"Ladylike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intimacy of indulgence. They came out again and, while Sidney grubbed in the gravel of the shore, sat selfishly on the Parade, to the disappointment of Miss Teagle, who had fixed her hopes on a fly and a ladylike visit to the castle. Baron had his eye on his watch—he had to think of his train and the dismal return and many other melancholy things; but the sea in the afternoon light was a more appealing picture; the wind had gone down, the Channel ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... you'll do well, Nancy," she stammered. "Do—do keep up well in your studies and be a credit to us. And for mercy's sake don't venture into a pond again after nasty weeds. It's not—not ladylike." ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... lawyer Van Beek, where Miss Roselaer was going; and as we took leave of each other she warmly pressed my hand, thanking me for my protection and presence of mind, but added that 'such conduct was scarcely ladylike ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... is by no means uncommon. Watch one of this kind yelling on a racecourse in tearful and foul-mouthed rage and you will have a few queer thoughts about human nature. Then there is the ladylike shrew. Ah, that being! What has she to answer for? She is neat, low-spoken, precise; she can purr like a cat, and she has the feline scratch always ready too. Pity the governess, the servant, the poor flunkey whom she has at her mercy, for their bread is earned in bitterness. "My ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... all conventional restraint, it only made more charming and brilliant the great heiress, whose delicate and fairy cast of beauty so well became her graceful abandon of manner, and who looked so unequivocally ladylike to the eyes that rested on Madame Devy's ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the library and conversed, with every conventional flourish, until Amelia set the pace of retirement by a ladylike yawn. But she had a word to say before parting, reserved perhaps to the last because she found herself doubtful of Raven's response. If she had to be snubbed she could simply keep on her way ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the expected Mayor, but by a young woman, who came violently in by the street door, rushed into the middle of the room, and got under the table. The members, in surprise, pushed back their chairs and made ladylike noises of ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... want a better one," Crestwick rejoined, grinning. "It strikes me you're looking prettier than you did; but that's perhaps because you have taken to wearing more ladylike clothes. As regards my appearance, I'll venture to say that yours will be very much the same ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... queer," she said. "I don't know whether our governess will like our being with you. You seem to use strange words. We never get into scrapes—we are quite ladylike and good, but we don't wear grand frocks either. Can't ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... there is nothing to compare to a seal skin; so much so that even an imitation is not to be despised. Velvets are ladylike, but they are expensive, and have not the durability of a seal skin. Velveteen cloaks are good and reasonable. Blue cloth or serge, braided with black, look well, and have been in favour for some time. We have seen a grey cloth cloak braided with black which has been much admired; also one of dark ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Lady McCausland wrote that she was 'thoroughly conscientious, tidy, companionable, and ladylike. I am very sorry to part with her, and shall always be interested in ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... couldn't hope as you'd stay here always. I wish I could. I never shall forget the comfort it's been. There hasn't been a week without everything settled; and most ladylike,—most ladylike! You seem to me, Mrs Hurtle, just as though you had the bank in your pocket.' All this the poor woman said, moved by her sorrow ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... after the meal was over and satisfy her appetite; but to sit down with a party of ladies and gentlemen and make a good "square" meal, Mammy considered very ungenteel indeed. This idea she was always trying to impress upon the little girls, so as to render them as ladylike as possible in the years to come; and on this occasion, as there were quite a number of the families from the adjacent plantations present, she was horrified to see Dumps eating as heartily, and with as evident satisfaction, as if she had been alone in the nursery ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... ladylike in their manner, declaring that the Salvation Army did not deserve a gift and should have nothing from them. The elevator man's suspicions were aroused. The ladies were attired in long automobile cloaks, ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... She did not mind Tavia's usual queer sayings, but she knew perfectly well that her aunt would not like such vulgar expressions. The boys might smile, but even they knew a girl should not forget to be ladylike in ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... majority of these women are adventuresses, and they make their living in a way they do not care to have known. They conduct themselves with the utmost outward propriety in the house, and disarm even the suspicious landlady by their ladylike deportment. They are ripe for an intrigue with any man in the house, and as their object is simply to make money, they care little for an exposure if that object ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... was no great things, they say-ladylike, but frightened. Her voice is lovely, and as to her looks-people rave about them. Tell me, she is not Lady Travis ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it is too humiliating to write!—I felt my cheeks get crimson at the mention of Lord Robert's name. What could she have thought? Can anything be so young-ladylike ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... fact that sudden silence was owing to a kindly, old-fashioned, wholly "ladylike" instinct, on the part of the two older women. Miss Crofton had been talking of her brother's death, confiding to Miss Pendarth her desire to learn something more as to how it had actually come about. With what was for her ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... Sydney, and from their past knowledge of his character expected to see a loudly-attired Melbourne or Sydney barmaid with peroxided hair, and person profusely adorned with obtrusive jewelry. Instead of this they beheld a tall, ladylike girl with a cold, refined face, and an ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... a brute," she had said, "if a young lady, without ceasing to be ladylike, may so describe so elegant a gentleman. If not so, still he is a brute, because I can't declare otherwise, even for the sake of being ladylike. But what you say about coming is out of the question. You ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... who were like her, and in the shelter of their opinions and ideals. She did not contemn or exclude the people who were unlike her, but she had never had any more contact with them than she now had with the weather of the streets, as she sat, filling her large arm-chair full of her ladylike correctness, in the library of the handsome house her father had left her. The irruption of her brother's son and daughter into its cloistered quiet had scarcely broken its invulnerable order. It was right and fit they should ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... she turns and cries inhospitably.) Come in. (Judith Anderson, the minister's wife, comes in. Judith is more than twenty years younger than her husband, though she will never be as young as he in vitality. She is pretty and proper and ladylike, and has been admired and petted into an opinion of herself sufficiently favorable to give her a self-assurance which serves her instead of strength. She has a pretty taste in dress, and in her face ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... following the example of his favorite writer and fellow countryman, had named his twin daughters Bertha and Hertha, in imitation of Mining and Lining. The third young lady was Hulda Niemeyer, Pastor Niemeyer's only child. She was more ladylike than the other two, but, on the other hand, tedious and conceited, a lymphatic blonde, with slightly protruding dim eyes, which, nevertheless, seemed always to be seeking something, for which reason ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... pretty, generally speaking, and certainly rather ladylike in their manners, but not very accomplished, but there is one thing very formidable in their structure, which is tremendous hoofs, so that a kick from one of them would make you keep your bed for a week. But they certainly are 50 degrees better than the Bermudians, they are very affable ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... tell you in my last that she was sick crossing the Channel (though it was as smooth as if it had been ironed, and only a few wrinkles left in), but apparently she considers it good form for a female to be slightly ill in a ladylike way on boats; so, of course, she is. And as I was decent to her, she decided to like me better than she thought she would at first. For some reason they both seemed prejudiced against me (I mean against Ellaline) to begin with. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... of you! I want to be; I want to do; and I'm game to suffer if it costs that. But stick here doing nothing but being good and nice and ladylike I simply wont. Stay down here with us for a week; and I'll shew you what it means: shew it to you going on day after day, year after year, lifetime ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... I live the plainer I see Shakespeare was right—what fools these mortals be, and all that. There's that Haggage woman—speech-making through the country like a hiatused politician. It may be philanthropic, but it ain't ladylike—no, begad! What has she got to do with Juvenile Courts and child-labour in the South, I'd like to know? Why ain't she at home attending to that crippled boy of hers—poor little beggar!—instead of flaunting through America meddling ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... got in her word first. "Pretty," she said, "but not in a ministerial way, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't call her ladylike." ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... making it clear in his language whether he is referring to an animate or inanimate thing, has landed me in many a dilemma, and his foolishness in not having a male and female gender in his languages amounts to a nuisance. For example, I am a most ladylike old person and yet get constantly called "Sir." The other day, circumstances having got beyond my control during the afternoon, I arrived in the evening in a saturated condition at a white settlement, and wishing to get accommodation ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... attempts to launch their children successfully. Sometimes they attempt unwisely to thrust a child into an occupation merely because "it is ladylike," or the "vacation is long," or "the pay is good," regardless of the child's aptitude or limitations. Quite often they await inspiration in the form of some revelation of the child's desires, regardless of the demand of society ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... Here, in due time, she was brought to bed of a daughter, whom she christened by the name of Virginia; not so much out of respect to her last mistress, who bore that name, as because she considered it peculiarly ladylike ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Cornelia for the effect of this boldness upon her, and the girl frowned to keep herself from laughing, and then gave way. Mrs. Maybough smiled with a ladylike decorum which redeemed the excess from impropriety. Charmian seemed to know the bounds of her license, and as if Mrs. Maybough's smile had marked them, she went no farther, and her mother began softly to question Cornelia about herself. The girl perceived that Charmian had ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... stop me. I made for Dinky-Dunk like a hundred-weight of wildcats. I went through the water like a hell-diver, and without quite knowing what I was doing I got hold of him and tried to garrote him. I don't remember what I said, but I have a hazy idea it was not the most ladylike of language. He stared at me, as I tore Dinkie away from him, stared at me with a hard and slightly incredulous eye. For I'm afraid I was ready to fight with my teeth and nails, if need be, and I suppose my expression wasn't altogether angelic. We were both shaking, at any rate, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... myself. Well, as you are so poor, I'll give her a trial. I'll pay her five pounds a year and her keep. I do hope she is ladylike." ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... thing all her life. She had an imperial sort of way of manoeuvring a frying-pan, which did one good to see. It is my belief, that if that woman had been called upon to groom a horse, she'd have done it in a ladylike way. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... a chestnut mare, a broken down racer, thorough-bred as Beeswing, but less fortunate in her life, and I fear not so happy occasione mortis: unlike the Duchess, her body was greater and finer than her soul; still she was a ladylike creature, sleek, slim, nervous, meek, willing, and fleet. She had been thrown down by some brutal half-drunk Forfarshire laird, when he put her wildly and with her wind gone, at the last hurdle on the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... which white and red were very equally distributed, was, indeed, an excellent thing to see. Her eye was small and quiet, her features were rather thick, her tresses brown and smooth. A dull, plain girl she was called by rigorous critics—a quiet, ladylike girl by those of the more imaginative sort; but by neither class was she very elaborately discussed. When it had been duly impressed upon her that she was a young lady—it was a good while before she could believe it—she suddenly developed a lively ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... contributed much to the order of her establishment, as well as to the every-day happiness of a cheerful home. She is described as having been a person above common in many respects, of a fine womanly presence, ladylike in appearance, affecting in domestic arrangements—according to our traditions—what, it would seem was considered for the time, rather a superior style of living. What such a style consisted in, the reader shall have the means ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... my little Bible and prayer-book at odd times. I drank no alcohol. I spent a good deal of time by myself of with my faithful companion A., who was nearly always at my side, she and her appealing eyes. I was surprised to see how quickly she had improved; she looked quite attractive and ladylike some evenings at meals, but I only tolerated her. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... replace her rags with silks and fine linen, and in six weeks introduce her at court, as to the manner born, a credit to her sex. All worked well for a time, when one day, alas, under great provocation, the girl sloughed her ladylike manners, and took on the glossary of the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... gets to acting ladylike, then is the time to look out," said Collie. "Boyar and Apache have never been in harness before. Seems kind ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... rather turned against him. David was younger than himself, four or five years younger, but he looked as if he hadn't grown up. Surely his boyhood chum hadn't used to be so pale and thin-chested or his mouth so ladylike and pretty. A good face, though; straight and clean, with honest eyes and a likable smile. Lack of will, perhaps, or a persistent run of ill luck. Letty had always kept him stiffened up in the old days. Dick recalled ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... attention to the comforts of others, that visible respect towards others, so agreeable and so refining in all circles. Marguerite de Valois wrote, "Gentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the Three Graces of manners." I believe they bear a close relation to ladylike deportment. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... talk, and enact, any nonsense you please, As they gaze into eyes that are blue as the seas; And you hear an occasional "Harry, don't tease" From the sweetest of lips in the softest of keys, And other remarks, which to me are Chinese. And fast the time flees; till a ladylike sneeze, Or a portly papa's more elaborate wheeze, Makes Miss Tabitha seize on her brown muffatees, And announce as a fact that it's going to freeze, And that young people ought to attend to their Ps And their Qs, and not court every form of disease: ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... was round her neck. As she came forward with a slight flush on her cheek, her head carried defiantly and the sunlight shining on her pale hair, Miss Crawford said to herself that really she was a stylish girl, ladylike and pretty. Her schoolfellows declared that Emmeline always went about with her mouth hanging open. But that day the parted lips had an innocent expression ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... petulant little shiver, and then, though paler and evidently agitated, composed her tattered and dusty outer garments in a deft, ladylike way, and leaned back against the mountain side, He saw her also glance at his loosened shirt front and hanging neckerchief, and with a heightened color he quickly re-knotted it around his throat. They moved from the ledge ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... awoke in him the dismay of one who sees his accustomed prop of authority beginning to crumble. Surely Pussy knew best about things like that! He would as soon have thought of interfering with her housekeeping as of instructing her in the details of ladylike conduct. And, indeed, he had not observed that Gabriella was in the room until his wife, for her own purpose, had adroitly presented the fact ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... up. I'm going to jump at your offer, but I think it more ladylike to pretend a mild reluctance. What are you going ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... a plain blouse and skirt, exhibited no trace of nervousness in the presence of her aristocratic and fashionable caller. Indeed, Mollie afterwards declared that "she was quite a ladylike person. But ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... think I can find you something. We're opening a branch.' She mentioned the locality. 'There'll be a club-room, like at headquarters, and we shall want some one ladylike to sit there and answer questions. You wouldn't be likely to see any one that knows you, and you'd get a good deal of fun out of it. Hours from ten to five, but Saturday afternoon off, and Wednesday after ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... of a somewhat heated discussion, in which everybody but myself appeared to be taking extreme interest—of Miss Sellars in her most ladylike and chilling tones defending me against the charge of "being no gentleman," which Mrs. Peedles was explaining nobody had said I wasn't. The argument seemed to be of the circular order. No gentleman had ever kissed Miss Sellars who had not every right to do so, nor ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... sometimes have her ambitions to be ladylike, and once, when she had gone to a party in town and seen Virginia dancing while she sat against the wall, she had come home to ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... "perhaps you may be able to some day. Don't forget her name, Celeste Archimbault; she is slight in figure, graceful in her carriage, ladylike in her manners. She has dark hair, large, dreamy black eyes, with a hidden sorrow in them; in fact, a very handsome brunette. Here is my card, Mr. Sawyer. I will write my London address on it, and if you ever hear of her, cable ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... I was the accomplished graduate of a dry goods store, where, by dint of ministering to the whims of fine ladies, and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling satins, ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes, gauze, and cambric needles, I grew up a very ladylike sort of a gentleman. It is not assuming too much to affirm that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike as Thomas Bullfrog. So painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and such varied excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, that there was an awful risk of my getting ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... beyond the limits called ladylike as she began to wheel her chair toward the door. The ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... ourselves over a glass of punch or a dish of tea. Nor are we destitute of friends, who visit us in these shades of distress. The major has a numerous acquaintance of both sexes; among others, a first cousin of good fortune, who, with her daughters, often cheer our solitude; she is a very sensible ladylike gentlewoman, and the young ladies have a certain degagee air, that plainly shows they have seen the best company. Besides, I will venture to recommend Mrs. Minikin as a woman of tolerable breeding and capacity, who, I hope, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... Chrysantheme with a look of obvious scorn, although her costume was as ladylike as their own. For my part, I could not take my eyes off these two creatures; they captivated me like incomprehensible things that one never had seen before. Their fragile bodies, outlandishly graceful in posture, are lost in stiff materials and redundant sashes, of which the ends ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... much to say," thought Marilla, "but she might be trained out of that. And there's nothing rude or slangy in what she does say. She's ladylike. It's likely her people ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to serve me, though you were too lazy to sit down to a letter. I suppose that people who are engaged in serious ways of life, and are of well filled minds, don't think much about the interchange of letters with any anxiety: but I am an idle fellow, of a very ladylike turn of sentiment: and my friendships are more like loves, I think. Your letter found me reading the Merry Wives of Windsor too: I had been laughing aloud to myself: think of what another coat of happiness came over my former good mood. You ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... this come into my mind; the faded, ladylike hairdresser, who came and went to her work for twenty years, carefully concealing her dwelling place from the "other people in the shop," moving whenever they seemed too curious about it, and priding herself that no neighbor had ever "stepped inside her door," and yet when ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... if anything could be done towards advancing the interesting guest in his 'profession'—not trade. We talk of an English school-master, but a mulatto or a negro becomes a 'professor.' Niger whispered 'No,' which, ladylike, meant a distinct 'Yes.' He ended by graciously accepting an introduction to a Manchester firm, and ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... that a good many are reading," she answered, with prompt interest and a smile that told in the book's favor; it was a protectingly filial and guardedly ladylike smile. ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... communicate with each other alternately as to their conditions and feelings. The eldest brother gives an account, in good German, of all the manifold objects and incidents of his journey. The sister, in a ladylike style, with short sentences and nothing but stops, much as "Siegwart" was afterwards written, answers now him, now the other brothers, partly about domestic matters, and partly about affairs of the heart. One brother studies theology, and writes ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... unnecessary remark, and I realized he liked Elizabeth's kind better. She would never have dreamed of telling him his business needed attention. Elizabeth is the Admired and Honored type of Womanhood which does not think it is ladylike to have ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... "that little Celie Stubbs" glance over at her handsome Edward in a way that—well, when she was young! And here the old lady bridled and tossed her head, and the words which her lips formed themselves to utter (though she was too ladylike to speak them) were obviously "The Minx!" Hence it was clear to the most simple and unprejudiced that a greater distance had better be put between the Waverley loft and the Squire's pew—and ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... taking the trail. She called the insult down to him over her shoulder. But before she had gone a half-mile her eyes were blind with tears. Why did she get so angry? Why did she say such things? Other girls were ladylike and soft-spoken. Was there a streak of commonness in her that made possible such a scene as she had just gone through? In her heart she longed to be a lady—gentle, refined, sweet of spirit. Instead of which she was a bad-tempered tomboy. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... alive. Stupidity, ignorance, and incompetence, craven submissiveness or insipid resignation, he did not commend in women: on the contrary, intellect, wit, gaiety, spirit, and even a first in the Classical Tripos seemed or would have seemed desirable and ladylike attributes to the creator of Anthelia Melincourt and Morgana Gryll. What was called "womanliness" in the forties displeased him; but he liked women to be feminine, and knew that distinguished women have ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... know them all; a most delightful family; Mrs. Bland is a charming woman, so very ladylike. It's my good luck to be under the Dean's jurisdiction; I think I ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... I think," said he, "for she certainly has a most dignified, and ladylike bearing, and is ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... she said, "he's a mean, old brute, but don't you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel my contract in a perfectly refined an' ladylike manner. Right now I start in bantin' and dietin' in the scientific-est manner an' the way I can lose three or four hundred pounds when I set out to do it is something grand. It won't be no time at all until ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... unheedin', She goes, in her ladylike way, A-givin' the poor what they're needing And helpin' the church every day: Our numbers each Sunday is swelling And real, true religion is rife, And sometimes I feel like a-yellin', "Three ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a barking laugh. He was right; anything that could go wrong would go wrong. Lillian used a word; it was not a ladylike word at all. The Svants looked at them as though wondering what could possibly be the matter. Then they went into a huddle, arguing vehemently. The argument spread, like a ripple in a pool; soon everybody was twittering vocally ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... compound of the gentle and the lofty, of tenderness and independence, she had never ceased to be the Northwold standard of the 'real lady,' too mild and gracious to be regarded as proud and poor, and yet too dignified for any liberty to be attempted, her only fault, that touch of pride, so ladylike and refined that it was kept out of sight, and never offended, and everything else so sweet and winning that there was scarcely a being who did not love, as well as honour her, for the cheerfulness and resignation that had borne her through her many trials. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... straight figure, above the middle height; a general likeness to the full-length portrait of that delightful Countess d'Aulnois, to whom we all owe our earliest and most brilliant glimpses of fairy-land; something of her gravely-pleasant countenance, plain, but refined and ladylike, with that kindly mystery in her side-long glance and uplifted finger, which indicated the approaching climax of a ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... intellectual equipment of her sentimental fool of a mother, had none, Oh! she had a vast fund of ordinary commonsense. Of that I can assure you. A bit of hard brain fibre from her father had counteracted any over-sentimental folly in the maternal heritage. And she came back from school a very ladylike little person. If pressed, she could reel off all kinds of artificial scraps of knowledge, like a dear little parrot. But she had never heard of Karl Marx and didn't want to hear. She had a vague notion that International Socialism was a movement in favour ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as a child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim, military state which Brown demanded. Francoise had a regard for M'sieu' Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled amiably at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from her window at dawn, as he put himself through ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... concerned their bodies; and, as concerned their souls, they had the habits of Industry and Frugality inculcated into them, and they were guided in the paths of Religion and Virtue. They had good plain food, suited to their position in life, and healthy exercise in the way of Manly Sports and Ladylike Recreations. He quoted texts from the Scriptures, about the sight of the Widow touching those chords which vibrate sympathetically in all of us, and a lot of stuff about a Cup of Cold Water and These Little Ones. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... she laughed and said: It can't be so bad as all that, for if it were you wouldn't find everyone doing it. Then Hella asked her: But have you done it already, you haven't got a husband? She said: Go on, Miss! One mustn't ask such questions it's not ladylike. We were in an awful funk, and begged her not to tell ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... my idea of a lady—flying about in the air, and throwing gravel at people. It ain't what I been accustomed to consider ladylike, whether or no." ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... tongue—these melancholy efforts formed a scramble up an arduous steep where steps were planted and missed, and bared knees were excoriated, and clutches at wayside tufts succeeded and failed, on a system to which poor Nan could have intelligently entered only if she had been somehow less ladylike. She kept putting into his mouth the sick quaver of where he should find the rest, the always inextinguishable rest, long after he had in silent rage fallen away from any further payment at all—at first, he had ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... was coming home and ascending the long hilly street, his eye was taken by a tall graceful figure just preceding him. It was she. He had never before seen her in the street, and was now struck with her ladylike bearing and the grave superiority of her perfectly simple attire. In a thoroughfare haunted by handsome women and striking toilettes, the refined grace of her mourning costume, and a certain stateliness that gave her the look of a young ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... a mistake is made in compelling girls to learn to play only the piano-forte. There are other instruments, for performance upon which many of them have talents. Nor need such performance detract from a graceful, ladylike appearance. I mention, for example, the harp, the violin, and, indeed, all the stringed instruments, and even others. But on ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... little person with whom it was natural that such a man, a self-made man, should fall in love. She was very small, quiet and gentle, not exactly pretty, but elegant and ladylike. She was, indeed, a well-educated young lady of good connections; a very Phoenix she must have seemed in the eyes of a lover conscious of a background of Pruntyism and potatoes. She was about twenty-one and he thirty-five ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... babies to be ladylike," added Bert. "Nan always plays ball with me, and can skate and all that. She's not ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... "She's the ladylike member of The Merriweather Girls' Club," smiled Bet with an affectionate glance toward Joy. "She's a butterfly. As for me, I can't imagine why Fate played me such a mean trick as to send me into the world a girl, when I'd ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... Mrs. Jim Jones or Mrs. Sam Elliot. I don't believe he has an idea of getting married to any girl alive. He ain't a mite silly over the girls, if they are all setting their caps at him. I'm sort of sorry for Lucy Ayres. She's a pretty girl, and real ladylike, and I believe she'd give all her old ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ways. Ive been flung into a filthy cell with a lot of other poor wretches as if I were a sack of coals being emptied into a cellar. And the only difference between me and the others was that I hit back. Yes I did. And I did worse. I wasnt ladylike. I cursed. I called names. I heard words that I didnt even know that I knew, coming out of my mouth just as if somebody else had spoken them. The policeman repeated them in court. The magistrate said he could hardly believe it. The policeman ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... constraint shown by his mother and sister was partly due to their having but a dim and confused view of what had happened. In their vocabulary the word "divorce" was wrapped in such a dark veil of innuendo as no ladylike hand would care to lift. They had not reached the point of differentiating divorces, but classed them indistinctively as disgraceful incidents, in which the woman was always to blame, but the man, though her innocent victim, was yet inevitably ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... and Mrs. Jimmie simply smiled indulgently. While Jimmie and I reeled in our seats and clutched each other's sleeves and shrieked (in as ladylike a manner as we could), while tears poured down our cheeks and our ribs cramped and our breath failed. That is the way Jimmie and I enjoy things. That is also why we can stand it to travel in the same party, and not come ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... She was perfectly ladylike in her manner, but a little bit drunk. It is singular how drunken people will come hundreds of miles to converse with me. I have often been alluded to as the "drunkard's friend." Men have been known to get intoxicated ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... York, only that was noisy, too, though Mrs. Moore did not seem to mind it. Mrs. Moore liked Coney Island, too, but Miss Flora much preferred Grant's Tomb, she said. It was so much more quiet and ladylike. She thought some things at Coney Island were really not nice at all, and she was surprised that Mrs. Moore should ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... England. On one occasion a pietistic young creature, who brought with him his own lace cotta but forgot to bring his nightshirt, begged to be allowed the joy of serving Father Rowley at early Mass next morning. When they came back and were sitting round the breakfast table, this young man simpered in a ladylike voice: ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... be ashamed to always encourage her in her tomboyish ways, Julius. It grieves me to see she makes no effort to acquire a ladylike demeanour," said grannie. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... his father shortly, "I have no doubt it is pleasant to look on; but is it not rather too ladylike a pursuit for a boy ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... their hair, wear high-made gowns, and long sleeves; not to adopt a new fashion the very moment it appears; and all women, old or young, rich or poor, are reminded that what is new and fashionably made, and, above all, fresh and clean, looks infinitely better and more ladylike than the richest, most expensive dresses, caps, or bonnets that are the least tarnished, faded, or of a peculiar cut no longer worn. Those candid ladies who persist in wearing gray hair—a mode the author rather approves of, except where nature, which she sometimes does, silvers the locks ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... he would put his picture aside and begin his novel. The people in the house pleased him, and he ran on in his way thinking how English and trustworthy they seemed, liking the green parrot that rubbed its head affectionately against the grey ringlets of a very ladylike old person; and Mrs. Heald, brisk as a bee, notwithstanding her lame leg, who led the way up the ladder-like ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Colonel after her more or less successful search for the peculiar shade of cerise ribbon,—demands a word of description, and only a word. She was of medium height, well formed and rather plump, with a pleasantly-moulded face and dark hair and eyes, undeniably handsome and ladylike, but with something weak and languid about the mouth, and indefinably creating the impression of a woman incapable of being quite content with affairs as they came, unless they came very pleasantly and fashionably, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... their history matters to us," observed Patsy. "I like to take folks as I find them, without regard to their antecedents or finances. Certainly those Stanton girls are wonderfully attractive and ladylike." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... in this lovely, languid, ladylike city, and this afternoon we called on Cousin Dudley's friend, Professor Morales and his family. They were expecting us and as our coche drew up at the curb, the door flew open and el profesor ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... and roasted meats, and dishes with French names and taste, and desert elaborately gotten up and served with the utmost precision, and wines, with fruit and colored cloth, and handsome finger bowl; and Mrs. Cameron presiding over all, with the ladylike decorum so much a part of herself, her soft, glossy silk of brown, with her rich lace and diamond pin seeming in keeping with herself and her surroundings. And opposite to her Wilford sat, a tall, dark, handsome ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the captain's plan. For my part I liked it, and am free to own that I entered into all the fun, and oddities the young ones proposed to themselves in living for six weeks al fresco. Madame had great misgivings about the matter. She did not think lessons would prosper; the cultivation of ladylike behaviour would be very difficult—manners would be at a very low ebb—music would be utterly abolished, and she was fast approaching a declaration on Schillie's side, when Serena, by a master-stroke of policy, brought her round. ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... been a little less well-bred, I think she would have bridled. As it was, she really did smirk a little, in a ladylike way. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... mix. They are closely allied; but neither imbues the other with her attributes. Both shall be equally well born, or both shall be equally ill born; but still it is so. The contrast exists in England; but in America it is much stronger. In England women become ladylike or vulgar. In the States they are ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... figure, short enough already, was foreshortened as she sat, and her drapery did not come to the edge of the stool: as my neighbour Miss Fitzhugh whispered, "Bad effect." However and nevertheless, the better half of her looked perfectly ladylike and queenlike; her head finely shaped, and well held on her shoulders with her likeness of a kingly crown, that diadem of diamonds. Beautifully fair the neck and arms; and the arms moved gracefully, and never too much. I could not at that distance judge of her countenance, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... must have regarded her crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she herself was not a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she had in her appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike candor, ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... retired by the half-open door. Immediately from the narrow staircase there arose a series of those acclaims that usually attend the progress of royalty, and, in even an intenser degree, of rats. There came a masculine shout, a shrill and ladylike scream, a howl from Mary Ann Whooly, accompanied by the clang and rattle of a falling coal box, and then Lady Purcell, pale and breathless, appeared at the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... predecessor, and asked him when he wished to leave the ship. He informed me that to-morrow would suit him. I gave the necessary orders and went on shore. The admiral, Sir G. Campbell, received me very kindly, and invited me to dinner, where I met Lady C., the admiral's wife, a ladylike, pleasant person. The dinner party consisted of brother officers. The admiral was a quiet, gentlemanly, pleasing man, and a distinguished and good officer. As I sat next him he was kind enough to inform me that the captain of the sloop I superseded was considered ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... monitresses will do that part of the business!" decided Raymonde easily. "We'll stand in the background, and just look ladylike and well-mannered, and ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... me up a fancy name and make a repertation. They ain't goin' to call me 'Dusty Gudgeon' no more. Miss Louder tells me I can 'bant'—whatever that is—to take down my flesh, and mebbe you'll see me some day, Miss Lou, in a re'l ladylike part. An' I can always cry. Even Mr. Bane says I'm wuth my wages when it comes ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... richness they show at no other time, but it raises the leaves—if one may so call them—makes them stand out fresh. The beeches were marvelous with many shades of green, and of pink, from a delicate blush over the whole tree, to bright vermilion in small patches. The birches, "most shy and ladylike of trees," were intensely yellow; some lovely with dabs of green, while others looked like rugged old heroes of many battles, with great patches of black, and ragged ends of loosened bark fringing them like an Indian's war dress, up to the branches. Every hollow ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... were supported by a few "male Betties." The New York Sun spoke of Susan's "ungainly form rigged out in the bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule by her very motions on the platform."[38] Untruth was piled upon untruth until dignified ladylike Susan with her earnest pleasing appearance was caricatured into everything a woman should not be. Less courageous temperance women now began to wonder whether they ought to associate with such a strong-minded woman ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... fringe and a tight bodice with short sleeves, who had once been a celebrity, though no-one remembered for what. Miss Myra Mooney, formerly a beauty, had known her days of success. She had been the supreme performer of ladylike parts. She had been known as the very quintessence of refinement. It was assumed when she first came out that a duke would go to the devil for her in her youth, and that in her late maturity she would tour the provinces with The Three Musketeers. Neither of these ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... gentleman, but if I had had the very lovely lorgnette that has descended to me from my Great Grandmamma, the wife of the old Flanders grandsire, I would have settled the matter with very little trouble in an entirely ladylike manner. As it was, I did not know what to do but stand and then stand longer. Just at the moment when I began to feel that I would either be forced to forget that I was a gentleman or to faint as a lady, a very nice man touched me on the ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the old house these latter were nowhere parallel. But her chief occupation was to prevent the children crossing their legs when they sat down, or pulling their dresses lower, with a whispered, 'You must not cross your legs like that; it isn't ladylike, dear.' ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... doctor drove out of the yard in his sleigh, she hopped in beside him and led the heaving mustang back into the woods. Of course she did not look ladylike at all, and not another girl at Briarwood would have done it. But even the English teacher—who was a prude—never scolded her ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... did not distinctly hear this interchange of words between their new friend and Madge Steele; but Ruth saw that the latter was a very well dressed and quiet looking girl—that she was really very pretty and ladylike. Ruth liked her appearance much more than she did that of Mary Cox. But the latter started at once into the cedar plantation, up a serpentine walk, and Helen and Ruth, perforce, went with her. The ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... you expect," asked Rob, "from such ladylike things? They ought to be kept in the confines of the croquet ground. If they are a fair specimen of the kind you have ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... much nearer, was a still more modernized, up-to-date edition of the two Avices of that blood with whom he had been involved more or less for the last forty years. A ladylike creature was she—almost elegant. She was altogether finer in figure than her mother or grandmother had ever been, which made her more of a woman in appearance than in years. She wore a large-disked sun-hat, with a brim like a wheel ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... markswoman—and how she can hit right and left, and bring down both birds flying. When she drinks wine she holds the stem of the glass between her first two fingers, hollows her underlip, and tosses it off, throwing her head well back—she would disdain the ladylike sip or the closer gesture of ordinary women. She is great in cheese and bitter beer, in claret cup and still champagne, but she despises the puerilities of sweets or of effervescing wines. She rounds her elbows and turns her wrist outward, as ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... read through that girl," she said to herself; "he could not possibly endure any one so loud. Yes, I am sure that my only friend at home, Cecilia Day, would call Annie very loud. I wonder Mrs. Willis can endure her. Mrs. Willis seems so ladylike herself, but—Oh, I beg your pardon, what's ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... O'Halloran! what wit! what sparkle! what mirth! what fun! what repartee! what culture! what refinement! what an acquaintance with the world! what a knowledge of men and things! what a faultless accent! what indescribable grace of manner! what a generous and yet ladylike humor! what a merry, musical laugh! what quickness of apprehension! what acuteness of perception! what— words fail. Imagine every thing that is delightful in a first-rate conversationalist, and every thing that is ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... when Miss Minford took her last lesson; and, in order that she might read distinctly, drew out her eyeglasses, and adjusted them with a graceful movement of the arm and hand. Overtop thought that she handled the eyeglasses in a most ladylike manner; and that, when they were astride of her shapely nose, they became ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... say we were! Ruth won't let me 'hoo-hoo' from the window to Neale for him to come and take my books. Says it isn't ladylike, and that I am too old for such tomboy tricks. So," and the roguish beauty whispered this, "I am under the necessity of climbing the back fence into Mr. Con Murphy's yard to get at Neale," and she ran off to put this threat into ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... brings this with herself back has given every possible satisfaction in doing her work, etc., but the fact is the poor girl is oppressed with a ladylike melancholy, and cannot bear to be so much alone, as she necessarily must be in our kitchen, which to say the truth is damn'd solitary, where she can see nothing and converse with nothing and not even look out of window. The consequence is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... lemonade, I a quietly takin' out the straws and droppin' 'em on the floor at my side in a quiet ladylike manner, and Josiah, a bein' wunk at by me, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... he himself had played off. Unluckily these tricks were sometimes made at the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched to the impoverishment of his purse. "Being at all times gay in his dress," says this ladylike legend, "he made his appearance at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk coat with an expensive pair of ruffles; the coat some one contrived to soil, and it was sent to be cleansed; but, either by accident, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... confess; the more so, because our forlorn condition evidently gave a new zest to the enjoyment of our friends, and stimulated them to increased vigor in their aquatic flirtations. Alone, unintroduced, melancholy, and a little sheepish, we hired towels at two cents each from the ladylike and obliging colored person who superintended the bath-house, and, withdrawing to the friendly shelter of distance, dropped our clothes upon the sand, and hid our envy and insignificance in the bosom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
