"Skirt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did, almost immediately. In the great lobby of the Tower, guests were lounging about in little groups. Many of the guests were dressed in tuxedos, others in sport shirts and slacks. Quite a number were wearing dresses, skirt-and-blouse combinations or evening gowns, and Malone paid most of ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... lurking in the corners of her full lips, the same full-throated little laugh that carried the faintest hint of mockery in its thrill. Year by year her slim body lost its unformed boyishness in a new soft roundness which her long outgrown skirt and too scant little waist failed completely to conceal. And the hillsfolk were given to shaking their heads over her now, just as the generation before had done, for to cap it all—the last straw upon the back of their toleration—Dryad Anderson had "took up" with Denny Bolton, Young ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... by the hand. Both were wretchedly clad. Thrown about the woman's shoulders was an old quilt. Her shoes were tied with strings, which were wrapped around the soles to keep from leaving her feet. Her skirt, tattered and torn, hung dejectedly about her scant form. The child, barefooted and with only one piece to hide its nakedness, dodged behind its mother as it walked to keep the wind from striking with its ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... Some months previous to this, a gentleman was known to be engaged for an early marriage, and hence declined to volunteer. When his betrothed, a charming girl and a devoted lover, heard of his refusal, she sent him, by the hand of a slave, a package inclosing a note. The package contained a lady's skirt and crinoline, and the note these terse words: "Wear ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... nearer; there was a pause, Dickinson's heart beating so loudly that he feared his wife must hear it. He did not raise his eyes, but from beneath their drooped lids he caught sight of Sally's well-known skirt. He made no sign, however, and after what seemed an interminable time the skirt brushed past, actually touching him, and the soft pat pat sounded a little farther off. Even then John did not raise his eyes, but continued to draw ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... cheerfully from the closet, where she was rummaging for her dress. "I shall guess at those. Why don't you try it? Oh, dear! This is dreadfully mussed," and she appeared in the closet door with a fluffy white skirt ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... repressed an exclamation of horror as Claudius, purring pleasantly, came out into the sunlight, brandishing his plumed tail, and sat down on the edge of Dorothy's skirt, blinking his green ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... belonged. He muttered to himself, laughed—or rather chuckled—shrugged his shoulders, and appeared to be as unconscious of what had taken place as an automaton. When the coast was clear he rose up and plucking Phelim's skirt, beckoned him towards ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... own city! which Ye love not with more holy love than I, To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves, And waken Auster, sovereign of the Tempest! 130 Till the sea dash me back on my own shore A broken corse upon the barren Lido, Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt The land I love, and never ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Mumpson came tearing in, quite oblivious of the fact that she had left a goodly part of her calico skirt on a nail of the fence. She was rushing toward Holcroft, when he said sternly, and with a repellent gesture, "Stop and listen to me. If there's any more of this quarreling like cats and dogs in my house, I'll send for the constable and have you all arrested. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... a huge four-poster bed which one could mount only by the aid of a set of bedside steps, and so high that the valance, draped around it like a skirt, would have reached from her neck to her heels had it been draped on her. It was a chintz valance with birds of paradise patterned on its pink back-ground, and there was pink silk quilled into the quaint tester overhead, reminding her of old Jeremy's favorite ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Paintings, breathing through her Nose for at least an Hour as she studied the new Masterpieces of the Swedo-Scandinavian School. Each looked as if executed with a Squirt Gun by a Nervous Geek on his way to a Three Days Cure. Just the same, every Visitor with a clinging Skirt and a Mushroom Hat gurgled like a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... at the door. An old woman enters—old Meg. We have seen her but a minute since pass the windows. Perhaps she is as dirty as Darlin'. A sprig of mistletoe, even at the reckless New Year, would wither in despair. She is a gypsy in gorgeous skirt and shawl, and she wears gold earrings. Any well-instructed nurse-maid would huddle her children close if she heard her tapping up the street. Meg walks to the table. She sniffs audibly. It is grog—her weakness. She drinks the dregs of all three cups. She rubs her thrifty finger inside the ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... other gifts. She asked me if I called virtue a gift—a thing handed to us in a parcel on our first birthday; and I declared that this very enquiry proved to me the problem had already caught her by the skirt. She would have help however, the same help I myself had once had, in resisting its ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... maid had gone Miss Tredgold remained for a minute or two holding the thimble in the palm of her hand; then she crossed the room on tiptoe, and replaced it in the pocket of Pauline's serge skirt. ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... send you an Easter egg up there?" he called, rather crossly. She only laughed. The family expected, after that time of preparation, something like magic. At last she came, looking very nice in a blouse and skirt. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... laughing heartily at this mistake, which might have proceeded from the circumstances of my appearance, my footman having been obliged to change hats with the peasant, and myself being without buckles on my shoes and buttons on my riding-skirt, while my countenance still retained marks of the fear and confusion I had undergone. After all, perhaps the fellow was a droll, and wanted to entertain himself at my expense. The day was so far consumed ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... was a very strict look-out kept, as well by the natives as by us; they had a regular watch-word, which they sung out in a very pleasing and musical manner, and it was answered by those on the next post, and so all round the skirt of the wood. The next morning we loaded one boat with empty casks, and had the other armed, to lie off the shore and cover the people employed filling water; the ship's guns were loaded with round ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... When the duty was completed, she went into the garden to listen for the Angelus. The young ladies of to-day would doubtless consider her toilet frightfully unbecoming; but Antonia looked lovely in it, though but a white muslin frock, with a straight skirt and low waist and short, full sleeves. It was confined by a blue belt with a gold buckle, and her feet were in ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... strange occurrence, the woman's outer skirt was blown up in the air, and he saw that underneath was another garment of a rich crimson hue. He then knew at once that there was something radically wrong, for no woman of ordinary virtuous character would ever dare to ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... by hitting it against the gas chandelier, and then he said dammit. Then they throwed pillows at each other. Pa's friend didn't have any night shirt, and Pa gave his friend one of your'n, and the friend took that old hoop-skirt in the closet, the one Pa always steps on when he goes in the close, after a towel and hurts his bare foot, you know, and put it on under the night shirt, and they walked around arm in arm. O, it made me tired to see a man Pa's age act so like ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... me throw my little bag of perfume on you?" And then she (it was a lady fox) she backed and backed and backed and backed and backed and backed, and she backed so far she backed into the bushes, and she got her skirt ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... the skirt off his coat, heavy with the contributions of the guests, in his hand, and strolled ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... equal ease. The girl began to flatten the sails, and asked her companion to bear a hand. Their hands met over a rope, and the man noted with surprise that the girl's was feverishly hot. Then she brought the boat's nose round to the eastward and, heeling gently over the dark water, they began to skirt the misty coast with the breeze on their ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... she rode slowly toward the crowd. What was she about? Rome stood rigid, his forgotten pistols hanging at each side; the mouth of the drunken mountaineer was open with stupid wonder; the rest fell apart as she came around the corner of the cabin and, through the space given, rode slowly, her skirt almost brushing Rome, looking neither to the right nor to the left; and when she had gone quite through them all, she wheeled and rode, still slowly, through the open fields toward the woods which sheltered the Lewallens, while the crowd stood in bewildered silence looking after her. Yells of laughter ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... were three pieces of fabric of especial interest, all pertaining, no doubt, to the costume of the person buried. The piece of cloth shown in plate III probably served as a mantle or skirt and is 46 inches long by 24 wide. It is of coarse, pliable, yellowish-gray stuff, woven in the twined style so common all over America. The fiber was doubtless derived from the native hemp, and the ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... signification means a sheath or covering, e.g., the sheath of a sword is a sarong, and the envelope enclosing a letter is likewise its sarong. The sarong or sheath of the Brunai human being is a piece of cotton cloth, of Tartan pattern, sewn down the side and resembling an ordinary skirt, or petticoat, except that it is not pleated or attached to a band at the waist and is, therefore, the same width all the way down. It is worn as a petticoat, being fastened at the waist sometimes by a belt or girdle, but ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... consists almost invariably of a close-fitting, buttonless jacket with red body and black sleeves. Her skirt is a double sacklike garment made out of abak fiber. A girdle of braided human hair or of braided vegetable fiber holds this coarse dress in place. A selection of beads, shells, and herbs hang from this girdle at the right ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... her feet. He clutched at her skirt. The sense of his touch—she was peculiarly sensitive to touch—gave her the strength she needed. She snatched ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... handmaiden, she observed me in silence for a few moments while she unpinned her tartan riding-skirt. Its removal disclosed, not—as I had expected—a short frock, but one of quite womanly length; and she carried it with the air of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was sufficiently elastic to cover fifteen, for she was ravaging her wardrobe to effect her purpose and convince her brother, whose artistic tastes she consulted, with a skill that did her good service in the end. Rapidly assuming a gray gown, with a jaunty jacket of the same, she kilted the skirt over one of green, the pedestrian length of which displayed boots of uncompromising thickness. Over her shoulder, by a broad ribbon, she slung a prettily wrought pouch, and ornamented her hat pilgrim-wise with a cockle shell. Then taking her brother's alpen-stock she crept down, ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... drawing-room door. It was a wide opening, hung with portieres, through which he could see Olivia Guion standing by the crackling wood fire, a foot on the low fender. One hand rested lightly on the mantelpiece, while the other drew back her skirt of shimmering black from the blaze. Drusilla Fane, at the piano, was strumming one ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... sire. They rest where Tarken pours his scanty tide, Then silently—nor moon nor star appearing— Launch forth upon the lake, and softly steal Towards the caitiff's fire gleaming through the dark Like blood-shot eye. All saving one, and he Was left to skirt the shore and give the foe Rough welcome should he 'scape to land. Who then Fair-hair'd and young stood there in melting mood, With all his mother in his swimming eyes, Of abbot's line—with dirk half drawn, fearing, Hoping, praying, as his gentler nature bade That life and light ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... absorbed all his attention. The shawl—a gay one with colors in it—had fallen from her head and was trailing, wet and bedraggled, over an equally bedraggled skirt. Soused with wet, her hair disheveled, and all her garments awry with the passion of her movements, she yet made his heart stand still, as, with a sullen look at those about her, she rushed into the room ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... She spread out her hands over her soiled skirt. "I have far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last spring that three hundred a year is necessary to set a man on his feet. What I give will bring in a hundred and fifty ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... lovers being left together, Bellarmine began in the following manner: "Yes, madam; this coat, I assure you, was made at Paris, and I defy the best English taylor even to imitate it. There is not one of them can cut, madam; they can't cut. If you observe how this skirt is turned, and this sleeve: a clumsy English rascal can do nothing like it. Pray, how do you like my liveries?" Leonora answered, "She thought them very pretty."—"All French," says he, "I assure you, except the greatcoats; I never trust anything more than a greatcoat ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... brakes they wind, And ford wild creeks where men have drowned; They skirt the pool, a void the fen, And so till night, when down they lie, They steeds still saddled, in wooded ground: Rein in hand they slumber then, Dreaming ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... everywhere?—the women dressed like girls of sixteen to eighteen—and some of them are that, and younger. They go hopping and laughing about—and they seem to please the men and to have no end of a good time. Especially the oldish men. Oh, yes, you know a squab on sight—tight skirt, low shoes and silk stockings, cute pretty face, always laughing, hat set on rakishly and hair done to match, and always a big purse or bag—with a yellow-back or so in it—as a kind of a ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... at us in disgust. "Say," he replied, "if I wanted a skirt to help me in such a job, believe me I know plenty that could put it all over that girl. Naw, I did it all myself. I picked the lock, burnt the safe with that powder the guy give me, and took out something in soft leather, a lot ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... first meeting for six months, and may, for aught I know, take it with him to his little swinging grave. Even Smith remembers to this day how she looked, standing there on her two trim ankles, that disappeared into her hand-turned sandals or faded in the flute and fringe of her fawn skin skirt. Her full bosom rose and fell, and you could count the beat of her wild heart in the throb of her throat. Her cheeks showed a faint flush of red through the dark olive,—the flush of health and youth,—her ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... 11. "It gets her skirt into its mouth, and leads her along quite safely. When it comes to the bridge it puts her next the rail, and keeps between ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... equipped for walking in a white Empire coat with a deep ermine collar, a granny muff to match, and a little white hat with a tall aigrette. Her skirt was short, and her neat little feet were encased in high-heeled boots, that clicked on the gravel path as she hurried toward the Mall. She looked her best, and she knew it. She wanted Dick to take away ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... ice which skirt many parts of the Antarctic shores: many of them have been formed ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... in skins, fawn skins for the most part, though there were occasional garments of leather. The garments were not cut at all after the manner of Chukches or Eskimos. The girl wore a skirt and a loose middy-like jacket of white buckskin, the skin of which had been split thin. The garments ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... women in good society seem to feel that they must enter into open competition with their less fortunate sisters. And in this struggle for survival they are apparently determined to yield no advantage. Herein lies the popularity of the hobble skirt, the transparent fabric that hides nothing and follows the move of every muscle, and the otherwise senseless peculiarities and indecencies of the more extreme ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... adopted fashions of their own quite as remarkable and eccentric as those of the Parisians, and much less graceful. British beauties were dressed in long, strait pelisses of various colours; the body of the dress was never of the same colour as the skirt; and the bonnet was of the bee-hive shape, and very small. The characteristic of the dress of the gentleman was a coat of light blue, or snuff-colour, With brass buttons, the tail reaching nearly to the heels; a gigantic bunch of seals dangled from his fob, whilst his pantaloons ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... do? Last night she had looked forward with interest to dressing this morning, for Nick had got for her a costume suitable for riding a trail pony, and fortunately she had it in her suit-case. It was of khaki, with a divided skirt, and a peculiarly fetching jacket. But the jacket must be worn over a thin blouse; and she could not go out to breakfast with that blouse unbuttoned from neck to waist. No doubt by this time Nick was waiting. A large party would start from the hotel to drive to Mirror Lake, and they two ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... measuring worm crawling up my skirt!" cried Mrs. Bjenks. "That's a sign I'm going to have a ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... moment the young adept came in smiling, with her eyes full of fire. She was dressed in a short pelisse, open in front, and an embroidered muslin skirt which did not go beyond her knees. She looked like ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... been only disordered, that might have been accidental, but it looked neglected—was not merely dingy, but plainly shabby, and, to Mary's country eyes, appeared on the wrong side of clean. Presently, as those eyes got accustomed to the miserable light, they spied in the skirt of her gown a perfunctory darn, revealing but too evidently that to Letty there no longer seemed occasion for being particular. The sadness of it all sunk to Mary's heart: Letty had not found ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... He was attired in helmet and corselet, apparently of gold, like those worn by the sentinel, but with the addition of a splendid plume of long black feathers surmounting his helmet. Beneath his corselet appeared a sort of skirt of fine chain mail reaching to just below the knees, and his legs were protected by greaves made of the same metal as the rest of his armour. His feet were encased in buskins, a sash of black and yellow passed over his left shoulder and was knotted upon his right hip, while at his ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... the huge hoop skirt which had recently become fashionable. Addison, in a humorous paper in the 'Tatler' (No. 116), describes one as about twenty-four yards ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... in the intricacies of his spacious villa. We will take his advice, and instead of traveling in the clumsy rheda over the sandy road, we will ride out on horseback. The views along the road are pretty—now in a woody skirt, now by meadows in which the sheep and cattle find a later pasturage than higher up the country; so, by a winding path, we come upon a roomy and hospitable villa. This is Laurentinum, near Laurentum. We come before the atrium: a slave announces us, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... under cover Hope appears in a curiously worked upper garment of blue and white, short in the sleeves, in needlepoint, with a belt. Under this is a dress of red and orange, showing a blue under skirt in front. A scarf of the same colour as the dress is gracefully folded over the shoulders and hangs over the left arm; a rather deep collar and cuffs are both worked in needlepoint. The right hand rests upon an ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... under the table and when she comes in we'll rush out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." The maneuver was executed with spirit. At the preconcerted signal, out they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts—only to find something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to discover that it hung upon a strange ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... linen tunic embroidered with gold and girded himself with the skirt of the beggar. It gave him the look of a real slave. The queen soon reappeared dressed in the blue seamless garment of the women who work in ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... the sort. She was a typical Northerner if there ever was one—straight as a birch, dressed in fur cap and coat, short caribou skin skirt and moccasins, and with a braid hanging down her back as long as my arm. Lord, ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... was standing just inside tie ballroom, following Millicent round with her eyes, and beaming whenever she caught her bye. Beside her were two middle-aged sycophants, who were saying what a perfectly exquisite child Millicent was. It was at this moment that Mrs. Tate was grasped firmly by the skirt and her youngest daughter, Emily, aged eleven, hurled herself with an ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... spun on him in his turn. "Look at yourself in that silly skirt. A professional soldier! A killer! In my opinion the most useless occupation ever devised by man. Parasite on the best and useful members ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... and more resembled a tramp than the polished official of a few moments before. It was plainly evident to me that he had made a desperate attempt to follow my instructions. One-half of the skirt of his Prince Albert coat was entirely missing; no hat, a piece torn from the seat of his pants, only half of his linen collar left to grace his neck, and a single linen cuff to decorate his two wrists; one sleeve of his coat in rags, one of his pant legs fringed out, the perspiration running ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... warning, to beg them to flee before he came, and to tell him to keep away—away from this death-trap—away from this awful doom. But now she realised that other steps, quicker than her own, were already close at her heels. The next instant a hand dragged at her skirt, and she was down on her knees again, whilst something was wound round her mouth to prevent her uttering ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... ruffle, a delicate face with large dark eyes and soft lips. A black 'picture' hat concealed the hair; her figure was lightly poised against the back of the bench, her knees were crossed; the tip of a patent-leather shoe emerged beneath her skirt. There was something, indeed, inexpressibly dainty about the person of this lady, but young Jolyon's attention was chiefly riveted by the look on her face, which reminded him of his wife. It was as though its owner had come into contact with forces too strong for her. It ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Her skirt was rather tight, but her limbs were supple and her feet light, and she ran upstairs ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the silk and wool shirt (size No. 2), the diaper and stockings are quickly put on to avoid the least danger of chilling. The band having been applied at the time of the dressing of the cord, our baby is now ready for the flannel skirt. This should hang from the shoulders by a yoke of material adapted to the season, cotton yoke without sleeves if a summer baby, and a woolen yoke with woolen sleeves if a winter baby. The outing-flannel ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... departure, by being deterred both by ill omens, and the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the circuit of the temples, having seated himself in that of Vesta, when he attempted to rise, the skirt of his robe stuck fast; and he was instantly seized with such a dimness in his eyes, that he could not see a yard before him. In Achaia, he attempted to make a cut through the Isthmus;[154] and, having made a speech ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... Mr. Jones, looking ruefully at the patch on my pantaloons, which just then I endeavored to hide with the skirt of my shooting-jacket. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Mercutio, plucking at his friend's skirt, "the fellow there, talking with old Capulet—his wife's nephew, Tybalt, a quarrelsome dog—suspects we are Montagues. Let us get out of this peaceably, like soldiers who are too much gentlemen to cause a brawl ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... haven't arrived at our pitch of starvation yet, Leon, or you would welcome anything that would make you forget it even for a moment. Let's hear some more, Matt! Go on, tell us something. How to make coyottes out of paraffin paint, or convert a Sunday pair of pants into a glistening harem skirt! Anything that won't remind us ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Tavern, Holborn, disguised as common troopers and calling for cans of beer, till the sentinel they had placed outside came in and told them the man with the saddle had arrived; whereupon, going out, they collared the man, got possession of the saddle he carried, and, ripping up the skirt of it, found the King's letter to the Queen in which he quite agreed with her opinion of the two Army-villains he was then obliged to cajole, and assured her they should have their deserts at last. [Footnote: ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... rightly know; But, seems to me, I'm kind er lookin' for A tart I knoo a 'undred years ago, Or, maybe, more. Wot's this I've 'eard them call that thing?...Geewhizz! Me ideel bit o' skirt! That's wot ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis
... have to pass us. Move forward, women, in front of me. Spread out your skirt, you Redhead! It might be my death if yonder Nuremberg fine gentleman should see me here and recollect one thing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... returned almost immediately. There was no longer a bride in a white skirt, but a ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... tidy young man was distressed by his wife's carelessness in attire at home. He was especially annoyed by a torn skirt, which his wife was forever pinning and never mending. Being a tidy man, he had acquired some skill with a needle in his bachelor days. With the intention of administering a rebuke to his wife, he set to work on the skirt during her absence and sewed it up neatly. When, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... on the 26th April, Beechey reached the Sandwich Islands, where he remained some ten days, and then set sail for Behring Strait and the Arctic Ocean. His instructions were to skirt along the North American coast as far as the state of the ice would permit. The Blossom made a halt in Kotzebue Bay, a desolate, forbidding, and inhospitable spot, where the English had several interviews with the natives without obtaining any information about Franklin and his ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... old woman rummaged for a few moments in a heap of clothes thrown into the corner of the room,—the result, apparently, of many a day's begging or theft. From them she presently produced a child's nightgown, petticoat, and woollen skirt, a pair of coarse shoes much worn, and an old plaid shawl: with these ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... woman, with a becoming roundness of figure. Her yellow hair, parted evenly in the middle, curled prettily on her forehead. A blue shirt-waist with a turnover collar and a ready-made skirt spoke for a severe taste in dress. A gold-wire bracelet on her left wrist and a stickpin in her four-in-hand tie were her only ornaments. She had a fashion of raising her arm and shaking the bracelet back from her hand. When she ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... He said that God created few Englishmen of my kind, and that I was the incarnation of all human virtues. He offered me some of his sweets as tribute, and by accepting these I acknowledged him as my feudatory under the skirt of my protection. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... seats scattered about to make a halting-place. The sound of voices caught his ear, and he stopped, and now, looking stealthily through the brushwood, he saw Gorman O'Shea as he lay in a lounging attitude on a bench and smoked his cigar, while Nina Kostalergi was busily engaged in pinning up the skirt of her dress in a festoon fashion, which, to Cecil's ideas at least, displayed more of a marvellously pretty instep and ankle than he thought strictly warranted. Puzzling as this seemed, the first words ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... jewelled hand lying limply upon the spotted leopard skin. The beautifully moulded figure, slight yet perfect, swelling to the well-turned hip, tapering to the tip of the trim shoe which protruded from beneath the rumpled skirt, affording a tiny glimpse of a tempting ankle, was to him a most pathetic picture. As he was about to turn to the door, she awakened with a start and a faint cry. Sitting half erect, she gave a terrified, bewildered glance about her, her eyes ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... dress, or ought to be—and then they haven't the excuse that an actor or actress has, that it is a necessity of one's profession. However, there's nothing to be said about that costume, anyway; I really had forgotten that Mlle. Girond had got her pretty little blue coat made with so long a skirt. Besides, Nina, with a voice like yours, you will soon be beyond having to take parts ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... revisit the little town, but rather that one might walk by the still canal under the high trees in spring, or loiter in the market-place round what the Hun has left of the statue of the famous Admiral with his attendant nymphs, or wander down the winding streets that skirt the ancient church and give glimpses of ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... gathering up her sunbonnet and disappearing from the window. Janet heard her go upstairs, and a hasty opening of cupboards overhead. She herself had come back an hour earlier from the fields than Rachel in order to get supper ready, and had slipped a skirt over the khaki tunic and knickerbockers which were her dress—and her partner's—when at work on the farm. She wondered mischievously what Rachel would put on. That her character included an average dose of vanity, the natural vanity of a handsome woman, Rachel's new friend was well aware. But ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and when men should go to sleep Grettir would not put off his clothes, but lay down on the seat over against the bonder's lock-bed. He had a drugget cloak over him, and wrapped one skirt of it under his feet, and twined the other under his head, and looked out through the head-opening; a seat-beam was before the seat, a very strong one, and against this he set his feet. The door-fittings were all broken from ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth God, and fill the hills ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over the broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the high boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed brightly in the ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... in a queer way and said: 'Madame is laughing at me. Madame knows quite well that she wore the red dress last night.' Then she recalled everything in detail, how I sent her to a particular shelf where this dress was folded away and got her to freshen up a ribbon and press the skirt where it was wrinkled. Jeanne is also positive that I put on my black hat. Then, she says, I went out; I left the house at five minutes to nine and came back about eleven. There ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... she scurried across the floor, her lifted riding skirt displaying quite needlessly the heavy boots she wore. The skirts were held to her side by her elbows, for she had need of both her hands. In one of them she held a long silken scarf, and not until this had been ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... Shakespeare, or Massillon, or Sully, or the "Curiosities of Literature," or "Corinne," or Milner's Church History for Fleda's reading was as miscellaneous as ever was enjoyed under the flutter of leaves and along with the rippling of the mountain spring; whilst King curled himself up on the skirt of his mistress's gown, and slept for company; hardly more thoughtless and fearless of harm than his two companions. Now and then Fleda opened her eyes to see that her uncle was moody and not like himself, and that her aunt's gentle face was clouded in consequence; ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... every step. Now they were sliding and rolling into a deep crater, now scrambling up its steep sides with hands torn and bodies bruised by the jagged boulders. A yawning crevasse opened before them and they were forced to skirt its edge for fully a half mile in the wrong direction before they found a crossing. And the cold was unbelievably intense. Numbed and silent, with their eyes half blinded and lungs seared by the frosty air, they struggled on toward ...
— Vulcan's Workshop • Harl Vincent
... the horses, saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then, perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see, and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she burst into a ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... she was sitting on a wooden bench shaped like a sofa, under an arbor, in a loose dress of white muslin fastened with blue bows, her hair unadorned in waving bands over her cheeks, her feet on a small wooden stool, and showing a little way beyond her skirt. She did not rise; she showed me with her hand to the seat by her ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... he knew all the hard places, and was resolved while he stayed up that they should never chafe another occupant as they had him. So he set himself to provide stuffing, and took the lad about with him, and cast a skirt of his newly-acquired mantle of respectability over him, and put him in the way of making himself as comfortable as circumstances would allow, never disguising from him all the while that the bed was not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Trowbridge recounts it in "My own Story." It was a bitter cold night and covers were scanty; and more than that, there were several panes out of the window. Field rummaged about in the closet and found the hoops of an old hoop skirt, just then going out of fashion, and these he hung over the broken window, saying "That will keep out the coarsest of the cold!" "Coarsest of the cold," Father would repeat the expression and laugh ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... skirt of this little valley, protected, by a few spreading hawthorns, stood a small white farm-house, more immediately shaded by a close row of elder or boor-tree, which hung over one of the gables, and covered the garden gate, together with a neat grassy seat, that was ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... hard-cider campaign roared by my boy's little life without leaving a trace in it, except the recollection of his father wearing a linsey-woolsey hunting-shirt, belted at the waist and fringed at the skirt, as a Whig who loved his cause and honored the good old pioneer times was bound to do. I dare say he did not wear it often, and I fancy he wore it then in rather an ironical spirit, for he was a man who had slight esteem for outward shows and semblances; ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the well-preserved, fair-haired woman in short brown skirt and fresh white cotton blouse and ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... went quickly into his study, and I don't know why—whether it was that he wished to cause her extra pain, or whether he remembered it was usually done in such cases—he locked the door after him. She cried out and ran after him with a rustle of her skirt. ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... half-submerged willows, and made an angry clatter along stony shores. The course kept turning and turning in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now the river would approach the side, and run griding along the chalky base of the hill, and show us a few open colza-fields among the trees. Now it would skirt the garden-walls of houses, where we might catch a glimpse through a doorway, and see a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again, the foliage closed so thickly in front that there seemed to be no issue; only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Theigh like Rodopes; Which twas my chance to viewe, When lying on yon banck at ease, The wind thy skirt vp blew, 100 I would say it were a columne wrought To some intent Diuine, And for our chaste Diana sought, A pillar for ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... she quite for-got how large she had grown in the last few min-utes, and jumped up in such haste that the edge of her skirt tipped the ju-ry box and turned them all out on the heads of the crowd be-low; and there they lay sprawl-ing a-bout, which made her think of a globe of gold-fish which she had up-set the ...
— Alice in Wonderland - Retold in Words of One Syllable • J.C. Gorham
... fresh, and we skirt the rugged beach, close to the high-piled rocks at the water's edge, till we come to a cocoa grove sheltering ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... seemingly quietly reproachful under the public gaze, baptismal crosses, jewelled girdles, gloves, Paris blouses, English costumes. The refugees must sell all that they have, and some have sold all. I met the wife of a colonel of Life Guards. She was dressed in a cotton skirt, a cream-coloured "woolly," a waterproof, and a wretched cheap collar of fur. Once she never stepped out of her house but into a car. Now in weather-beaten thin old boots she must tramp from place to place over the cobbles, living ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... They was pulling her rings off her fingers. I told them to quit that. One of the mean things said, 'Little nigger, I shoot your head off.' They took all her nice clothes. They said they took all niggers. I sassed them. They went in another room. I shot under Miss Betty's big skirt. They looked about for me but they thought I run off to my mama. She was gone but they didn't know it. I seen my best times then. We had a good time there. Miss Betty was good and kind to me. Good as I wanted. I wish I ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... Julius March's habit to exchange his coat for a cassock in the privacy of his study. He did so now, and knotted a black cord about his waist. Let no one underrate the sustaining power of costume, whether it take the form of ballet-skirt or monk's frock. Human nature is but a weak thing at best, and needs outward and visible signs, not only to support its faith in its deity, but even its faith in its own poor self! Of persons of sensitive temperament and limited experience, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of fibre, the man wearing only a loin cloth, and in case of cold weather a piece of the same material covered the shoulders and back. The woman had a short skirt folded together at the back, and both sexes used rattan caps. Besides sago their main subsistence was, and still is, all kinds of animals, including carnivorous, monkeys, bears, snakes, etc. The gall and urine ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... to disentangle the shreds from the jagged edge of the spur, but she bent down, and, seizing the skirt in both hands, tore it away, leaving a large fragment ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson |
