"Old maid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the true and authentic story of Bettina," concluded my narrator. "You may see Bettina any day at Ettlingen, a yellow old maid forty years of age. Every Sunday she goes to mass at Durlach, where she employs the rest of the day in tending flowers on a grave, the first grave in the line to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... that's all the affectation of an old maid. She may pretend to be put out, but as she kept quiet the whole time I am certain she would be glad to begin all ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... I knew that Joe, like most men, was as full of gossip and as eager for it as a convalescent old maid, and that, whoever might have been the first at his house to make the break for bed, he was the last to leave off talking. But the chief reason for my laugh was that, just before he came in on me, I was almost pinching myself to see whether I was dreaming it all, and he had made me ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... and several of his chums were seated around an old table and were having some fun over that highly intellectual game known as "old maid" or "old bachelor." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... her old nurse and she; an old coachman; and a pair of old coach-horses; and two or three old maid-servants, and perhaps a very old footman or two, (for every thing will be old and penitential about her,) live very comfortably together; reading old sermons, and old prayer-books; and relieving old men and old women; and giving old lessons, and old warnings, upon new subjects, as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... matrimony, expressed in the ardent language of the sapient young Irishman! I hope you are laughing heartily. This is not like one of my adventures, is it? It more nearly resembles Martha's. I am certainly doomed to be an old maid. Never mind. I made up my mind to that fate ever since ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... homes look older and more worn and fatigued. A woman at thirty, well courted and well married, looks five or ten years younger than a woman of the same age unhappily married. Old maids and bachelors always look older {120} than they are. A flirting widow always looks younger than an old maid of ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... as a stall-reader regards the brilliant book he cannot afford to buy. 'But one gets weary of repining about that. I wish Picotee and yourself could see us oftener; I am as confirmed a bachelor now as Faith is an old maid. I wonder if—should the event you contemplate occur—you and he will ever visit us, or we ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... was permitted to encourage; but miscarried of the main end, by treating them according to the rules of art which had been prescribed me. Altilis, an old maid, infused into me so much haughtiness and reserve, that some of my lovers withdrew themselves from my frown, and returned no more; others were driven away, by the demands of settlement which the widow Trapland directed me to make; and I have ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... sexes when thus neglected, that the majority of the youths willingly sacrificed one dance on the programme to her at all the balls; and when they failed to do so, the girls would remind them of their duty, so great was their fear of the spiteful old maid. Thus, by dint of the wholesome terror she inspired, she danced as much as the greatest ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... if I couldn't talk to Mrs. Baker. She's at home now. Or there's the Judge's sister, Miss Marcia, the dearest old maid. I've only seen her once or twice, but I believe she'd be ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... more noble, or happier persons than our old maid can married life present? Is she not more worthy of imitation than the "Celias" and "Daphnes" whose delicate distresses have formed the staple of circulating libraries, or than those feeble spirits in real life, who, mistaking selfishness for sensibility, turn thanklessly ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... repeated, with all the dainty sarcasm of a disappointed old maid. 'Well! since you will know, child, I may as well tell you—the brave Mr. Dalton is not alone in the field; he has a powerful rival; one of those dark, heroic-looking Frenchmen of high birth and fierce tempers. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer back to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not broad and fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful glance at the house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a soured, elderly caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and determined to make every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, did not see these things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... at one of these festivals, that a strange old maid took her place among the singers. Her face was full of wrinkles, her chin trembled, and one foot was supported by crutches. The old woman began her song in a grating voice. She sang of her beautiful youth, the happy days in the house of her parents, and the ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... David the apprentice tells Magdalene, Eva's nurse, that the new singer did not succeed, at which she is honestly grieved, preferring the gallant younker for her mistress, to the old and ridiculous clerk. The old maid loves David; she provides him with food and sweets and many are the railleries which he has to suffer from ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... the difference between a young maid of sixteen and an old maid of eighty? One is happy and careless and the other ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... all about my unworthy self, and England generally. No matter how often he began to ask questions about the Nosnibors and other old acquaintances, both the ladies soon went back to his own adventures. He succeeded, however, in learning that Mr. Nosnibor was dead, and Zulora, an old maid of the most unattractive kind, who had persistently refused to accept Sunchildism, while Mrs. Nosnibor was the recipient of honours hardly inferior to those conferred by the people at large on my father and mother, with whom, indeed, she believed herself to have frequent interviews ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... side of vulgar gossip. Quietly and with a fine casualness he conveyed the whole picture of the new order at Temple Barholm. He did it with wonderfully light touches, and yet the whole thing was to be seen — the little old maid in her exquisite clothes, her unmistakable stamp of timid good breeding, her protecting adoration combined with bewilderment; the long, lean, not altogether ill-looking New York bounder, with his slight slouch, his dangerously unsophisticated-looking face, and ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and familiar, your, I might add, guardian angel—I, who have so often saved your life by quenching the flame of your consuming genius with a hearty dinner, have been able to obtain one picture only from you, and as one might draw a tooth. Your pictures are like old maid's children—they must be so perfect that they can't exist at all. But come, the ten minutes are up. Here's the programme for the evening—a drive in the Park and a little dinner at a cool restaurant near Thomas's Garden, and then the concert. That prince of musical caterers has made ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Maitre Guillot's face was a study for Hogarth, who alone could have painted the alto tone of voice as it proceeded from his round O of a mouth. "Susette shall remain upon my hands an old maid for the term of her natural life if you dispute the confection of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Angelique Larideau Gillespie, "Mis' Deac'n Gillespie." She is Canadian-French and the only woman on the island who can cook any other way than frying. The bad little hotel is closing. She was so merry and footloose and free, Michael! That's exactly the sort of old maid ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... did not prevent me from reading, but my aunt Janet, who came to live in Burntisland after her father's death, greatly disapproved of my conduct. She was an old maid who could be very agreeable and witty, but she had all the prejudices of the time with regard to women's duties, and said to my mother, "I wonder you let Mary waste her time in reading, she never shews (sews) more than if she were a man." Whereupon ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... dress, and had those dresses well made, nature with her was satisfied. It was the same with the children. Charlotte never rebuked her father with the prospect of their future poverty, nor did it seem to grieve her that she was becoming an old maid so quickly; her temper was rarely ruffled, and, if we might judge by her appearance, she was always happy. The signora was not so sweet-tempered, but she possessed much enduring courage; she seldom complained—never, indeed, to her family. Though she had a cause for affliction ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... for teaching him languages and music, Glafira Petrovna hired an old maid for a mere trifle, a Swede, whose eyes looked sideways, like a hare's, who spoke French and German more or less badly, played the piano so so, and pickled cucumbers to perfection. In the company of this governess, of his aunt, and of an old servant maid called Vasilievna, Fedia passed four ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... report the noon prayer meetings, but that while he was giving him instructions in the duties that he would be expected to perform, Storey suggested that as the evening was well advanced that they play a game of "old maid," an ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... old maid in a black dress. None will marry her for her acres. It will be a pre sale with a vengeance. I caught a glimpse of her as we came out of harbour. I did not see the other, who is young—her niece, I understand. There she is, coming on deck now—the heiress, I mean. She will ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... he spoke the words which changed the current of his life. "And can't you imagine that there are situations in which I resent being badgered by a bitter-tongued old maid, to say nothing of a girl——" He knew how "crazy" he was, but the habit of getting beyond his own control was one of long standing—"to say nothing of a girl who's more like an old maid than a ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... expect to get married? Do you intend to be an old maid?" demanded her mother, in the bonds of the superstition women have so long been under to the effect that every woman must wish to get married, if for no other purpose than to avoid being ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the girl. She stood slim and straight, her face rigid, her eyes fixed on the horse whose halter she held. Her limbs were bare and a blanket that descended to her knees seemed her only garment. The face of the sleeping child of five was the same, however, as this of the seven-year-old maid, except that it had grown more beautiful; the wealth of glowing brown hair made amends ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... was never allowed there afterward, and she hated the very name of me. She and Bill have hit it off together so well that he never had the least fear of me stepping in. But on last Valentine's Day it seems that she got an awfully cocky, cheeky valentine of an old maid putting on a wig and painting her face, and it had the Stoke-Pogis post-mark, and she took it into her head that Bill had sent it, flew into a most awful rage, and sent for her solicitor and changed her will. And then, most fortunate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Miss Rood comes nearest to that. Oh, no, you needn't open your eyes; there's not a properer old maid in town, or old bachelor either, ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... blossoms came Jane and Zura, skipping and bowing in time to the game's demands. The last line brought them to us. Hand in hand they stopped, Zura dishevelled, Jane's hat looking as if it grew out of her ear, but old maid and young were ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... cleared out. I thought he would turn up again, or apply for a divorce, though he hadn't any reason to. But he did neither, and remained away for a whole year. While he was away I got quit of Ercole pretty smart, I can tell you, as I wanted to shut up that old maid's mouth. I never knew where Mark was, or guessed what became of him, until I saw that advertisement, and putting two and two together to make four, I called to see Mr. Link, where I ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... and no more alike than if they weren't related to one another. Being a parent must be an anxious job. I hope I will have a dozen children, but they'll probably be right much to manage. If I turn out to be a childless old maid, I'll adopt a boy and girl, anyhow. I can do that if I ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... the cars the other day to see his daughter off on a journey. Securing her a seat he passed out of the car and went around to the car window to say a last parting word. While he was leaving the car the daughter crossed the aisle to speak to a friend, and at the same time a grim old maid took the seat and moved up to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... night a tall gentleman, wearing a top-hat and a coat with a hood, stops before the door of Marya Petrovna Koshkin, a midwife and an old maid. Neither face nor hand can be distinguished in the autumn darkness, but in the very manner of his coughing and the ringing of the bell a certain solidity, positiveness, and even impressiveness can be discerned. ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wisest thing thee ever did. Were I autocrat, I would see to it that every young man over twenty-five and every young woman over twenty was married without delay. Perhaps, on second thought, it might be well to keep one old maid and one old bachelor in each town, by way of warning, just as the Spartans ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... being "an ice day for a hunting-man, although he is sure to swear at it." If the weather breaks, you may observe, "You thaw so," but not when you have to shout the quibble through the ear-trumpet of a deaf old maid. And this, with the other witticisms recorded above, should carry you (by desire) into the ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... or sister, could have asked her yesterday whether she were willing to marry Randal Bellamy, she might, perhaps, have answered that she liked him awfully, that she valued his love, and felt very sure of being happier as his wife than as an old maid; but now, with the famous lawyer's kind and handsome face before her, and that pleading note mixing unexpectedly with the splendid tones of his voice, her delicacy rebelled against taking so much more than she ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... so ardently sought is precisely the one that has been eaten. The same voyage of discovery is depicted in another equally well-known comedy of Labiche. [Footnote: La Cagnotte.] The curtain rises on an old bachelor and an old maid, acquaintances of long standing, at the moment of enjoying their daily rubber. Each of them, unknown to the other, has applied to the same matrimonial agency. Through innumerable difficulties, one mishap following on the heels of another, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... Mrs. Crow played her trump card. She had treasured an open boast made years before by the disappointed old maid who now opposed her. Minnie, before attaining years of discretion and still smarting under the failures of youth, had spitefully announced that she was a spinster from choice. With great scorn she had stated, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... dainty manners. She was proud of her feet and hands, which were always well shod, stockinged, gloved, and ringed, and as these were the only pretty points about her, we cannot wonder at her taking care of them. People used to say she would have been an old maid, had not a certain auspicious day taken the Rev. Jonathan Prothero to her father's parish, who, having an eye after the fashion of servants of a lower grade, to 'bettering himself,' wisely made her a matron. Having no children of their own, they ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... she was at an age when such appearances are generally attributed to a bad cold in the head, rather than to any more sentimental reason. They felt towards her as towards an old friend, a kindly, useful, eccentric old maid. She did not expect more, or wish them to remember that she might once have had other hopes, and more youthful feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her very warmly for staying with his wife, when he returned home from London (where the funeral had taken place). He begged Miss Galindo to stay with them, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... like a stentorian ram, 'she belongs to a good old English family, and, in my opinion, she disgraces them thoroughly. A meddlesome old maid, who wants to foist her niece on to George Pendle; and she's likely to succeed, too,' added the lady, rubbing her nose with a vexed air, 'for the young ass is in love with Mab, although she is three years older than he ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... course, Mrs. Dr. dear," admitted Susan, "every proper woman likes to hear the news. I am rather interested in Millicent Drew's case myself. I never had a beau, much less two, and I do not mind now, for being an old maid does not hurt when you get used to it. Millicent's hair always looks to me as if she had swept it up with a broom. But the men do ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... won't stand this; I won't stay in the same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... sister would not dislike such an arrangement. Ada was the beauty of the family, and was supposed, at any rate by Edith, to be the most susceptible of the two sisters. She had always called herself a violent old maid, who was determined to have her own way. But no one had ever heard Ada speak of herself as an old maid. And then as to that danger of which Ada had spoken, Edith knew that such perils must be overlooked altogether ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... stay with her darling old man, and be a pleasant old maid, like Aunt Becky: and I'll play and sing your favourite airs, and Sally and I will keep the house; and we'll be happier in the Elms, I'm determined, than ever we were—and won't you call me, darling, when ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the priest Ali-bo-babem was called out of his bed, and found at the door, desiring to be married, the crabbed old bachelor and the cross old maid. These two did not live long, but all the rest of the people were very happy ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... error. Indeed, I look upon myself as an object for commiseration rather than blame; so you mustna look cross, and you mustna look too pitiful either, for I am going to prove to you and Fanny and all the rest that an old maid is, by no means, an object of pity. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... very still, and busy with all sorts of thoughts; and he wondered what would come to pass when he died. He had no children, and his wife had been dead for a long time, and there was only in old maid-servant to live with him and take care of the house. He was principally occupied in thinking of what would become of all the things that belonged to him when he should be gone; and, as his fiddle hung directly opposite to him on the wall, he said to ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... Winifred Jenkins. The book is too well known for analysis. The family of Matthew Bramble, Esq., are on their travels, with his nephew and niece, young Melford and Lydia Melford, with Miss Jenkins, and the squire's tart, greedy, and amorous old maid of a sister, Tabitha Bramble. This lady's persistent amours and mean avarice scarcely strike modern readers as amusing. Smollett gave aspects of his own character in the choleric, kind, benevolent Matthew Bramble, and in ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... thoughts of going,—and has generously given up the interest of her little money (which was formerly paid my Father for her board) wholely and solely to my Sister's use. Reckoning this we have, Daddy and I, for our two selves and an old maid servant to look after him, when I am out, which will be necessary, L170 or L180 (rather) a year, out of which we can spare 50 or 60 at least for Mary, while she stays at Islington, where she must and shall stay during her father's life for his and her comfort. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... addicted to punch, and Sam Weller to lying; Bazarof actually a Nihilist, and Irina——! Levin and Anna, Pierre and Natasha, all of them stormy and unsatisfactory at times. "Un Coeur Simple" nothing but a servant, and an old maid at that; "Saint Julien l'Hospitalier" a sheer fanatic. Colonel Newcome too irritable and too simple altogether. Don Quixote certified insane. Hilda Wangel, Nora, Hedda—Sir Robert would never even ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... David. "Now, there's old maid Allis, relative of the Rogerses, lives all alone down on Clark Street in an old house that hain't had a coat o' paint or a new shingle sence the three Thayers was hung, an' she talks about the folks next door, both sides, that she's knowed alwus, as 'village people,' and I don't believe," ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... done, Mr. O'Sullivan would hold out his plate with the napkin folded ready for the toast. "Shure an yo'r the sweetest child my eyes ever looked upon" (Mr. O'Sullivan would say just the same thing in the same way to a toothless old hag of ninety). "Mind you spare yo'rself now from both bein' an old maid and sufferin' to the point where y' can't ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... their luckier sisters who had fulfilled their mission in life by marrying, or to adopt the life of the religieuse. Economic changes have brought an alteration in their status, however, and the work of the unattached woman is bringing her a respect in the modern industrial world that the "old maid" of the past ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... of the next day, "whom one would have taken for an old maid," the bridegroom of this bride who "left nothing to be discovered that could be divined," arose and went out, "his heart full of the felicities of the night, with mind tranquil and flesh content," going about "ruminating upon his happiness like one ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... to him, and asked him some questions about the Skald, and so, getting into conversation with him, managed to turn her shoulder to her suitor. On the other side of him sat Lady Rosina de Courcy, to whom, as being an old woman and an old maid, he felt very little inclined to be courteous. She said a word, asking him whether he did not think the weather was treacherous. He answered her very curtly, and sat bolt upright, looking forward on the table, and taking his dinner as it came to him. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... have never yet met a girl who did not declare she was bound to be an old maid, and those are the very ones who ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... great king without committing to writing this good joke which he played upon La Godegrand, who was an old maid, much disgusted that she had not, during the forty years she had lived, been able to find a lid to her saucepan, enraged, in her yellow skin, that she still was as virgin as a mule. This old maid had her apartments on the other side of the house which belonged ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... Ella. "I wouldn't let it vex me in the least: it's all to hide her envy of you, because you are really young, and married too. I know very well she's dreadfully afraid of being called an old maid." ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... women; and the misery this brought him, to say nothing of the irritation caused to quite a number of respectable people, could hardly be imagined, so young Bute assured me, by anyone not personally acquainted with the parties. It was the plain and snappy girl, and the less attractive type of old maid, for whom he felt the most sorrow. He could not help thinking of all they had missed, and were likely to go on missing; the rapture—surely the woman's birthright—of feeling herself adored, anyhow, once in her life; the delight of seeing the lover's eye light up at her coming. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... said I, "after I came to notice her particularly. There's an old maid at home who's charitable, and belongs to the Cruelty to Animals, and she never knows whether she had better cross in front of a street car or wait. I named the hen after her. Does she ever ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Mr. Henley, like most old bachelors, regretted not having married; though he thought that his habits had all become too confirmed, to make it worth while to attempt a change. As a general rule, it will be found that your decidedly old maid is contented with her lot, while your very old bachelor is dissatisfied with his. The peculiar evils of a single life—for every life must have its own—are most felt by women early in the day; ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... their readiness to resist even the lordly personage if convinced of their own justness, or to kneel down even to a child if they acknowledge their own wrong. Incidently the touching devotion of the old maid servant Kiyo to the hero will prove a standing reproach to the inconstant, unfaithful servants of which the number is ever increasing these days in Tokyo. The story becomes doubly interesting by the fact that Mr. K. Natsume, when quite young, held a position of teacher of English at a middle school ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... old maid flies do sting but once, but 'tis a terrible big bump as they do raise on the flesh of anyone, ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... know what you are saying,' replied Wilmet dejectedly, as if exhausted beyond the power of working out her reproof! and Angela had to fight hard against any softening, telling Bernard that W. W. was a tremendous old maid, who had no notion ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rose-point, above which rose pearly shoulders and a neck bearing a small, proud head, with close waves of heavy black hair, Miss Adair was like a dainty, luscious, tropical fruit that is more beautiful than its own flower. "How an old maid in a country town made that dress I don't see!" Miss ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this scheme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become me to criticize you, gentlemen, who are nearly all my elders—and my superiors, in this thing —and so, if I should here ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... did harm to anybody in the world except the miscreants and peace-breakers in the romances which she writes herself, who makes middling verses which can excite nobody's envy, who will have nothing to leave except the state dresses of an old maid who sometimes went to court, and a dozen or two well-bound books with gilt edges? And then you, Martiniere,—you may describe the stranger's appearance as frightful as you like, yet I cannot believe that his intentions ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of the epistles. Rejecting about two thirds as altogether unworthy of attention, we reserved the remaining half dozen for a second inspection. Among these, the one with the cramped, precise chirography was thought to come from an old maid. Another, whose five lines of rail fence covered a sheet nearly as large as a ten-acre lot, was the production of a strong-minded woman. A third, on tinted paper, and dotted with blots and erasures, was from a fat lady, who wore her shoes down at the heel, and got up ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... daughter, Alexandra, the mother never quite knew whether there was cause for anxiety or not. Sometimes she felt as if there was nothing to be expected from her. She was twenty-five now, and must be fated to be an old maid, and "with such beauty, too!" The mother spent whole nights in weeping and lamenting, while all the time the cause of her grief slumbered peacefully. "What is the matter with her? Is she a Nihilist, or ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... everywhere steep and narrow, and the houses, pell-mell, rich and poor, large and small huddled together without order. Almost opposite the handsome dwelling, the photograph of which had misled me, stood a little house where I could buy rich, creamy milk. It was sold by a Mademoiselle Rosalie, an old maid, whom I generally found solitarily reading a Journal pour Tous with her feet upon a chaufferette, and no light save that of her little oil-lamp. She had never sat by a fire in her life, she told me, burning her ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... Fancy Handy Andy Hands All Around Hobson's Kiss Indian Plumes Indian Hatchet Jack's House Joseph's Necktie King's Crown Lady Fingers Ladies' Wreath Ladies' Delight Mary's Garden Mrs. Cleveland's Choice Old Maid's Puzzle Odd Fellows' Chain Princess Feather President's Quilt Sister's Choice The Tumbler The Hand The Priscilla Twin Sisters Vice-President's Quilt Widower's Choice Washington's Puzzle ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... think so. Though that isn't announced either. Goodness, Bill, suppose they all get engaged and married and leave me to be the only old maid in ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... that the New Testament writers owe their use of this gracious emblem of sleep. For, as you remember, the word was twice upon our Lord's lips; once when, over the twelve-years-old maid from whom life had barely ebbed away, He said, 'She is not dead, but sleepeth'; and once when in regard of the man Lazarus, from whom life had removed further, He said, 'Our friend sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.' But Jesus was not the originator of the expression. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... look at anything but your stupid worsted work. You will be an old maid, Elizabeth. Did ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... know she'd be glad to be ravish'd by force, By some lusty God, that's as strong as a horse. But who'd be so forward, unless he was tipsie, To choose for a miss, such a masculine gipsie? A termagant dowdy, a nasty old maid; Who flights copulation, as if she was spay'd: Which makes me believe, that under her bodice, She wants the dear gem, that's the pride of a Goddess." Now Pallas, enrag'd at so high a reflection, Cry'd out, "I thank Jove, I am made in perfection, And ev'ry thing have, from a hole to a ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... should see pigeons soon, but you thought it too early. We will have sport to-morrow, if it is warm. For the present, let us see whether Hans' old fowling-piece is still safe from rust. Here it stands behind his bed-room door, dressed up like an old maid for a sailing party, all in flannels. There, Peter, is a true 'stubb-and-twist,' and the locks, although rather out of fashion, are still as elastic as ever. This Hans himself will use to-morrow; for it ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... were together, she said, "Mr. Administrator, why don't you marry? It would add enormously to your popularity and it would keep a lot of us girls from being old maids." "How would it prevent your being an old maid, Janet?" said Dru. "Please explain." "Why, there are a lot of us that hope to have you call some afternoon, and ask us to be Mrs. Dru, and it begins to look to me as if some of us would be disappointed." Dru laughed and told her not to give up hope. ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... again, spiritual and intellectual pride, which causes you to set yourself above your fellows, and in the end will be your ruin. It has made a lonely woman of you for years, and it will do worse than that. It will turn you into an old maid—if you live," he added, as though shaken by ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... say it at once—the affair did not walk; Mr. Carruthers quietly, but firmly, refused to obey his aunt's will, and thus I am left an old maid! ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... Ministers of the day belonged. And Lord Chiltern, another master of fox hounds, two counties off,—and also an old friend of ours,—had been asked to meet him, and had brought his wife. And there was Lady Rosina De Courcy, an old maid, the sister of the present Earl De Courcy, who lived not far off and had been accustomed to come to Gatherum Castle on state occasions for the last thirty years,—the only relic in those parts of a family which had lived there for many ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... are dead; some are far away; some so near that should I open the window and shout their names many of them could hear. There are fewer above ground every year—but I welcome all who come. It's the old maid's hour, you know—this twilight hour. The wives are making ready the supper; the children are romping; lovers are together in the corner where they can whisper and not be overheard. But none of this disturbs me—no big man bursts in, letting in the cold. I have my chair, my candle, my thoughts, and ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... flowers and telling them about her new beau, how handsome he was, and that she intended to marry him if he asked her, winding up her conversation on the subject of beaux with the remark that she was bound not to die an old maid, but was going to get married for she wanted to have a house of her own to keep. And so the conversation ran on between the three girls in the parlor until dinner was nearly ready, when Mrs. Hicks, Maud's aunt, called ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... that, Walt. Professor Hartzenbosch may be an old maid in trousers, but he's really a very sound scholar. But I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about your going ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... goodness! just think of a man being out fifteen nights a week! Well, I'm glad that I'm an old maid. ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... inoffensive delicacy of an American elderly woman forbids her the role of her British sister. Our mother-in-law troubles are mostly confined to our low foreign population. Neither have we a character similar to the silly, spiteful, dried-up old maid of English literature and its American imitations, our spinsters being generally stout and jolly personages and rather over-fond of children. My mother-in-law was very nice, and we were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... for absolute wickedness, but a sort of burr that pricks and sticks where you least desire it. Now, Laura will make an extremely stylish woman of fashion, and tall, fair Gertrude, with her languors and invalidisms, will be picturesque, but an old maid like Marcia Grandon would be simply intolerable! Let us join hands ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... another idea had occurred to Tabitha, and turning away from the operator with the blank in her hand, she whispered to Gloriana in dismay, "I don't dare telegraph. Mr. Goodwin is a worse gossip than any old maid I ever knew, and he'd tell it ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... by a rustling of furtive steps, a little mouse-like trot, which made him raise his head. A door in the wall had just opened, and to his surprise there stood before him an abbe of some forty years, fat and short, looking like an old maid in a black skirt, a very old maid in fact, so numerous were the wrinkles on his flabby face. It was Abbe Paparelli, the train-bearer and usher, and on seeing Pierre he was about to question him, when Don ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... flighty, you know how rationally, and sensibly, and honourably he talked, when we saw him in the garden. You have heard the dreadful nonsense he has been guilty of this night, and the manner in which he has gone on with that poor unfortunate little old maid. Can anybody doubt how all this has been ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... engaged or not, and at any rate it was nobody's business but his own. Of course he was engaged to Statira, but he had hardly thought of it in that way. 'Manda Grier had joked about the time when she supposed she should have to keep old maid's hall alone; when she first did this Lemuel thought it delightful, but afterwards he did not like it so much; it began to annoy him that 'Manda Grier should mix herself up so much with Statira and himself. He believed ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... voice, as he ineffectually endeavored to fasten a sword belt: "Come, my daughter, lay down thy pretty work for a moment, and aid thy father to gird this cursed baldric about him, for the ends be as coy as an old maid and her lover." She arose to comply with his request, and quickly fastened the desired buckle, then inquired, ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... aware that Amanda was the Miss Prying, a child of her father by a former marriage; and besides this, she was an old maid. In addition to the foregoing circumstances, she became pious, attended camp meetings, donation parties, and quilting matches at young ministers' houses, who were just preparing to get a rib. And though she was praised as the best needle lady in the town, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... of his bed a picture of some very beautiful lady, and another at the side, and another at the foot! And Jenny Shanks, who couldn't help peeping in, to see how a great hero goes to sleep, wishes that she may be an old maid forever if she did not see him say his prayers to them. Now the same fate befall me if I don't find out who it is. You must know, papa, so you ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the use of living when I know that I shall be an old maid? We shall all be old maids. What's the use of being pretty, either, when Violet, though she be but a bag of bones, has got the Marquis? I have been out two seasons now, and nothing has come of all the trying. And yet I was the belle of the season, wasn't I, Alice?' And now, looking ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... bedroom upstairs, out of the shame and humility rose a fierce anger which downed all her fears at the thought of this night or of anything else. "I'll never be like her!" she exclaimed. "There'll never be a high hat in my hall at this time of night—nor a Boston old maid—nor a snickering telephone girl downstairs! Never! I'll make myself ugly first! For I'm not like you, I'm not like you! I've had a child, to begin with—and I'm going to ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... her nature with passionate feeling and enthusiasm taught her admirable wisdom. Aunt Anne, it seemed, never moved beyond the small radius of her home and the Chapel. She attended continually Bible-meetings, prayer-meetings, Chapel services. She had one or two intimate friends, a simple and devout old maid called Miss Pyncheon, Mr. Magnus, whom Maggie had seen on the day of her arrival, Mr. Thurston, to whom Maggie had taken an instant dislike, and Amy Warlock. She visited these people and they visited her; for the rest she seemed to take no exercise, and her declared ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... old gentleman; "don't. Be an old maid, and lecture before the Mothers' Club, if you like. I don't care. Anyhow, you meet Billy to-day at twelve-forty-five. You will?—that's a good child. Now run along and tell the menagerie I'll be down-stairs as ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... my friend was wrong, and that women of late years had made great strides in Germany. I met single women who had careers and homes of their own and were quite cheerful. When you are old enough to look back twenty or thirty years, and remember the blight there used to be on the "old maid," and the narrow gossiping life she was driven to lead, you must admit that these contented bachelor women have done a good deal to emancipate themselves. In England they have been with us for a long time, but formerly I had not come across them ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... he is grieving for that sweet and distinguished girl, Miss Halcyone La Sarthe," she told herself—and with the old maid's hungering for romance, which even the highest education cannot quite crush from the female breast, she longed to know ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... pensively, "that an old maid is a woman who never could have married and a spinster ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. "You want to make him"—little Nicholas—"into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid," he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary's presence how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the damsel, with a loud laugh, "you be a downright Englisher, sure enough. I should like to see a young lady engage by the year in America! I hope I shall get a husband before many months, or I expect I shall be an outright old maid, for I be most seventeen already; besides, mayhap I may want to go to school. You must just give me a dollar and half a week, and mother's slave, Phillis, must come over once a week, I expect, from t'other side the water, to help me ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... last, bravely. "You wouldn't want Prue to stick around and be an old maid, would you? I think she's mighty lucky to get a fellow as nice as Jerry Harmer myself. I'll bet you don't make out half as well, Fairy. I think she'd be awfully silly not to gobble him right up while she ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... have a dear old friend—a Miss O'Shea, a maiden lady, who lives a few miles off. By the way, there's something to show you—an old maid who ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... down stairs looking like she was the perfessor's big brother. I found out later she was his old maid sister. She wasn't no spring chicken, Estelle wasn't, and they was a continuous grin on her face. I figgered it must of froze there years and years ago. They was a kid about ten or eleven years old ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... sailing from the Java coast to Heligoland. Came Paradies, the little German trader, in his finest blacks, and chose a seat off in one corner of the room. Then "Foxy Grandpa" and the "Arizona Babe" arrived, and the old maid from Zamboanga, who, when expression failed her, would usurp the conversation with a "blab, blab, blab!" And as the serpent made for old Laocooen, so she ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... the great ball, what makes the most noise is the marriage of an old maid, who lives in this street, without a portion, to a man of L7,000 per annum, and they say L40,000 in ready money," she wrote to Mrs. Hewet about the beginning of 1709. "Her equipage and liveries outshine anybody's in town. He has presented her ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... were very much of the twentieth century, and were not going to bear with a dull old maid, merely because she was their aunt and had been kind to them. As one of them expressed it, "Never put yourself out for a relation, however distant. That's ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... lived in London, but when I visit among the country people here, as I drive through the park, I remember, with a qualm, that I am a spinster, no doubt because I can't help it. As I enter the hall I recall, with a pang, that I am eight-and-twenty. By the time I am in the drawing-room I am an old maid." ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... assistant expressed their thanks for the breakfast, and went toward the house. They found Klausoff's sister, Maria Ivanovna, an old maid of forty-five, at prayer before the big case of family icons. When she saw the portfolios in her guests' hands, and their official caps, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... declares she will never marry, while the younger scouts the idea of being an old maid. But even if she could gain the consent of the older, it were but little better, they differ so as to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... "Why, that's the 'Old Maid's Kitchen,'" said Mrs. Evans, when she arrived on the scene. "I've been here before. Just why it should be called the Old Maid's Kitchen is more than I can tell, for it looks like the fireplace belonging to the grand-mother of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... young maid once, an old maid now, deposed, despised, forgotten — I, like them have thrilled with passion and have dreamed of nuptial rest, Of the trembling life within me of my children unbegotten, Of a breathing new-born body to my yearning bosom prest, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... I allow; but have patience, love; do nothing rashly. Remember you are not yet nineteen, and many years are yet to pass before any one can set you down as an old maid: you cannot tell what Providence may have in store for you. And meantime, remember you have a right to the protection and support of your mother and brother, however they ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the odours of tobacco, of leather, of rusty iron; the bare floor hollowed by the grind of hob-nailed boots, the walls marred by the friction of heavy things of metal. Strangely enough, Annixter's clothes were disposed of on the single chair with the precision of an old maid. Thus he had placed them the night before; the boots set carefully side by side, the trousers, with the overalls still upon them, neatly folded upon the seat of the chair, the coat hanging from ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... "dost realise that in less than a twelve-month thou 'lt be a girl of eighteen and without a lover, much less a husband? I was wed before I was seventeen, and so are all respectably behaved females. See what elopements come to. 'T is evident thou 'rt to die an old maid." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... things were perfectly straight, Betty," she exclaimed in surprise. "I declare, you'll be a real old maid." ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... man as Lawrence Twentyman when he comes in your way. Who are you, I wonder, that you shouldn't be contented with such as him? He'll go and take some one else and then you'll be fit to break your heart, fretting after him, and I shan't pity you a bit. It'll serve you right and you'll die an old maid, and what there will be for you to live upon God in heaven only knows. You're breaking your father's heart, as it is." Then she sat down in a rocking-chair and throwing her apron over her eyes gave herself up to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... think you might understand that though I might choose to be an old maid, I could never ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... a device of the Manzecca. By the steps glittered the spear-points of a clump of men-at-arms whose swarthy and rugged faces remained impassive under flattened helmets. But as we dismounted a grey-hound came leaping from the castle, and in the doorway hovered an old maid-servant. To her Antonio ran straightway, his cape ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and work until you've landed your heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and lodging in some old woman's house—preferably an old maid. You'll be sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders, but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... of her naive exclamations of delight on finding herself in a real gondola, gliding smoothly down the Grand Canal. My sister Anne is by some years my senior. She is what might be called an old lady now, and she certainly was an old maid then, and had long accepted her position as such. Then, as now, she habitually wore a gray alpaca gown, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, gloves a couple of sizes too large for her, and a shapeless, broad-leaved straw hat, from which a blue veil was flung back and streamed out in the breeze behind ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... thought of that. But this here cruise was like the proposing to the old maid: unexpected-like. For that reason I wa'n't prepared for saying good-byes." His eyes clouded as he slowly continued, "It's a fact, I never went off afore without telling you ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... an ideal old maid's corner, and that is where you will always find me, when my housekeeping duties are ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... that owing to the meddlesomeness of some officious busybody on the Executive Council of the Society for Anthropological Research—an old maid she felt certain—Lord Henry Highbarn had been invited to go to Central China as the Society's plenipotentiary, in order to investigate the reasons of China's practical immunity from lunacy and nervous ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... know I may never see him again. My heart is breaking with it. Mere de Dieu! I can no longer laugh or jest or pretend to be happy. What shall I say? That I had rather die than live without him? No; that is not enough. I had rather be an old maid and live only with the thought of him than marry another, if he were a king. I remember those words of yours, 'I know he loves you.' Oh, my dear Therese, what a comfort they are to me now! I repeat ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... Sarah looks after everything and everybody, same as always. Blast it all! If they'd give me a show, I'd be as good as ever; good as ever, Daniel. What can a man do; what can a man do, with an only sister and her five old maid daughters looking after him from morning until night, from morning until night, Daniel? Tell them I am a full grown man; don't do no good; no good at all. Blast it all; poor old things, just got to mother something; got ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... of the game Nina still stood watching. The Countess Kate played as placidly as though she were dealing cards for "old maid," while her husband reminded Nina of a squirrel sitting up and nibbling at a nut. Carlo Olisco was excited but not unnatural. Porter looked gloomy and taciturn. Minotti and Allegro were both tense and keen, the ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... I'm one of those who are quite willing to wait patiently. If the one I want doesn't come—why, I'll be a jolly, philosophical old maid. No seconds or culls for me, ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my apprenticeship as old maid." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... represented in the conduct of so gifted a child. An old lady who visited his mother, and was characterized in the family as 'Aunt Betsy', had irritated him by pronouncing the word 'lovers' with the contemptuous jerk which the typical old maid is sometimes apt to impart to it, when once the question had arisen why a certain 'Lovers' Walk' was so called. He was too nearly a baby to imagine what a 'lover' was; he supposed the name denoted a trade or occupation. But ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... them, and give them advice about the baby's cough, and the cheapest way to do their marketing," she said laughing, as she and Amherst emerged once more into the street. "It's the same kind of interest I used to feel in my dolls and guinea pigs—a managing, interfering old maid's interest. I don't believe I should care a straw for them if I couldn't dose them and order ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... exclaimed Ursula, invading the room that served as kitchen, where Annaple was trying to hush off the child and make her over to a little twelve years old maid, who stood in waiting, helping Willie meantime to unpack his soldiers, with smothered ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now brought the whole kitchen on her shoulders. The men abused her for a surly old maid, and the women tittered, whilst they seconded her censure by cutting sly jokes on the blushing face of poor Sally, who stood almost crying by the side of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... little bites of a big June apple in order to finish it before going into the house. Now she was sitting on the sofa beside Cousin Kate, feeling very awkward and shy with her little brown fingers clasped in this stranger's soft white hand. She had heard that Cousin Kate was a very rich old maid, who had spent years abroad, studying music and languages, and she had expected to see a stout, homely woman with bushy eyebrows, like Miss Teckla Schaum, who played the church organ, and taught German in the ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... nor no quarter, either, though I jest signed up for that amount with the old girl here. But give me freedom, and a bunch o' live wires like you boys! I've near froze into a plaster figure o' Virtue, what with talkin' like a Sunday-school class, and sparkin' one old maid, and makin' out like I wouldn't melt butter with the other. So H. H. will ship along of you, mates, and we'll off to the China coast somewheres where the spendin' is good and the police not too nosy, and try how far a trunkful ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon |
