"Petticoat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could have let them easily and constantly and at high rents; but not to men without encumbrances. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants in pretty hats, or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on condition that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was 'serious.' The ambition of the majority of these joyous persons was to live in a 'serious' house, because each was sure that at bottom he or she was a 'serious' person, and quite different from the rest of the joyous world. The character ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... if you are ever tempted to forget my lessons. If you fail to send me letters, or if those you send are not what they ought to be, I think the desk will cry shame upon you. And if you ever go an hour with a hole in your stocking, or a tear in your dress, or a string off your petticoat, I hope the sight of your ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sleep for good. And with that she slipped into the bedroom while he sank back into one of the armchairs in the drawing room. But almost at that very moment Nana appeared. She had jumped out of bed and had scarce had time to slip on a petticoat. Her feet were bare, her hair in wild disorder, her nightgown ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... here were of a light coffee colour, with wavy hair. The men, of large stature, well formed, and dressed with a degree of taste far in advance of any of the savages we had hitherto met with. Elaborate devices were tattooed upon the exposed parts of their bodies; a petticoat of finely-plaited cloth reached from waist to knee; beautiful necklets made from red and white coral hung round their necks; while their hair was frizzled like a mop upon their heads, powdered red or yellow. The women were similarly attired, save that their petticoats were longer and their hair hung ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... put a nice bandage on your throat, and then she is going to lie down beside you and sing you to sleep," she said cheerfully, as she cut off a strip of flannel from an old petticoat and prepared to saturate ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... himself as his superior. This son of Africa was presented to me by the duc de Richelieu, clad in the picturesque costume of his native land; his head ornamented with feathers of every colour, a short petticoat of plaited grass around his waist, while the richest bracelets adorned his wrists, and chains of gold, pearls, and rubies, glittered over his neck and hung from his ears. Never would any one have suspected the old marechal, whose parsimony was almost proverbial, of making ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... could find to tell Mrs. Ferguson that they didn't think they could wait any longer for their things to get dry; they could easily get some more at Killochrie. She said this with an air of indifference. She would put her jacket on over her stuff petticoat, and that would do very well. Duncan could wear the cotton jacket, and leave his ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... busy making terms, his companions were rummaging the galliot in order to ascertain our cargo and armament. It was finally agreed by the captain and his petticoat commodore, that if, by evening and the return of tide, our galliot would not float, we would accept the wreckers' offer; and, accordingly, I was ordered to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... love, and was guided by delectable odour of perfume to certain chamber where, surrounded by her handmaidens, the lady of the house was divesting herself of her attire. He stood quite dumbfounded like a thief surprised by sergeants. The lady was without petticoat or head-dress. The chambermaid and the servants, busy taking off her stockings and undressing her, so quickly and dextrously had her stripped, that the priest, overcome, gave vent to a long Ah! which had the flavour ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the supper, and the curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour lost the credit which he then gained, of having a remarkably keen eye for a petticoat. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... put on the pretty kirtle or vasquin of pure silk camlet: above that went the taffety or tabby farthingale, of white, red, tawny, grey, or of any other colour. Above this taffety petticoat they had another of cloth of tissue or brocade, embroidered with fine gold and interlaced with needlework, or as they thought good, and according to the temperature and disposition of the weather had ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... any more of this Epistle; but I presume the argument which the Right Hon. Doctor and his friends mean to deduce from it, is (in their usual convincing strain) that Romanists must be unworthy of Emancipation now, because they had a Petticoat Pope in the Ninth Century. Nothing can be more logically clear, and I find that Horace had exactly the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... beginning of anarchism, that one must be firm and have one's own way and do all that one wants to do, without allowing any scruple of conscience or morals or delicacy to interfere; that to be a man and an anarchist one must never allow a petticoat to come between you and your desire. So he did what he wanted, regardless of anybody. He was a sort of brutal Overman; one could not help admiring the kind of barbaric splendour there was about ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... hair was measured this morning and has grown two inches since last time.... We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much... Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat we have been able to remove with lemon and milk. Some of our petticoat came out ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... between the wretched chamber at Saint-Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which seemed to her a palace. She was shy and speechless. To all other eyes than those of the Rogrons the little Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she stood there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white kerchief, her hands being covered by red worsted mittens edged with white, bought for her by the conductor. Her dainty Breton cap (which had been washed ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... to her figure; Neatly the edge of her kerchief is plaited into a ruffle, Which with a simple grace her chin's rounded outline encircles; Freely and lightly rises above it the head's dainty oval; And her luxuriant hair over silver bodkins is braided; Down from under her bodice, the full, blue petticoat falling, Wraps itself, when she is walking, about her neatly shaped ankles. Yet one thing will I say, and would make it my earnest petition,— Speak not yourselves with the maiden, nor let your intent be discovered; Rather inquire of others, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the possibility of his going himself to Rome, as soon as his term of residence was over, in time for the Carnival, she gave up her fond project in despair, and felt very much like a child whose house of bricks had been knocked down by the unlucky waft of some passing petticoat. ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and a black bottle, as my friend, he had eagerly sought an opportunity for this early introduction. "No man in the country, sir," said Peake, "can boast of a better horse or a better wife: I always leave the management of the bishop's cap to the petticoat; for look ye, sir, gown against gown is the true orthodox system, I believe.—When I kept the Blue Pig{53} by the Town Hall, the big wigs used to grunt a little now and then about the gemmen of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... for the last ten days. Mrs. Baxter's feverish cold had developed, and she was but now emerging from the nightdress and flannel-jacket stage to that of the petticoat and dressing-gown. It was all very ordinary and untragic, and Maggie had had but little time to consider the events on which her subconscious attention still dwelt. Mr. Cathcart had had no particular news ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... loom en we wove our own clothes. I wuz nuss en house girl en l'arned how ter sew en nit. Mah young missis wuz blind 'fore she died. I useter visit her once a Ye'r en she'd load me down wid things ter tek home, a linsey petticoat, ham bones, cracklins en diff'ent things. She died 18 years ago almos' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... brought up in the most exemplary manner; she could not get on without her little work-basket and bits of sewing, which she did so nicely, that Demi frequently pulled out his handkerchief display her neat stitches, and Baby Josy had a flannel petticoat beautifully made by Sister Daisy. She like to quiddle about the china-closet, prepare the salt-cellars, put the spoons straight on the table; and every day went round the parlor with her brush, dusting chairs and tables. Demi called ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... "Of course I had no intention of playing eavesdropper; and I had no idea who the Mr. Steel was who wanted to see Miss Gates. They come day by day, my dear fellow, garbed in the garb of Pall Mall or Petticoat Lane as the case may be, but they all come for money. Sometimes it is a shilling, sometimes L100. But I did not gather from your chat with Miss Gates what your ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... garrisoned by Turkish troops under the command of a Pasha. Whether the fellows who now surrounded us were soldiers, or peaceful inhabitants, I did not understand: they wore the old Turkish costume; vests and jackets of many and brilliant colours, divided from the loose petticoat-trousers by heavy volumes of shawl, so thickly folded around their waists as to give the meagre wearers something of the dignity of true corpulence. This cincture enclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no man bore less ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... shall not therefore swell this article by repeating old stories. Besides the conical cap, the blanket, leggins, and moccasins, worn by all the tribes; the women among the New-Brunswick Indians frequently wear a round hat, a shawl, and short clothes, resembling the short gown and petticoat worn by the French and Dutch women. The Indian language is bold and figurative, abounding in hyperbolical expressions, and is said to be susceptible of much elegance. To give the reader some notion of the ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... they were of kid. Had they been of cotton, such as girls of her class usually wore, the thought of pressing his lips to them would have put his teeth on edge. He loved the little brown shoes, that must have been expensive when new, for they still kept their shape. And the fringe of dainty petticoat, always so spotless and with never a tear, and the neat, plain stockings that showed below the closely fitting frock. So often he had noticed girls, showily, extravagantly dressed, but with red bare hands ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... and confiding mood. "He says people are getting so tired of her,—of her meddling, and her preaching, and all the rest of it,—and that everybody thinks him so absurd not to put a stop to it. And Harding says that it doesn't succeed even—that Englishmen will never stand petticoat government. It's all very well—they have to stand it in ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... leaving a very light yellowish-brown ground. Tornah Josephs and his niece Susan, of Princeton, Maine, are experts at this work.] And this dress she shaped like those worn of old. [Footnote: This remark indicates the lateness of the Micmac version of this very old myth.] So she made a petticoat and a loose gown, a cap, leggins, and handkerchief, and, having put on her father's great old moccasins,— which came nearly up to her knees,—she went forth to try her luck. For even this little thing would see the Invisible One in the great wigwam at the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... pretty, very pretty with anything else," observed Pauline, with more tact. "See, now, with your white embroidered petticoat and the gray train they are ravishing—and the scarlet coat ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... maid that should have verum colorem, corpus solidum et succi plenum (as Chaerea describes his mistress in the [5012]poet), a painted face, a ruff-band, fair and fine linen, a coronet, a flower, ([5013]Naturaeque putat quod fuit artificis,) a wrought waistcoat he dotes on, or a pied petticoat, a pure dye instead of a proper woman. For generally, as with rich-furred conies, their cases are far better than their bodies, and like the bark of a cinnamon, tree, which is dearer than the whole bulk, their outward accoutrements are far more precious ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... appearance. In the article of dress I could not be mistaken. In 1806 I had seen all the lower classes of the English clad in something like costumes. The Channel waterman wore the short dowlas petticoat; the Thames waterman, a jacket and breeches of velveteen, and a badge; the gentleman and gentlewoman, attire such as was certainly to be seen in no other part of the Christian world, the English colonies excepted. Something of this still remained, but it existed rather as ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... curiously plated and connected So as to meet around the body from the arms to the hips The garment which occupies the waist and thence as low as the knee before and mid leg behind, cannot properly be called a petticoat, in the common acception of the word; it is a Tissue formed of white Cedar bark bruised or broken into Small Straps, which are interwoven in their center by means of Several cords of the Same materials which Serves as well for a girdle as to hold in place the Straps of bark which forms the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... still told of the small table that used to be brought into the room at the end of dinner by two little Ethiopians in white tunics. An ancient table with faded gilding just visible on the claw feet that looked out from under its petticoat of finest damask; and on it priceless gold and silver bowls and salvers of all shapes, full of the most marvellous fruits from all countries, some of which fruits were never seen elsewhere in England. All dead and gone to dust years ago, host and guest ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... Sally. "You are stupid, ma!" And with that she whipped the dress over her head and revealed the fact that she wore no petticoat. Her mother ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... had been at the Queen's great fancy ball, given a week before, would wear the same costumes at Stafford House, Mademoiselle d'Este chose to consider this an impertinent dictation, and said first "she would go in a plain white satin gown," then "in a white muslin petticoat," finally, that "she wouldn't go at all;" and working herself up by degrees into more fury as she talked, she abused the Duchess of Sutherland vehemently, mimicking her in a most ludicrous manner, and saying that she always reminded her ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... of the petticoat-governed little man, and vowed eternal friendship from that hour. Hicks, who was all admiration and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... so extremely remote that Queen Elizabeth herself could hardly have found out that Zenobia's fine moral lecture on the vanities of too aspiring ruffs was founded on the box on the ear which rewarded poor Lady Mary Howard's display of her rich petticoat, nor would her cheeks have tingled when the Queen of the East—by a bold adaptation—played the part of Lion in interrupting the interview of our old friends Pyramus and Thisbe, who, by an awful anachronism, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of cloth passed round the waist and betwixt the legs; This simple dress is quite sufficient for the climate, and answers every purpose modesty requires. The dress of the women is a piece of cloth wrapped round the loins like a petticoat, which reaches down below the middle of the leg, and a loose mantle over their shoulders. Their principal head-dress, and what appears to be their chief ornament, is a sort of broad fillet, curiously made of the fibres of the husk of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... contrived by my dear wife—I made the attempt. My apparent condition had naturally led to carelessness in guarding me. Who would guard a helpless, dying man? Soon after dark I rose, donned over my own clothes a petticoat and a hooded cloak belonging to my wife, and thus muffed walked out of my cell, past the guards, and so out of the prison unchallenged. I joined Gil de Mesa, discarded my feminine disguise, mounted and set out with him upon ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... here they both were again, a new courage, a new hope in that pallid, furtive face, and another horse stood saddled among the equine group at the door. Meddlesome was pinning up the brown skirt of her gown, showing a red petticoat that had harmonies with a coarse, red plaid shawl adjusted over ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Young Chevalier. I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a love story; I can't mean one thing and write another. As for women, I am no more in any fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age makes me less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in fear of grossness. However, this David Balfour's love affair, that's all right—might be read out to a mother's meeting—or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty in a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was fumbling in a deep pocket in her under-petticoat. Gold-piece after gold-piece she drew out. "Humph! Got more'n I thought I had," she said. "I've kept all that's been paid in here to-day, for I knew Jim'd be drunk ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... with a hat and wig drawn down over his brows. His lordship's established type with the mob was a jack boot, a wretched pun on his Christian name and title. A jack boot, generally accompanied by a petticoat, was sometimes fastened on a gallows, and sometimes committed to the flames. Libels on the court, exceeding in audacity and rancor any that had been published for many years, now appeared daily both in prose and verse. Wilkes, with ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby Sister's flannel petticoat? And didn't one's own ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... Nigel unbuckled the roll and found that he was surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop attached to a button, or a wooden ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... made her kneel, just as she was in her petticoat, in order to pass long, ringed fingers through the soft masses, and lift them up for the pleasure of letting them fall. When the golden veil, as Lella M'Barka called it, had been praised and admired over and over again, the order was given to braid it in two long plaits, leaving ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... neck he wore a necklace composed entirely of skeleton human hands, which had been severed at the wrists; about his waist was a girdle of animals' teeth and claws, supporting a mucha, or rather a short petticoat made of dry grass, from beneath the rear portion of which dangled a bullock's tail; and in his right hand he carried a ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a poor good-for-nothing crittur, as Isaiah says; I am all broken down this year. I am under petticoat-government here." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and day; only those are allowed to come out, who have been seen to enter. Hence you can enter. You will come. I will lead you to her. You will change clothes with her. She will take your doublet; you will take her petticoat." ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvass petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side with the remains of a-, partly covered with a plaster, and partlv with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse, that you would not use it to wash a chimney.-In three words I will give you her picture ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... in white, trimmed down all the neck and petticoat with scarlet cock's feathers, appeared like a new macaw brought from Otaheite; but of all the pretty creatures next to the Carrara (who was not there) was Mrs. Bunbury; so that with her I was in love till one o'clock, and then came home to bed. The Duchess of Queensberry had a round gown ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... sacque or the white shift are common wear, the latter for the evening; the trade hat, loaded with flowers, fruit, and ribbons, is unfortunately not unknown; and the characteristic female dress of the Gilberts no longer universal. The ridi is its name: a cutty petticoat or fringe of the smoked fibre of cocoa-nut leaf, not unlike tarry string: the lower edge not reaching the mid-thigh, the upper adjusted so low upon the haunches that it seems to cling by accident. A sneeze, you think, and the lady must surely be left destitute. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snapping tone. Josephte was a short, stout virago, with a turned-up nose and a pair of black eyes that would bore you through like an auger. She wore a wide-brimmed hat of straw, overtopping curls as crisp as her temper. Her short linsey petticoat was not chary of showing her substantial ankles, while her rolled-up sleeves displayed a pair of arms so red and robust that a Swiss milkmaid ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... up, wake up, I say! Don't you smell something burning? Wake up, child! Don't you smell fire? Good Lord! so do I. I thought I wasn't mistaken. The room's full of smoke. Oh, dear! what'll we do? Don't stop to put on your petticoat. We'll all be burned to death. Fire! ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... I was afraid I should startle Miss Ethel if I threw anything up at her window," said Caroline, speaking quickly. "I didn't know if it might give her a turn, after that fall of hers. And you can't waken Mrs. Bradford. She wraps her head up in her petticoat ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... had not yet happened to see, a mountaineer in his full national costume. The individual Gael was a stout, dark, young man, of low stature, the ample folds of whose plaid added to the appearance of strength which his person exhibited. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs; the goatskin purse, flanked by the usual defences, a dirk and steel-wrought pistol, hung before him; his bonnet had a short feather, which indicated his claim to be treated as a duinhe-wassel, or sort of gentleman; a broadsword dangled by his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Peter's attention. He looked out at his open window and saw old Rose making off the back way with something concealed under her petticoat. Peter knew it was the unused ham and biscuits that she had cooked. For once the old negress hurried along without railing at the world. She moved with a silent, but, in a way, self-respecting, flight. Peter could see by the tilt of her head and the set of her shoulders ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... honour of the close of day a simple frock of dark-blue wool with a dash of scarlet at throat and wrists, donned a big military cape of blue, scarlet lined, and twisted about her neck a scarf of scarlet silk (dyed from a Semi-Annual petticoat!), which served less as a protection than as the finishing touch to her gay winter's night costume. She was likely to meet few people on her way, but there were always plenty of loungers in the small ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... addition being embarrassed by a rent skirt, which she was fain to hold together as she crossed the doorstep. Once in the house she made short work of it, finishing the rip, and acquiescing in the publicity of a petticoat. It added to Aunt Constance's perplexity that the carriage and James appeared in as trim order as when they left the door three hours since. These hours had been eventful to her, and she was really feeling as if the whole thing ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... confinement they endured, both tried to fling themselves upon every passenger in turn ; and though by every one they were sent back to their sole prop, they were by no one repulsed with such hasty displeasure as by this old lady, who seemed as fearful of having the petticoat of her gown, which was stiff, round, and bulging, as if lined with parchment, deranged, as if she had been attired in a hoop ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness: A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher: A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly: A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me than when art Is too ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... sport, But a petticoat short Shows an ankle the best, an ankle the best, And a leg—but, O murther! I dare not go further; So here's to the west, so ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... stopped suddenly, seeing his eyes filled with kindness as he sat by the deathbed and hearing his kind wisdom. That day I had seen a woman digging in a patch of bog under the grey sky. She wore a red petticoat, a handkerchief was tied round her head, and the moment she caught sight of us she flung down the spade and ran to the hovel, and a man appeared with a horn, and he blew the horn, running to the brow of the hill. I ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... I wonder? The king might as well try to drink up the sea as try to get her all she wants.' At last, one day, when she and her ladies were walking near the palace, they met a shepherdess driving a flock of sheep up into the hills. The shepherdess looked so pretty and bright in her red petticoat and tall yellow cap, that the queen stopped ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were made before the great discovery of some modern authors, that the best novels are those in which there is never a petticoat. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... uncovered. Her hair, divided into four plaits, fell over her dazzling white shoulders, scarcely concealed by a veil of silk worked in gold, which fell from the back of a cap studded with gems of the highest value. Under her blue-silk petticoat, fell the "zirdjameh" of silken gauze, and above the sash lay the "pirahn." But from the head to the little feet, such was the profusion of jewels—gold beads strung on silver threads, chaplets of turquoises, "firouzehs" from the celebrated mines of Elbourz, necklaces of cornelians, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... such petticoat terms on board me," cried the other; "but move more to starboard, and you will see its style painted on the cheeks of the carriage; it's a name that need not cause them ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... who showed an especial spite towards Elizabeth Foulkes, and interrupted her dying prayers to the utmost of his power. When Elizabeth rose from her knees and took off her outer garments—underneath which she wore the prepared robe—she asked the Bailiff's leave to give her petticoat to her mother; it was all the legacy in her power to leave. Even this poor little comfort was denied her. The clothes of the sufferers were the perquisite of the Sheriffs' men, and they would not give them up. Elizabeth smiled—she did nothing but smile ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... servants with the S—— brothers is an old woman, a kindly, slack one, who rarely goes out, but observes the passing life from her windows. She wears a short, loose wrapper and petticoat, and scuffs ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... scarcely judicious selection. She put on crimson silk stockings, and tucked into her bag a pair of crimson satin shoes. Her dress consisted of a black velvet skirt over a crimson petticoat, and her bodice was of crimson silk very much embroidered and with elbow-sleeves. Round her neck she wore innumerable beads of every possible color, and twisted through her lovely hair were some more beads, which shone as the light ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... yer hair, Jeanie, In yer bonny blue petticoat, Wi' yer kindly airms a' bare, Jeanie, On yer verra shadow ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... Tezezreat Sticks Taginaste Taginast A palm-tree Tahuyan Tahuyat A blanket, covering, or petticoat. Ahemon Amen Water 381 Faycag Faquair Priest or lawyer Acoran M'koorn God Almogaren Talmogaren Temples Tamoyanteen Tigameen Houses Tawacen Tamouren Hogs Archormase Akermuse Green figs Azamotan Azamittan Barley meal fried in oil Tigot Tigot Heaven Tigotan Tigotan The Heavens Thener Athraar A mountain ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... the three plumes met. And now came the putting on of the dress. With as much care as if they were handling a rare and fragile vase, Mary and Mrs. Tucker held the dress for Susan to step into it. Ellen kept her petticoat in place while the other two escorted the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... write you a few lines. "Well," methinks I hear Betsey and Lucy say, "what is cousin's dress?" White, my dear girls, like your aunt's, only differently trimmed and ornamented: her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with white ribbon; the petticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves white crape, drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... say," she said. "It's like hiding behind a petticoat, hiding behind a defense like that. Sure you ain't got a grudge. Maybe you don't know what it's all about—God knows who does. Nobody can deny that. There ain't nothing reasonable about war, if there was there wouldn't be none. That talk don't get you ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... bull, I could never have done it. Moreover, the Abbot has been there before us and dug over every inch of the floor. But the fool never thought of the wall, so all's well. I'll sew half of them into my petticoat and half into yours, to share the risk. In case of thieves, the money that hungry Visitor has left to us, for I paid him over half when you signed the deeds, we will carry openly in pouches upon our girdles. They'll not search further. Oh, I forgot, I've something more besides the ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... garrulous advent of four girls. Three of them, with black eyes and blacker hair, were kneeling on the beach thumping and scrubbing a pile of linen. In spite of their chatter they were working busily, and the grass beyond the water-wall was already white with bleaching sheets, while a lace-trimmed petticoat fluttered from a near-by oleander, and rows of silk stockings stretched the length of the parapet. The most undeductive observer would have guessed by this time that the pink villa, visible through the trees, contained no such modern conveniences ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... already hinted, of pugnacious propensities; and, not content with being a patriot at home, and fighting for the security of his own fireside, he extended his thoughts abroad, and entered into a confederacy with certain of the bold, hard-riding lads of Tarrytown, Petticoat Lane, and Sleepy Hollow, who formed a kind of Holy Brotherhood, scouring the country to clear it of Skinner and Cow-boy, and all other border vermin. The Roost was one of their rallying points. Did a band of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... he stood listening at the door for some sound—for any sound, even the sound of her dress—but there was none, for her petticoat was of lawn, and the Rector was alone with a silence that he could not bear. He began to pace the room in his thick boots, his hands clenched behind him, his forehead butting the air, his lips folded; thus a bull, penned for the first ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so dressed and undressed, so mumbled and fumbled over, that it had lost by this time much of its early freshness, and seemed a rather battered and disfeatured divinity. But it was still brought forth in moments of trouble to have its tinseled petticoat twisted about and be set up on its altar. Rowland observed that Mrs. Light had a genuine maternal conscience; she considered that she had been performing a sacred duty in bringing up Christina to set her ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... as it may, whether he were drunk or sober when he married her, he treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best to make her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine show she made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarlet feather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on his great black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swinging coach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston at a sale of the ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... be praised," replied she, "for so great a mercy to me! But tell me, husband, what good have you got by your squireship? Have you brought a petticoat home for me, and shoes ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... evidently wandering, for she took her petticoat from a hook in the closet and pulling it over her head found, when she searched for the buttons in the waistband, that she ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the beginning of the term to the end, the matron, whose province is quite apart from that of the head-mistress, is never worried about the pupils' dress, no shoes in need of repair, no garments to be mended, no letters to be written begging Mme. A. to send her daughter a warm petticoat, Mme. B. to forward a hair-brush, and so on. Again, the uniform obligatory on boarders prevents those petty jealousies and rivalries provoked by fine clothes in girls' schools. Alike the child of the millionaire and ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... life as well as literature, how often have we risen from those tables, to pursue together the not too swiftly flying petticoat, through the terrestrial firmament of shining streets, aglow with the midnight sun of pleasure, a-dazzle with eyes brighter far than the city lamps—passionate pilgrims of the morning star! Ah! we go on such quests no more—"another ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... not stop. "It's the truth, you fool. It's that cursed petticoat's making a coward of you. It's for her that ye're afeard—and she, Colonel Bishop's niece! My God, man, ye'll have a mutiny aboard, and I'll lead it myself sooner than surrender to be hanged ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... lessons from the Bible and the New England Primer and she was afraid of the sin. But, at last, she opened the desk, found the indentures, and hid them in the little pocket which she wore tied about her waist, under her petticoat. ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she is necessary to you, you will feel the tyranny of weakness and will do her will; you may wish to be a diplomat, to go and come, and study men and interests,—no, you must stay in Paris, or at her country-place, sewn to her petticoat, and the more devotion you show the more ungrateful and exacting she will be. Another will attract you by her submissiveness; she will be your attendant, follow you romantically about, compromise herself to ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... arrayed in a triumph of art recently selected by Mrs. Church, in London. On her head was an immense puff of yellow gauze, whose satin foundation had a double wing in large plaits. The dress was of yellow satin, flowing over a white satin petticoat, and embellished about the neck with a large Italian gauze handkerchief, striped with white. Her hair was in ringlets and unpowdered. She was a very plate of fashion, but ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... nothing for a moment, but let loose the linen safeguard petticoat she wore against mud or dust when riding, and appeared in a rich brocade of gray silken stuff, and a striped under-gown. When she had put off her loose camlet over-jacket, she said, "Will you have a glass of Madeira, or shall it be Hollands, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... should have seen the face of the messenger who told us that the town of Forli had opened its gates to the besiegers. I am like my father in looks, but I have my mother's spirit. Cardinal de' Medici said that if my father had worn the petticoat and my mother had been the man, the Medici would be ruling now ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Prussian Majesty, she said, had unquestionable talents; but, oh, what a character! Too much levity, she said, by far; heterodox too, in the extreme; a BOSER MANN;—and what a neighbor has he been! As to Silesia, she was heard to say, she would as soon part with her petticoat as part with it. [OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 126, 128.]—So that there is not the least prospect of peace here? "None," answer Friedrich's emissaries, whom he had empowered to hint the thing. Which is heavy news ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... might surely have struggled along to the end on gun-metal. In any case, a man of his years should have been thinking of higher things than mere gauds and trinkets. A like criticism applied to Mrs. Coppin's demand for a silk petticoat, which struck Roland as simply indecent. Frank and Percy took theirs mostly in specie. It was Muriel who struck the worst blow by insisting on a ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... occasionally saw a woman or two, but none were favourable specimens of their kind. Unlike the men, whose only covering was the breech-cloth formerly described, the women wore a short petticoat of grass-like stuff, probably the pandanus leaf divided into fine shreds—worked into a narrow band which ties round the waist. They usually, when alongside the ship, held a small piece of matting over the head with one hand, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... man with ragged clothes and a half-empty pipe is squeezed into the stone nook beside the blazing turf. The kettle, hanging from its hook, swings steaming beside him. The woman of the house, barefooted, sluttish, in torn crimson petticoat and gray bodice pinned across her breast, moves the red cinders from the lid of the pot-oven and peers at the browning cake within. Babies toddle or crawl over the greasy floor. The car rattled into the village street. Men whom ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... a sigh. "I saw the poor baby last night; hadn't anything on but dirty cotton rags. It was lying asleep in a cold cellar on a little heap of straw. The woman had given it something, I guess, by the way it slept. The petticoat had gone, most likely, to Sam McFaddon's. She spends everything she can lay her hands ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... unhooked her trim skirt-band, and unfastened her corsets. At once she felt lightened. How wise these dreadful matrons were! She did more; she cast her skirt and blouse aside with the corsets, and when Mrs. Amber returned she found her lying rest fully under the eiderdown, untrammelled, in thin petticoat and camisole. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... not find any clothes suitable, but she gave me a white flannel petticoat to wrap round her. Then I borrowed a knife from a man who was cutting bread, and cut armholes, and slipped the petticoat over her. The band came around her shoulders, and her nightgown covered her neck and arms. She did look too cute for anything in ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... and whispered, "Mr. Millard," biting her lower lip and making big eyes at Phillida, with an "I-told-you-so" nod of the head, and then she proceeded to give vent to her feelings by dancing softly about the room, a picturesque figure in her red petticoat and white waist, with her bare arms flying about her head. If the doors had not been so thin her excitement would have found vent in more noisy ways. As noise was precluded there was nothing left ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... she came to her trial, the judge acquitted her. "So now," she said to me, "the quilt is my own, and now I'll make a petticoat of it."[1] Oh, I loved ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... different idea of the inhabitants of England than what I had figur'd to myself before I came amongst them.—Mr. Whitefield receiv'd me very friendly, was heartily glad to see me, and directed me to a proper place to board and lodge in Petticoat-Lane, till he could think of some way to settle me in, and paid for my lodging, and all my expences. The morning after I came to my new lodging, as I was at breakfast with the gentlewoman of the house, ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... I, taking what rested of Moll's two pieces, went forth into the town and there bought two plain suits of clothes for ourselves in the mode of the country, and (according to his desire) another of the same cut for Dawson, together with a little jacket and petticoat for Moll. And these expenditures left us but just enough to buy a good guitar and a tambourine—indeed, we should not have got them at all but that Don Sanchez higgled and bargained like any Jew, which he could do with a very good ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... bear-skin in the council-house, surrounded by his wise men and warriors, was planning to give aid to the British. Afterwards he married one of McGillivray's sisters, whom he met at a great dance—a pretty girl, clad in a short silk petticoat, her chemise of fine linen clasped with silver, her ear-rings and bracelets of the same metal, and with ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... without speaking to any below. There was no one on the quarter-deck but the pilot, who was at the helm; though I saw a pair of legs beneath the boom, close in with the mast, that I knew to be Neb's, and a neat, dark petticoat that I felt certain must belong to Chloe. I approached the spot, in tending to question the former on the subject of the weather during his watch; but, just as about to hail him, I heard the young lady say, in a more animated tone than was discreet ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... being embraced and comforted. Comforted—for what? He could not have put it into words; but he was in one of those hours of weakness and exhaustion when a woman's presence, a woman's kiss, the touch of a hand, the rustle of a petticoat, a soft look out of black or blue eyes, seem the one thing needful, there and then, to our heart. And the memory flashed upon him of a little barmaid at a beer-house, whom he had walked home with one evening, and seen ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of the renowned Gustavus, and had herself been a powerful queen. Perhaps you would like to know something about her personal appearance, in the latter part of her life. She is described as wearing a man's vest, a short gray petticoat, embroidered with gold and silver, and a black wig, which was thrust awry upon her head. She wore no gloves, and so seldom washed her hands that nobody could tell what had been their original color. In this strange dress, and, I suppose, without washing her hands or face, she ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fellow on whom not a single word should be wasted. I know well enough that you are not sitting here beside me because you like to be here. Who compels you to? I certainly shall not prevent anybody's petticoat from going away by laying hold of it. The gate is not closed. Nothing easier than to be off. Yet nobody likes the idea, eh? Ah-ha! It is possible that when the eye of old Lapussa no longer sees, the heart of old Lapussa may no longer remember. Besides, nobody can tell exactly when the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... wet; Her new shoes! how can she forget? And yet she does not cry. Her scanty frock of dingy blue, Her petticoat wet through and through! But baby ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... land-grabber, and endanger your precious deed that you hope to get in the sweet by-and-by. But if Mother loans the money, Grandfather can't say a word, because it is her very own, and didn't cost him anything, and he always agrees with her anyway! Hurrah for hurrah, Kate! Nancy Ellen may wash her own petticoat in the morning, while I take you to the train. You'll let me, Father? You did let me go to Hartley alone, once. I'll be careful! I won't let a thing happen. I'll come straight home. And oh, my dollar, you and me; I'll put you in the bank and ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... most unhappy if I don't go, for I am sure he is not your ordinary "petticoat-chaser." He will suffer, he is suffering now ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... their Custom for Teas, China, and Trumpery. And while a Story is telling of who's a going to be Married, who is brought to Bed, or who has Miscarried, down goes the Cup and Saucer, and the Tea all over her Ladyship's Petticoat; then do they curse their unlucky Hands, and beg ten thousand Pardons for the Mischance; and threaten to go to India, but they will match the Set, so as not to be distinguish'd by the nicest Judgment. ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... person of seventeen; yet she had scarcely completed her fourteenth year. The snow of her complexion, her hair as dark as the raven's wing, her black eyes beaming with fire and innocence, her dress composed only of a chemise and a short petticoat which exposed a well-turned leg and the prettiest tiny foot, every detail I gathered in one instant presented to my looks the most original and the most perfect beauty I had ever beheld. I looked at her with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of muddy-shaded greens grew but slowly under her fingers, and, truth to say, the occupation bored her. It was artistic, certainly, and it was fashionable; but Lady Kynaston would have been happier over a pair of cross-stitch slippers for her son, or a knitted woollen petticoat for the old woman at her lodge gate. All the same, she took out her crewels and put in a few stitches; but the afternoon was warm, there was a humming of insects in the summer air, a click-clicking from the gardener as he dropped one empty red flower-pot into the other along the edge of the ribbon ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... regularity, and "parterres embroidered like a petticoat," were in his time in high vogue, yet his pages shew his enlarged views on this subject, and the magnificent ideas he had formed, by surrounding them by rural enclosures, (probably by reading Mr. Addison), perfumed with blossoms, and bespangled with the rich tufts of nature. Nothing, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... I did, perhaps I did not. Think, father Simon—I have been a four years married man, and can you expect me to remember the turn of a glee woman's ankle, the trip of her toe, the lace upon her petticoat, and such toys? No, I leave that to unmarried wags, like ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... anxious about the fit of coats, fastidious as to the choice of ties, quite impossible in the matter of trousers, and prone to regard her own image in the glass caressingly. She would have considered that every petticoat held a divinity, or every woman had her price according to the direction in which nature had limited her powers of perception with a view to the final making of her into a sentimental or a vicious fool. When she should have ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... he laughed again. "I'd look pretty tying myself to a petticoat! Any woman would have a fit if she could look into my nature. And I hate women, anyway. I've not looked sideways at one for twenty years. Too much water has run under the bridge for that, old-timer. If I was a youngster, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... convention decree that a girl who is soon to be married belongs neither to herself, to her family, to her fiance—oh, least of all to her fiance—but heart and soul and body to a devouring horde of dressmakers and tailors and milliners and hairdressers and corsetieres and petticoat specialists and jewelers and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... swept over Wallie as he strode up and down with an eye to the way he looked in the mirror. He was free of petticoat domination. He was no longer a "squaw-man," and he would not be one again for a million dollars! He would "show" Aunt Mary—he would "show" Helene Spenceley—he ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... of special note, We trust the important charge, the petticoat. Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale." —RAPE ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... hardly spoken when the skipper of the vessel, a heavy, sun-tanned-looking man in scarlet cap, high boots and petticoat, came ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... splendid sails, and voyaged peacefully down a sleepy canal, and out across a bit of quiet lagoon to the strip of beach known as Sotto Marina. There, on the shore, they came upon a solitary child in a red petticoat, with a small purple shawl crossed over her funny little person. She was apparently absorbed in watching the tiny wavelets at her feet, scarcely bestowing a glance upon the numberless brilliant sails, scattered like a field of Roman anemones ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Caleb Whitefoord, seeing a lady knotting fringe for a petticoat, asked her, what she was doing? "Knotting, Sir," replied she; "pray Mr. Whitefoord, can you knot?" He ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... slippers, began to pace up and down the room, while Pepa, just as she had arisen from sleep, unwashed, with yesterday's stage make-up still adorning her face, and her hair all disheveled, whirled around in circles, her white and soiled petticoat rustling. ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... my everyday petticoat,' said the younger, 'but to make up for it I shall wear my cloak with the golden flowers and my necklace of diamonds, which are ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... established a petticoat propriety in you for a few hours, at least. Meanwhile, he's going to think. At least, he says he is, and that we've got to ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... girls are lounging. They are the best servants here, for the emigrants mostly drink. Then you see a group of children at play, some as black as coals, some brown and very pretty. A little black girl, about R-'s age, has carefully tied what little petticoat she has, in a tight coil round her waist, and displays the most darling little round legs and behind, which it would be a real pleasure to slap; it is so shiny and round, and she runs and stands so strongly ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... the end of a box-couch, a young woman was perched, thin shoulders rounded over the ink-stained drawing-board resting on her knees. She had a large, self-willed mouth and dark Bohemian hair, and wore a dreary cotton kimono over a silk petticoat whose past had been lurid. One hand clutched gingerly a bottle of India ink, the other wielded a ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... burst out laughing. "Stop! stop! for mercy's sake," she cried. "You must be somebody that's been dead and buried and come back to life again. Why you're Rip Van Winkle in a petticoat! You ought to powder ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was busily engaged upon the making of a utilitarian flannel petticoat for one of her protegees in the village. She anchored her needle carefully in the material before she ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... through his horn spectacles, and, able to make nothing of our faces, let his glance fall to our garments which were as ragged as his own, and of much the same pattern. Indeed, they were those of Thibetan monks, including a kind of quilted petticoat and an outer vestment not unlike an Eastern burnous. We had adopted them because we had no others. Also they protected us from the rigours of the climate and from remark, had there been any ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... shepherd at East Dean, near Beachy Head. I think they said he took nearly a hundred dozen, so many that they could not thread them on crow-quills in the usual manner, but he took off his round frock and made a sack of it to put them into, and his wife did the same with her petticoat. This must have happened when there was a great flight. Their numbers now are so decreased that some shepherds do not set up any coops, as it does ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... by steam, and he has two or three young men with him to take it all down and make other books out of it;—just as you'll see a lady take a lace shawl and turn it all about till she has trimmed a petticoat with it. It is the same lace all through,—and so I tell ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... We'll soon see." And so they did: for Aunt Wee began to play; and presently Daisy was shouting with fun as she sat on an old saddle, with a hair-covered trunk for a horse, a big old-fashioned bonnet on her head, and a red silk petticoat for a habit. Then they went to sea in a great chest, and got wrecked on a desert island, where they built a fort with boxes and bags, hunted bears with rusty guns, and had to eat dried berries, herbs and nuts; for no other food could be found. Aunt Wee got an old fiddle, and had a dancing-school, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Mrs. Baxter, biting her thread. "Reliability. I shall finish this petticoat to-morrow unless I have to drive with Lady Richard. You don't want him to be original, or to do much, except his confirmations and so on, of course; but you do want to be sure that he won't fly out at something or somebody. Dan got a reputation for not being quite reliable. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... her head down to the bolster, and then both called for lights together. The Lady Booby, who was as wakeful as any of her guests, had been alarmed from the beginning; and, being a woman of a bold spirit, she slipt on a nightgown, petticoat, and slippers, and taking a candle, which always burnt in her chamber, in her hand, she walked undauntedly to Slipslop's room; where she entered just at the instant as Adams had discovered, by the two mountains which Slipslop carried before her, that he was concerned with a female. ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... between the line conductors and at the insulators placed on the pole lines forming the line circuit. The insulators are made either of glass or porcelain, and are of a peculiar form known as triple petticoat pattern. The loss on such lines, due to leakage between wires, is greater than that which takes place at the pole insulators, and is diminished by keeping the circuit wires ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... form the best dress for either a little boy or little girl in which to play. Even when they are older and a skirt distinguishes the girl, bloomers or knickerbockers of the same material beneath, approach the ideal of dress for comfort, health and decency more nearly than white petticoat and drawers. Indeed, the skirt is best when it is a part of a blouse, which is also a suitable dress for a boy. A child should never be tortured with a large or stiff hat. The heads of children come up to the middles of men and women, and such a hat will be crushed ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... for many reasons. I took off my silk gown to begin with, because the slightest noise from it on that still night might have betrayed me. I next removed the white and cumbersome parts of my underclothing, and replaced them by a petticoat of dark flannel. Over this I put my black travelling cloak, and pulled the hood on to my head. In my ordinary evening costume I took up the room of three men at least. In my present dress, when it was held close about me, no man could have ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Truth, purity, holiness, something scarcely of this nether world, yet blended indescribably with all a woman's nature, had rested there, attracting the most unobservant, and riveting all whose own hearts contained a spark of the same lofty attributes. Her dress, too, was peculiar—a full loose petticoat of dark blue silk, reaching only to the ankle, and so displaying the beautifully-shaped foot; a jacket of pale yellow, the texture seeming of the finest woven wool, reaching to the throat; with sleeves tight on the shoulders, but falling in wide folds as low as the wrist, and so with every ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... these occasions, a pair of coarse cloth trousers, as her own dress would have been torn to pieces before she had got half a mile through the bush; these were surmounted by a tight spencer she had herself manufactured out of a man's waistcoat, and a dimity petticoat, which buttoned up to her throat, and was fastened in the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... fresh hay, which she has brought for it in her blue apron, fastened up round her waist; she stands with her pail on her head, evidently the village coquette, for she has a neat bodice, and pretty striped petticoat under the blue apron, and red stockings. Nearer us, the cowherd, bare-footed, stands on a piece of the limestone rock (for the ground is thistly and not pleasurable to bare feet);—whether boy or girl we are not sure: it may be a boy, with a girl's worn-out bonnet ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... finery, consisting of a lion-skin mantle and magnificent gold coronet adorned with flamingo's feathers—the emblems of his regal power—gold bangles on his arms and ankles, a necklace of lion's teeth and claws round his neck, and a short petticoat of leopard's skin about his loins. He was armed with a sheaf of light javelins or assegais, he carried in his left hand a long narrow shield of rhinoceros hide decorated with ostrich plumes, and he was ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... for Mr. Alden's tray," she announced primly, "if he should speak will you call me?" Felicia nodded. She stitched steadily. She was putting new rows of lace on a torn petticoat, and so intent was she in joining the pattern of the lace that she forgot to watch Babiche. That inquisitive one was exploring, sniffing cautiously as she approached the invalid's bed but a second later she was trotting hastily back ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... the logs that were brought to us, as we soon discovered, were not the soft wood grown for consumption in Parisian hotels; the logs that warmed our toes in Orelay were dense and hard as iron, and burned like coal, only more fragrantly, and very soon the bareness of the room disappeared; a petticoat, as Doris had said, thrown over a chair gives an inhabited look to a room at once; and the contents of her dressing-case, as I anticipated, took the room back to one hundred years ago, when some great lady sat there in a flowered silk gown before one of those inlaid dressing ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... contact with the mud, and disclosed Amazonian feet encased in sturdy boots, to say nothing of respectable ankles protected by gray stockings. Her dress was of a sombre hue and chargeable with no unnecessary amplitude; where it was pulled up at the sides a gray balmoral petticoat was visible; crinoline had been scrupulously renounced (as it should be in a sick-chamber); the coal-skuttle bonnet performed its legitimate duty in shading her face as well as ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... enough left to make very grand displays on gala days; and, on these occasions, the dresses of the women are peculiarly splendid. A loose chemise of beautiful cambric, with innumerable and immense frills richly worked with lace, is, with a petticoat of the same, fastened at the waist by several massive chased-gold buttons. Round the neck are several gold chains, with pearl rosettes, crosses, and rows of pearls; the ear-rings are of the shape of a telegraph, and reach nearly to the shoulders; the fingers are covered with rings: ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... earlier; but that is no affair of the painter. A picture of Lady Londonderry, in the costume of Queen Elizabeth, by a Frenchman is amazingly like. There is a story about this dress which only proves the advantages of making experiments before any grand display. The petticoat of the Virgin Queen, as personated by her ladyship, was so thickly covered with diamonds, that the substratum of material could scarcely be seen; and nothing could be more splendid than the effect; but the diamonds glittered all round the dress, behind and before, and at the side; and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... entire factory, adding the two office girls; the model, who was wont to run around our part of the world now and then in a superior fashion, clad in a scanty pale-pink-satin petticoat which came just below her knees and an old gray-and-green sweater; plus various male personages, full of business and dressed in their best. Goodness knows what all they did do to keep the wheels of industry running—perhaps they were salesmen. They had the general appearance ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... good mother sent you," and Rose opened a small hair-covered trunk that stood near the tall chest of drawers, and took out a pretty dress of spotted percale, and some white stockings. Then there was a dainty white petticoat, and a set of underwear, all trimmed with ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... will wear? I remember even yet, as a personal experience, that when first arrayed, at four years old, in nankeen trousers, though still so far retaining hermaphrodite relations of dress as to wear a petticoat above my trousers, all my female friends (because they pitied me, as one that had suffered from years of ague) filled my pockets with half-crowns, of which I can render no account at this day. But what were my poor pretensions ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... McChesney looked inexorable, as women do just before they relent. Said she: "Oh, I don't know. By the time I get through trying to convince a bunch of customers that T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoat has every other skirt in the market looking like a piece of Fourth of July bunting that's been left out in the rain, I'm about ready to turn down the spread and leave a ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... guttural; and they are addicted to unnatural vices, for which reason they care little for their women and use them ill[13], The women wear their hair very short, and their whole clothing consists of a short petticoat, covering only from the waist to about the knees. By the women only is the grain cultivated, and by them it is bruised or ground to meal, and baked. This grain, called maize in the West-Indian Islands, is called Zara in the language of Peru[14]. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... knowledge concerning lapping, over-lapping, and cross-lapping, and first and second quality of cedar shingles. Miss Lobelia Brewster, who had a rooted distrust of anything done by mere man, created strife by remarking that she could have stopped the leak in the belfry tower with her red flannel petticoat better than the Milltown man with his new-fangled rubber sheeting, and that the last shingling could have been more thoroughly done by a "female infant babe"; whereupon the person criticized retorted that he ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... been fastened, torn completely from its socket, that the destroyer's movements might not be impeded, and an unfortunate garment that happened to be hung up in the closet was torn to a thousand shreds. If ever Jack Sheppard had a successor, it was this monkey. If he had tied the torn bits of petticoat together and tried to make his escape from the window, I don't think I should have ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... tree, or else of cotton cloth. It is about one yard wide, and from eight to eighteen feet in length, and is twisted round and round their waists and pulled up tight between the thighs, one end hanging down in front and the other behind. Dyak women wear a short petticoat which is drawn tightly round the waist and reaches down to the knees. Round their bodies the women wear hoops of rattan, a kind of cane, and these are threaded through small brass rings placed so close together as to hide the rattan. Both men and women wear necklaces, bracelets, and ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... had described to her. As she spoke she was frowning anxiously—and she saw no harbor. Not far away a plump flashy young creature was smiling down on the bootblack who was busily shining her small patent leather shoes. Her bright blue petticoat lifted high displayed the most enticing charms, and as now she turned to look off toward the lights of the city ahead, she smiled gaily to herself. And she saw no harbor. And alone up at the windy bow I found a squat husky laborer with his dirty coat and shirt thrown open wide, the ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... release, began almost with difficulty to detach itself from the fortunes of the Review. In the effort to compel rather than seek distraction, he put his imagination idly on the scent of the people in the street—ran down in fancy the history of a woman in a purple velvet gown and a bedraggled petticoat, catalogued an athletic young Englishman who tugged at his heels a reluctant bulldog, and wove a tragic romance around a pretty girl in a shabby coat who stood in a staring ecstasy before a window filled with imitation ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... XXIX p 367, viz: 'His inquiries were directed, immediately on his arrival, after his wife Go-roo-bar-roo-bool-lo; and her he found with Caruey. On producing a very fashionable rose-coloured petticoat and jacket made of a coarse stuff, accompanied with a gypsy bonnet of the same colour, she deserted her lover, and followed her former husband. In a few days however, to the surprise of every one, we saw the lady walking ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... sloped perhaps I may sail in consort. The walks won't be swept, of course, and that dainty scarlet petticoat will look like an ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... if married to Sir Felix Carbury. Melmotte had not time for any long discussion. As he left her he took hold of her and shook her. 'By—,' he said, 'if you run rusty after all I've done for you, I'll make you suffer. You little fool; that man's a beggar. He hasn't the price of a petticoat or a pair of stockings. He's looking only for what you haven't got, and shan't have if you marry him. He wants money, not ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... but immaculately neat, and reflecting in her face the brightness of the morning. I greeted her, and in her glad surprise at seeing me again she remained suspended between earth and heaven to talk to me, incidentally revealing the whole of two serviceable gaiters, the tiny ruffle of an alpaca petticoat, and a long, flat section of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... would do so. Taro understands their language, which is much like that of Tahiti and his own country. The men are much tattooed, their only clothing being a piece of native cloth round their loins, but the women wear a petticoat and a mantle over the shoulder. This cloth is made of the fibre of a sort of mulberry tree—not woven, but beaten into a consistency of paper. When torn the rent is mended by beating on a fresh piece. It will bear washing ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... nose; "had none of you the sense to perceive that Gerald was tipsy? And as for the wound, 'tis only a scratch here on the left shoulder. Get water, somebody." And her command being obeyed, she cleansed the hurt composedly and bandaged it with the ruffle of her petticoat. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... people were away on the plains hunting for wallabies. One young woman had a net over her shoulders and covering her breasts, as a token of mourning—an improvement on their ordinary attire, which is simply a short grass petticoat—the men nil. ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... The one he selected was dressed like the Princess of Savoy on her arrival in France, on November 4th. The head was a mass of bows and ribbons; she wore a very stiff corsage, covered with gold filigrees, and a brocade petticoat with an overskirt caught up by ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... pleading in Lydgate's tone, as if he felt that she would be injuring him by any fantastic delays. Rosamond became serious too, and slightly meditative; in fact, she was going through many intricacies of lace-edging and hosiery and petticoat-tucking, in order to give an answer that ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... That bear or elephant shall heed thee more; While all its throats the gallery extends, And all the thunder of the pit ascends! Loud as the wolves, on Orcas' stormy steep, Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep, Such is the shout, the long-applauding note, At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat; Or when from court a birthday suit bestowed, Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load. Booth enters—hark! the universal peal! "But has he spoken?" Not a syllable. What shook the stage, and made the people stare? Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lacquered chair. ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope |
