would have took away all the happiness ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... Gervaise, who sat by the side of her mother-in-law. She called to Lorilleux and with his aid carefully wiped every drop of rain from ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... I mean that my wife's cold feet are the ones that chill me with an Arctic region touch. Whose feet did you suppose I meant, my mother-in-law's?" shouted the excited Crimsonbeak, darting into his gate and leaving his neighbor to his ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... answered, "She is still swinging." He said, "I shall go and look for her." "No!" said she, "you must not—what should you go for?" When the husband came in, in the evening, he gave the coveted morsel to his supposed wife. He missed his mother-in-law, but said nothing. She eagerly ate the dainty, and tried to keep the child still. The husband looked rather astonished to see his wife studiously averting her face, and asked her why the child cried so. She said, she did not know—that it would ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... large party it is very disagreeable to find a button giving way, with no studs at hand to fall back upon; but it is worse still in a large company to be conscious that your wife and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that you cannot depend upon yourself to produce a little ready wit to carry off the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... My mother-in-law took me aside yesterday, while they were dancing, and with tears in her eyes, she said in ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the drawing-room was unchanged; changelessness had always been for him its characteristic mark; in essentials, he felt sure, it had not changed since the days of old Mrs. Upton, the present Mrs. Upton's long deceased mother-in-law. Only a touch here and there showed the passage of time. It was continuous with the dining-room, so that it was but one long room that crossed all the depth of the house, tall windows at the back, heavily draped, echoing dimly the windows of the front ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... husband had intense opposition to meet, for it was not to be expected that members of families of such high rank should forsake the religion of their fathers without encountering bitter protest from their kindred. The opposition of mother and mother-in-law, both of whom lived in the home with them, was especially hard to bear. Mrs. Ahok's mother was intensely hostile to Christianity, and did everything possible to make things so unpleasant for her daughter that she would ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... things were different I would rather be mother-in-law to you than to Grace Langham. You are a pupil worthy of my metal! You ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the pure and unsullied happiness he had known, the perfections of his wife, her judgment, her innocent and guileless affection,—and he regretted her acutely. He thought of going at once to his mother-in-law's to crave forgiveness; but, in fact, like Hulot and Crevel, he went to Madame Marneffe, to whom he carried his wife's letter to show her what a disaster she had caused, and to discount his misfortune, so to speak, by claiming in return ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... he is to the entire population of India the exponent of British Rule; he is the mother-in-law of liars, the high-priest of extortioners, and the receiver-general ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... with small features inconspicuously traced in a bulging mass of full-blooded flesh. This was why her mother-in-law called her "meat-ball face." She had a hoarse voice, and altogether she might have given me the impression of being drunk had there not been something pleasing in her hoarseness as well as in that droll face of hers. That she was American-born was clear from the way she spoke her unpolished English. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... with the pots ([Greek: ta gastria]) of fragrant shrubs which accompanied the sacred tree on the voyage from Palestine.[465] More sober historians ascribe the foundation of the convent to Euphrosyne, the step-mother of the Emperor Theophilus,[466] or to his mother-in-law Theoctista.[467] Both ladies, it is certain, were interested in the House, the former taking the veil there,[468] while the latter resided in the immediate neighbourhood.[469] Probably the convent was indebted to both those pious women for benefactions, and it was ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... law-courts an attachment on the dead body, by which its interment was interdicted till the termination of the suit. In vain the rich merchant had kidnapped the bridegroom in his carriage at dead of night, the boy was pursued and recaptured, to lead a life of constant quarrel with his mother-in-law, and exchange flying crockery at meal-times; to take refuge in distant tutorships, and in the course of years, after begetting several children, to drift further and further, and finally disappear ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... your own wife is not at home,' said the widow woman; 'she is living like a reindeer in the wood; you have the witch's daughter for a wife now, and the witch herself for a mother-in-law.' ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... only had you for a mother-in-law-that's why I'm so poor. Nobody to keep me moving. If I had someone to do the talking for me, I'd work." He grinned broadly and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... obliged to change my conduct. Their manner of living was very different from that in my father's house. My mother-in-law, who had long been a widow, regarded nothing else but economy. At my father's house they lived in a noble manner and great elegance. What my husband and mother-in-law called pride, and I called politeness, was observed ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... why I have taught your wife to regard me as a rival? Why I have blackmailed you to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds? Do you know why I have done all this and more? I will tell you. Because I am your Mother-in-law! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... moment in which she appears to most advantage is when she accuses herself as the persecutor of her inflexible husband, and, under the pretext of a pilgrimage to atone for her error, privately leaves the house of her mother-in-law. Johnson expresses a cordial aversion for Count Bertram, and regrets that he should be allowed to come off at last with no other punishment than a temporary shame, nay, even be rewarded with the unmerited possession of a virtuous wife. But has Shakspeare ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... of the certificate, for he had implicitly believed his brother's denial of the marriage, and he said Miss Headworth was so childish and simple that she might easily have been taken in by a sham ceremony. He said that he now saw he had done very wrong in letting his mother-in-law take all the letters about "that unhappy business" off his hands without looking at them, but he was much engrossed by my mother's illness, and, as he said, it never occurred to him as a duty to trace out what became of the poor ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that my mother-in-law, Mrs. Simpson, was not only a very charming person in herself, but, partly owing to a natural gift for, and love of, Society, and partly owing to the fact that her father, Mr. Nassau-Senior, the conversationalist, had been one ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... yes. You see, that gentleman's mother was my mother's mother-in-law, but he is not on speaking terms ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... They used to think it fine for a woman to kill herself for her children, but I don't think it's so much the fashion now. As you say, a mother has no business to die; it's the part of intelligence to live. So you just have a set-to with your old-fashioned mother-in-law if ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... Virginia would represent the unhappy Ruth, returning poor and widowed with her mother-in-law, who, after so prolonged an absence, found herself as unknown as in a foreign land. Domingo and Mary personated the reapers. The supposed daughter of Naomi followed their steps, gleaning here and there a few ears of corn. When interrogated by Paul,—a ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... Mrs. Harding for a mother-in-law will be fortunate. None of the thrusts and jibes of the alleged funny men will apply to her as ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia married you and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... interview he had with Mrs. Jones, who had always evinced a motherly care over him since her daughter's death, and to whom he had dutifully communicated the news of his intended marriage. It was not what Mrs. Jones had expected. She had watched Richard's upward progress with all the pride of a mother-in-law, lamenting often to Mrs. Markham that poor Abigail could not have lived to share his greatness, and during the term of his judgeship, when he stayed mostly in Camden, the county seat, she had, on the occasion ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... interval between the rebuking of the evil spirit in the synagog and the miracles of healing and casting out devils in the evening of that Sabbath, that Jesus went to the house of Simon, whom He had before named Peter, and there found the mother-in-law of His disciple lying ill of fever. Acceding to the request of faith He rebuked the disease; the woman was healed forthwith, rose from her bed, and ministered the hospitality of her home unto Jesus and those who were ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... his tent, Borrow received from his old enemy Mrs Herne, Mr Petulengro's mother-in-law, a poisoned cake, which came very near to ending his career. He then encountered the Welsh preacher ("the worthiest creature I ever knew") and his wife, who were largely instrumental in saving him from Mrs Herne's poison. Having remained with ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... cabin which had been mentioned to me, but they said that seventeen snow-bound men were lying on the floor, and they advised me to ride half a mile farther, which I did, and reached the house of a German from Eisenau, with a sweet young wife and a venerable mother-in-law. Though the house was very poor, it was made attractive by ornaments, and the simple, loving, German ways gave it a sweet home atmosphere. My room was reached by a ladder, but I had it to myself and had the luxury of a basin to ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... whom they have nothing to hope or fear; the result being, that most minds quail before them. There were two Gitanas at Madrid, one Pepita by name, and the other La Chicharona; the first was a spare, shrewd, witch- like female, about fifty, and was the mother-in-law of La Chicharona, who was remarkable for her stoutness. These women subsisted entirely by fortune-telling and swindling. It chanced that the son of Pepita, and husband of Chicharona, having spirited away a horse, was sent to the presidio of Malaga for ten years of hard ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... succeeded in fully dispelling. Matters went better after Gwendolen came, but in reckoning up the possible defects in Mrs. Ocumpaugh's character you should never forget the twist that may have been given to it by that mother-in-law." ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... no trace of clan or totemic grouping among the Bagobo. Blood relationship is traced as far as the second cousin and is a bar to marriage. The suggestion that a man might marry his mother-in-law was received with horror, but whether this was due to local mother-in-law stories or to an idea of relationship could not be ascertained. However, a man may marry the sister of ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... "that profane swearing is vulgar, but I must say damn that woman. What an inquisitor she would make. I hope Kennedy is right about her heart. Think of her as your mother-in-law!" ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... old lady, who wanders about attended by a couple of lackeys, has previously frightened the sensitive Katerina (who was reared amid family affection, and cannot understand or endure the tyranny of her mother-in-law) by vague predictions and threats of hell; and when a thunderstorm suddenly breaks over the assembled family, after her husband's return, and the weird old lady again makes her appearance, Katerina is fairly ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... agreed his mother-in-law; 'an' wot's more, she'll 'ave a baby ter look after soon, an' thet'll tike 'er all 'er time, an' there's no one as knows thet better than me, for I've 'ad twelve, ter sy nothin' of two stills an' ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... widow, would not repine at being left alone in her old age (whenever she should become old), and could patiently submit to the sharper than a serpent's thanks of having a toothless child generally. But to be a mother-in-law! No, no; that was a plane of degradation to which she positively would not descend. So she employed me to cut her throat. It was the toughest throat I ever cut ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... there, my hand clenched in his hair. The Major had done something similar with the other fellow. Inquiry proved one of these men to be the perpetrator of the deed. He had drawn his knife to stab his mother-in-law, she quickly placed her arms over her breast and chest and received the wounds, two strokes, in them, and thus saved her life. It was determined, as her life was saved, though the wounds were ghastly, to degrade the man in a public assemblage of all the Indians, the next day, by investing ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... hardships were quickly increased by the second marriage of his father, upon which he was fetched home and treated with some kindness at first. But in a little time perceiving how things were going, and perhaps expressing his suspicions too freely, his mother-in-law soon prevailed to have him turned out, and absolutely forbidden his father's house, the ready way to force a naked uninstructed youth on the most sinful courses. Whether Robin at that time did anything ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... this resolution in his mind an elderly woman came hobbling with uncertain gait through the orchard. He recognized her as a member of the farm household, the mother or possibly the mother-in-law of Mrs. Spurfield, his present landlady, and hastily formulated some pleasant remark to make to ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... WEST), whose wide experience in matrimony, resulting in an attitude alternately timorous and prehensile towards female society in the servants' hall, was the source of many poignant generalisations. Miss EDITH EVANS, as a mother-in-law manquee, showed a touch of real artistry; and Mr. GEORGE CARR had no difficulty in getting fun out of the part of a Japanese house-boy, almost the only novelty which we owed to the American ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... been let out on bail, she had not only made it up with her husband, but come to love him, so that when her trial came they were heart and soul to one another. Although her husband, her father-in-law, but especially her mother-in-law, who had grown very fond of her, did all they could to get her acquitted, she was sentenced to hard labour in Siberia. The kind, merry, ever-smiling Theodosia had a place next Maslova's on the shelf bed, and had grown so fond of her that she took ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... thought the usurper of his rights worthy of a glance at all: and certainly I am anticipating my story. John dined with the old lady; drank her currant wine in preference to her port, ate her seed biscuits, and when Mr Mogg, in pursuance of a message from his mother-in-law, called to renew in his own person the offer to show his relation's distinguished friend, (Mrs Hodgett had hinted her suspicions that John Brown was a nobleman,) he was ready, though rather sleepy, to commence his lionizing. Mr Mogg was exceedingly civil, showed him every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... wife's dearest friend, so you see how beautiful our intimacy is.' But from Johnson's letter to Mrs Thrale we see looming ahead a crisis. 'He got two and forty guineas in fees while he was here. He has by his wife's persuasion and mine taken down a present for his mother-in-law,'—an error, doubtless, for 'stepmother.' He had entered himself this time at the Temple, and Johnson was his bond. He left to be in time for practice before the General Assembly, finding 'something low and coarse in such employment, but guineas must ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... him until he had extorted a promise to come and dine with them—that is, with him, his wife, and his mother-in-law, Madame Mursois—on the following Tuesday. This acceptance left a cloud on the spirit of Camors until the appointed day. Besides abhorring family dinners, he objected to being reminded of the scene of the balcony. The indiscreet kindness of Lescande ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to us," said his mother-in-law elect, "that you condescend to do that simple work yourself, instead of letting your men ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... boy, and be a kind of inaugural feast, at which good trade advice was to flow from the elders, and good wine to be drunk to the success of the converts to Commerce from Agriculture in its unremunerative form—wild oats. So Margaret had come over to help her mother-in-law, and also to shake off her own deep languor; and both their faces were as red as the fire. Presently in came Joan with a salad from ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... with an honest face, hoed silently, making no response to his mother-in-law's vituperations, which grew voluble ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Hoboken had boiled his mother-in-law. It is of no moment now why he had boiled his mother-in-law, though at the time the consideration of this question had filled columns upon columns of the daily newspapers. There had been a controversy between the gentleman and his ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... were attempted, but failed, with mutual accusations of perfidy, and while Constance continued a prisoner, a most desolating war raged in the unfortunate duchy. The dislike and distrust that existed between Constance and her mother-in-law, Queen Eleanor, seem to have been the root of many of these troubles; Eleanor was all-powerful with her son, and contrived to inspire him with distrust of Constance—a suspicion naturally augmented by her refusal to allow him the care of her son, his own heir, whom ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in which the betrothal is celebrated is sometimes very curious. At Salaparuta, in the province of Trapani, the girl takes her place in the centre of the room: her future mother-in-law then enters and parts her hair, places a ring on her finger, gives her a handkerchief and kisses her. At Assaro, in the province of Catania, the young man presents his betrothed with a red ribbon, which she braids into her hair as a sign of her betrothal, and does not leave off until the wedding. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... in the family, I b'lieve, sir,' replied Mr. Weller. 'My father's wery much in that line now. If my mother-in-law blows him up, he whistles. She flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe; he steps out, and gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into 'sterics; and he smokes wery comfortably till she comes to agin. That's ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... belonged to the mother-in-law of Mrs Lee, who has given us many delightful anecdotes of animals. The canary was allowed to fly about the room when the cat was shut out; but one day their mistress, lifting her head from her work, saw that the cat had by some means got in; and, to her amazement, there was the ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... is some pill to take; but there's one consolation— you don't have to live with your mother-in-law in these times, and you ain't marryin' the hull family. ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... she appointed the king her father, and the princess dowager of Orange her mother-in-law, honorary tutors, and prince Louis of Brunswick acting tutor to her children. In the morning after her decease, the states-general and the states of Holland were extraordinarily assembled, and having received notice of this event, proceeded to confirm the regulations which had been made for the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... bad as can be, but she's "Precious" to me, Though her conduct cannot be called free from a flaw; For in spite of blackmail, I have vowed ne'er to fail In the duty I owe to my Mother-in-law. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... What I want to know is this: am I being asked to regard Lady Mogton as my opponent's election agent, or as my principal's mother-in-law? That point's got to be settled. [His vehemence deepens.] Look at all these posters. Not to be used, for fear the other side mayn't like them. Now Lady Mogton writes me that my candidate's supporters are not to employ a certain argument she ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... blessing, when behold the little man sprang nimbly out, looking fresh, straight, healthy, and as if he were but twenty. The smith, who had watched everything closely and attentively, invited them all to supper. He, however, had an old half-blind crooked, mother-in-law who went to the youth, and with great earnestness asked if the fire had burnt him much. He answered that he had never felt more comfortable, and that he had sat in the red heat as if he had been in cool ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... replied that the pig-faced lady was his mother-in-law, and that he trusted the President would not violate the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Mrs. Bagshaw, wife of Colonel Bagshaw. She was a gweat singer or something not very long ago. Very wich, Tom; chance for you, you know; only daughter, rather a pwetty girl, not much style, father-in- law and mother-in-law not desiwable, devil of a wow, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... him marry Sterope, who dying very young, he was so afflicted at her death, that he threw himself into the sea. He also says that Priam having repudiated Arisbe to marry Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus, AEsacus seeing his mother-in-law pregnant of her second son, foretold his father that her progeny would be the cause of a bloody war, which would end in the destruction of the kingdom of Troy; and that upon this prediction, the infant, when born, was exposed on ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... maid knelt before her to unfasten her sandals, Katharina herself took up the story again, asking her whether the shoemaker's pretty young wife had also been attacked. The girl said that she was still alive, but that the old mother-in-law and all the children had been shut into the house, and even the shutters barred as soon as the corpse had been brought out. The authorities had ordered that this should be done in every case, so that the pestilence might not pervade the streets or be disseminated among the healthy. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as shy as a fawn, frightened at every word from knight or lady, and much in awe of her future mother-in-law, a stiff and stately dame, with all the Beaufort haughtiness; so that Lady Westmoreland gladly and graciously consented to the offer of the Demoiselle de Luxemburg to attend to the little maiden, and let her share her chamber and her bed. And indeed Alice Montagu, bred up in strictness and ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge |
