"Back stairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... right to know it," she said, looking at him out of brilliant, unwinking eyes. "It's about father. He was out there—on the lawn—before he turned on the light in his room. I heard him come in, a minute before Berne went down the back stairs and out to the lawn. And I heard him go to his window and stand there, looking out, at least five long minutes before ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... misgivings, since there are only eleven in the whole mansion. At the same time, thee conventions of a prudish age make it undesirable that a second bath should be installed in one of the rooms already existing for that purpose. We think the fourth room on your right, as you leave the back stairs, going south. This is locally known as the Green Room and takes its name, not, as you may imagine, from the fact that the late Sir Henry Irving once slept there, but from the hue of the rodents, said there frequently to have been observed by the ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... him: "You need only go out this evening after dinner, and come in again immediately ... and you will see! ... you will see whether I have been lying! Just try it ... and you will see." She had reached the kitchen door and escaped, but he ran after her, up the back stairs to her bedroom into which she had locked herself, and knocking at the door, he said! "You will leave my house this very instant." "You may be certain of that, Monsieur," was her reply. "In an hour's time I shall not be ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... course of action, and Marcia, understanding perfectly flew up the back stairs as noiselessly as a mouse, to make her toilet after her nap in the woods, while David with much show and to-do of opening and shutting the wide-open kitchen door walked obviously into the kitchen and hurried ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... much fitter for it than I." Then he showed me a letter signed by the Queen, promising me all manner of security if I would come to Court. I went thither at midnight, according to agreement, and the Marshal, who introduced me to the Queen by the back stairs, having withdrawn, her Majesty used all the arguments she could to persuade me to accept the place of Prime Minister, which I was determined to refuse, because I found that she had the Cardinal at heart more than ever; for, as soon as she saw I would not accept the post of Prime Minister, ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... the same time, that one blanket would serve me till winter, could I persuade my sister, who slept with me, to keep my secret. She entering in the midst of the package, I gave her some new feathers, to silence her. We got the mattrass down the back stairs, unperceived, and I helped to carry it, taking with me all the money I had, and what I could borrow from ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... illumination told nothing. It was Geoffrey's own sharp ears that told him of light footsteps beyond the turn of the stairs. Here Holland recognised at once that the burglar had a great advantage. The flight of stairs from the hall reached the upper story at a point very near where the back stairs came up, while they descended to widely different places in the lower story, so that the burglar, looking down, could choose his flight of stairs as soon as he saw his pursuer committed to the other, and thus reach the lower hall with several seconds to spare. Fortunately, however, Geoffrey remembered ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... faltered as he made his way to the back stairs. Bridget was coming up. She started ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... quitted the room, and was hastening towards the shop, when he observed a figure on the back stairs. Quickly mounting them, he overtook on the landing ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... it," answered Jack, quickly. And then he motioned to his cousins. "Come on, let's see how fast we can make the change;" and off into the big farmhouse rushed the boys, clattering up the back stairs one after the other, to the two big ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... to be all right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering. These men ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... imagination or he can't climb through the window of a house he has never seen before. He must imagine everything perfectly—the silver on the sideboard, the watch under the pillow, and the butler stealing down the back stairs with a large, shiny pistol in ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... ill with it died, and Matilda saw the coffin going up the back stairs. She questioned the servants of the house, and one of them told her all about it then, bit by bit. Another lady was lying ill, and a third was recovering. The landlady, by way of excuse, said the greatest wrong had been done to herself, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... just daylight when Markham woke him. She dressed him hurriedly, and carried him and his crutch down the back stairs and into that very butler's pantry through whose window he had crept at the bidding of the red-haired man. No one else seemed ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... back stairs," the hostess directed at last. "I'm glad some o' you church folks has seen fit to come an' visit 'em. There ain't been nobody here this long spell, an' they've aged a sight since they come. They always send down ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... madame's whereabouts, which my secret suspicion made important; so I subdued my feelings and hastened quickly to my room, where I wrapped myself in a long, dark cloak. Thus equipped, I stole back again to the hall, and gliding with as noiseless a step as possible, found my way to the back stairs, down which I crept, holding my breath, ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... the tenant of the fourth story, Papa Ravinet, the second-hand dealer, was going to his dinner. If he had gone down as usually, by the front staircase, no noise would have reached him. But Providence was awake. That evening he went down the back stairs, and heard the death-rattle of the poor dying girl. In our beautiful egotistical days, many a man, in the place of this old man, would not have gone out of his way. He, on the contrary, hurried down to inform the concierge. Many a man, again, would have been quieted by the apparent calmness ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the robbers were coming in a waggon, which would halt some distance to the left of the house, and that their plan was to set one man at the end of the hall to hinder communication with the servants' quarters, and two on the upper landing to command the front and back stairs, while the remaining burglars ransacked the office and any other rooms in which plunder might be found. The youth's appointed mission was to fire the house, when the search was completed. Hardly ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... light Grimes' pipe and to release him; Learns that the old dame teacher was the mother of Grimes; Sees Grimes' tears effect his release; Recognizes Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid as the Irishwoman; Hears Grimes sentenced to sweep out Aetna; Is blindfolded and taken up the back stairs; Recognizes St. Brandon's Isle and hears the song; Rejoices with Ellie and goes with her Sundays; Becomes a man of science and knows everything; And, it may ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... strictly to confine yourself to your chamber, except now and then, in Betty Barnes's sight (as aforesaid) you take a morning or evening turn in the garden: and then you are to go directly, and without stopping at any apartment in the way, up or down the back stairs, that the sight of so perverse a young creature may not add to the pain you have ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... wished in my soul that I had not bought the stoves. But, at last, dinner was announced, and I knew that the hour had come. He ran upstairs to give a few touches to his toilet, when lo! the shining stoves and pipes caught his eyes. He explored the upper apartments and came down the back stairs, glanced at the kitchen stove, then into the dining room, and stood confounded, for a moment, before the nickel-plated 'Morning Glory.' Then he exclaimed, 'Heavens and earth! Charlotte, what have you been doing?' I remembered ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... within the ten minutes, but, as he descended the back stairs in his dry things, became aware that his stay had been too long. Noise and laughter came up from the stable-yard, and shouts of, "Go it keeper," "Keeper's down," "No he bain't," greeted his astonished ears. He sprang down the last steps ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... silent. Dan had flashed into the kitchen, and was about to leap from the window when he saw the gleam of a rifle-barrel, not ten feet away. He would be potted like a rat if he sprang out there, and he dashed noiselessly up the back stairs, as Chad started up the front stairway toward the garret, where he had passed many a happy hour playing with Margaret and Harry and the boy whom he was after as an enemy, now. The door was open at the first landing, and the creak of ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... caused a rare scurrying to and fro, for two commercial "drummers," who were to depart by the early morning boat, occupied the "reg'lar spar' room," the landlady informed us, and a bit of a cubby-hole off the back stairs had to be arranged for us. Guests are rarities, at the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... her brother through a door leading to the back stairs, and almost as soon as it was closed her visitor entered. Roger, however, did not retreat down the stairs; he stood and looked through the bobbin-hole. If the visitor turned out to be Sir John, he had determined ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... came to me in a flash when he first left me alone, only I was not certain in which parlor you would be waiting. I ran through the kitchen and down the back stairs; I helped the officers plan their decorations, and in that way learned of this private passage beneath the stairs. It was easy, but—oh, listen! they ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... thought, but his first certainly was to escape himself, for I saw him set his foot on the seat to leap over, when the soldiers pulled him back. Wilson was immediately carried out to the Tolbooth, and Robertson, getting uninterrupted through the Parliament Square, down the back stairs, into the Cowgate, was heard of no more till he arrived in Holland. This was an interesting scene, and by filling the public mind with compassion for the unhappy person who did not escape, and who ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... she added; "I always have been accustomed to a large house. It is only that this one seems to me inconvenient. The back stairs are so very central, and the telephones are so badly placed, one in the study, and the other away out in the back of the hall. Really, you would think, to see them, that the rector and the servants were the only ones to be considered, and ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... of Elizabeth because she was witness to our secret marriage when King Strang wouldn't let me have you. I liked Jim for the same reason. Do you mind how we four slipped one at a time up the back stairs in my father's house that night, while the ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... round and saw by Rupert's face that he had heard. It was like a stone. I don't know how it was, but it seemed to come into my head: 'If Baby Cecil is burnt it will kill Rupert too.' And I began to think; and I thought of the back stairs. There was a pocket-handkerchief in my jacket pocket, and I soaked it in the water on the ground. The town burgesses wouldn't buy a new hose when we got the new steam fire-engine, and when they used ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... have been seen the sarcophagus of John Paul Jones, in the crypt. One prefers to think that the architect had some such plan; for the crypt, as at present arranged, is hardly more than a dark cellar, approached by what seems to be a flight of humble back stairs. To descend into it, and find there the great marble coffin with its bronze dolphins, is not unlike going down into the cellar of a residence and there discovering the family silver reposing in ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... tell the student," said the goblin; and with these words he went quietly up the back stairs to the garret where the student lived. He had a candle burning still, and the goblin peeped through the keyhole and saw that he was reading in the torn book, which he had brought out of the shop. But how light the room ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... house. Alexander left off eating and watched them go away, first with one eye, then with the other. But he was too self-respecting to whimper. However, by the time the two friends had reached the second landing on the back stairs a terrible commotion was under way in the little yard. They rushed to an open window at the end of the hall ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... her eyes. Dora kissed Anne primly and squeezed out two decorous little tears; but Davy, who had been crying on the back porch step ever since they rose from the table, refused to say good-bye at all. When he saw Anne coming towards him he sprang to his feet, bolted up the back stairs, and hid in a clothes closet, out of which he would not come. His muffled howls were the last sounds Anne heard ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... me up some back stairs into a room occupied by a lady in one bed, her female attendant in another and, in various shakedowns on the floor, another woman, two men and more children than I could count by the light of one candle. We picked our way among them to the farther ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... said Jean, as she whisked into the closet and drew the door together just as Mary started down the back stairs to the laundry. ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... up her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the passage and down the back stairs. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... attached to them? You did. POOH. It is consequently my degrading duty to serve this upstart as First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one. And at a salary! A Pooh-Bah paid for his services! I a salaried minion! But I do it! It revolts me, but I do it! NANK. And it does you credit. POOH. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... minutes nothing occurred to disturb Sam, and he was just beginning to think that watching was all nonsense when he saw a dark figure creeping along the wall at the extreme lower end of the hallway, where it made a turn toward the back stairs. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... demanded Mrs. Boomsby, when she saw that she was flanked; for a glance behind me revealed the back stairs. "Parker Boomsby, come right up here, this minute!" she called down the ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... through numerous ante-chambers, nooks, and halls—broad white stone corner staircase, winding with low-arched roof. Our two rooms open into one another—mine large, with four black doors, one locked and two opening into closets, and back stairs, and if you mount to another story, all the rooms are waste garrets. Mrs. Stewart told us this morning that there were plenty of ghosts at our service belonging to Kinneil House. One in particular, Lady Lilyburn, who is ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... so far," replied the abbot soothingly. "True, both the front and the back stairs are open to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Nod to realize anything but that Peace was calling her, she stumbled out of bed once more and allowed herself to be bundled up in wraps of all sorts until she was as shapeless as a mummy. In this fashion they slipped down the back stairs and out to the barn without betraying their presence, though the steps creaked under their weight, and every door they opened squeaked so alarmingly that Peace held her breath more than once for ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... infant to run after errands that ever was, and Pa said he could stay, but we must remember that there musn't be no monkey business going on. I told him there shouldn't be no monkey business, but I didn't promise nothing about cats. Well, sir, you'd a dide. The committee was in the library by the back stairs, and me and my chum got the cat boxes all together, at the top of the stairs, and we took them all out and put them in a clothes basket, and just as the minister was speaking, and telling what a great good was done by these oyster sociables, in bringing the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... lived Kenealy and his family. His daughter Katherine had eyes of dark Irish—but why should you be told? Be content with your Geraldine or your Eliza Ann. For Con dreamed of her; and when she called softly at the foot of the back stairs for the pitcher of beer for dinner, his heart went up and down like a milk punch in the shaker. Orderly and fit are the rules of Romance; and if you hurl the last shilling of your fortune upon the bar for whiskey, the bartender shall take it, and marry ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... represent him to the world. For there are good reasons to believe, from several circumstances, that he had intentions of a deeper dye, than those he happened to execute;[18] I mean such as every good subject must tremble to think on. He hath of late been frequently seen going up the back stairs at court, and walking alone in an outer room adjoining to her Ma[jest]y's bed-chamber. He has often and earnestly pressed for some time to have access to the Qu[een], even since his correspondence with France; and he has ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... in through the gate and up the back stairs; Morten went into the shop and returned with five "Napoleons." "You see I know your taste," he said laughing. Morten's room was right up under the roof; it was a kind of turret-room with windows ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that there was some laundry due her in the basement. That must be collected. She walked on, having taken a second look around, and darted under the front steps to make her inquiry. She promised to call for the articles in ten minutes by way of the back stairs; then slowly ascended the brownstone steps, glancing up the street as she climbed, ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... three or four rooms still upon the same floor, filled with wonders as before. Nothing can be finer than the pictures themselves, nothing more surprising than the number of them. At length you descend the back stairs, which are in themselves large, though not like the other. However, not a hand's-breadth is left to crowd a picture in of the smallest size; and even the upper rooms, which might be called garrets, are not naked, but have some very good pieces ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... seized her pen and dashed off a note. It took but a few minutes after that to change her light gown for a dark one and to fling some things into a suit-case. Just as dinner was being announced, she slipped down the back stairs and out of the side door into the somber dusk of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... day of that week—it was about the middle of the afternoon—a score of men, gossiping in the lower hall of the court building, were hushed suddenly. A young man came hurrying down the back stairs ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... toothache, and ben down to de kitchen fire a smokin' pennyryal, and awful sick it made me. I was gwine up de back stairs, when I heard steps in de hall. I looked in and I seed a man and woman plain. I had de candle in my hand. I screeched right out, and shut my eyes, and let de candle fall. When I opened 'em again missus had come out of her room, wid ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... she forgot all about the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Just as she was going to think about them Mark and Dank put her in the dirty clothes-basket and rolled her down the back stairs to make her happy. They shut themselves up in the pantry till she had stopped laughing, and when Catty opened the door the clock struck and Mark said that ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set a high-backed rocking chair to keep the ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... hall is a library, 18x18 feet, lighted by three windows. At the farther end is a closet, and by the side of it a small entry leading into the nursery or family bedroom, 18x15 feet in size, which also has a corresponding closet with the library. On the rear of the nursery is a flight of back stairs opening from it. Under these stairs, at the other end, a door opens to another flight leading into the cellar below. A door also leads out from the nursery into the rear passage, to the offices; another door on the further side of the room opens ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... the place," said he. "It's a villainous den; but I didn't think any one here would be likely to do better with it than I would. Anyhow, you'll find hot water. I unearthed—literally—another kettle. And it's the first door at the top of the back stairs." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... room where I am now, a sorting out of your fine things as come up from the wash, and I found one o' her lace handkerchers among yourn, fotch up by mistake. So I jes took it and went down them back stairs as leads from this room down to hern, to give her back her handkercher; when jes as I got into her room, I seen her slip outen the other door leading into the hall. So after her I goes, to give her her handkercher—which I thought it was best to give ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... in the pantry, ready for the waitress, who is not expected to enter the kitchen during the service of a meal. She washes the dishes used in the kitchen and the meat dishes from the table; she must keep the kitchen and its adjuncts, including back stairs, refrigerator, back porch and closet in order. Her mistress plans the meals with her, and she is expected to make good and economical use of left-overs. She often does the ordering by telephone, and sees to the milk, ice, etc., ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... time now," said the Little Colonel, casting an anxious look toward the front windows. If the girls had not been so busily occupied, they might have noticed how she had been manoeuvring for some time to keep them away from the front windows. She even took them down the back stairs when they were ready for dinner, with the excuse that she wanted them to see the hamper in which Joyce's puppy was to travel. Eugenia's Bob was to be left at Locust until after she ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... moment uncertainly; then, with a stifled sob, left the room, and went down the corridor toward the servants' apartments; but halfway she stopped, hesitated, then descended the back stairs and stole softly along one of the passages. A door from the smoking room opened on to this passage, and against ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... hearing wheels grating on the gravel at the front door, and Maurice's voice, subdued and apologetic, she pushed her chair away from the table, rushed through the pantry and up the back stairs. She didn't know why she fled. She only knew that she couldn't face Eleanor, who would sit with Maurice while he bolted a supper for which—though Edith didn't know it!—all appetite had gone. In her room in the ell, Edith shut the door, and, standing ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... "Down the back stairs. The others were asleep, but I could not sleep, thinking of my little diamond in the cold river—" at that moment a wild shriek rang out again, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... a smart open carriage, containing two ladies and a gentleman, in the most odorous part of the proceedings, when he was obliged to clear the way from a half-loaded waggon to make room for them, and, what was quite as inconvenient, to hurry up the back stairs to his dressing-room to take off his long gaiters, Blucher boots (as half high ones were then called) and old shooting coat, and make ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... landing he walked along the narrow corridor until he stood at the head of the back stairs. The door nearest to him bore the name: "Cubanis Cigarette Company." He tried the handle. The door was locked, as he had anticipated. Kneeling down, he peered into the keyhole, holding the electric torch close beside his face ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... mother had come into the room, took the letter from under the paperweight, and without saying a word went out into the corridor, followed by Alexey Yegorytch. From the corridor they went down the narrow stone steps of the back stairs to a passage which opened straight into the garden. In the corner stood a lantern and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... them buffalo you, Jock," Emma had said, just before he left her. "They'll try it. If they give you a broom and tell you to sweep down the back stairs, take it, and sweep, and don't forget the corners. And if, while you're sweeping, you notice that that kind of broom isn't suited to the stairs go in and suggest a new ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... instant of breathless suspense as she noiselessly turned the knob. It yielded to her touch, and she stole into the kitchen and up the back stairs like an unsubstantial shadow of the night, rather than a very tired and sore-hearted girl. Once in her room she sat down on her bed to think things over. She dared not move about for fear of being heard by Marjorie or her mother. Long she sat, moodily reviewing the ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... three pairs of doors of its own, establishing several means of communication with the remaining portion of the apartment, or with certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is not unusual in such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet below. The whole situated on the first floor of so large an Hotel, that it did not absorb one entire row of windows upon one side of the square court-yard in the centre, upon which the whole four sides of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... opened, and Marie was in the room. If she gave a start of surprise at her husband's unaccustomed attitude, she quickly controlled herself. "Julia said you wanted me. I must have been going down the back stairs when you came up ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... not even answer this, which Nella thought very unkind of her. From the main staircase Marietta turned off at the first landing, and went down a short corridor to the back stairs of the house, which led to the narrow lane beside the building. Nella snorted softly in approval, for she had feared that her mistress would boldly pass through the hall where there were always one or two idle men-servants in waiting. The front door was closed against ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... "And then down the back stairs comes this here sandy-complected, horse-faced plumber that had been frittering away his time all day up in a bathroom over one little leak, and looking as sad and mournful as if he hadn't just won eight dollars, or whatever it ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... and take the three-cornered precaution of posting twelve men at the door of my house. I had to climb five flights of back stairs and go out through the servants' corridor and the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... dancing around the kitchen, sucking his thumb and trying to swear with his mouth full. Ma says,—this is all she said,—Ma says: 'Did you hit your finger, Lucius?' Pa let fly the hammer. It didn't miss her head a foot. Then he fired the flatiron at her feet. Ma screamed and started to run to'ards the back stairs. Pa knocked over the kitchen table trying to head her off. She stumbled and fell down on her hands and knees. Then while he was looking for something to beat her brains out with, she got up and run into the pantry and locked ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the two policemen prodded the other in the ribs with his night-stick. "That's on us, Jakey. He'll have been gone hours ago. Let's be drilling. 'Tis a fine mind ye have, Mr. Blount, to be thinking of thim back stairs right off the bat." And the pair went down in the elevator with Blount, chuckling to themselves at ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... company!" cried Nan. "They mustn't see you, Freddie, looking like this. I'll take you up the back stairs and change your clothes myself, or ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... the front door," said Linda, "and I am going to march straight to battle. She's going up the front stairs. I did mean to short-cut up the back, but, come to think of it, I have served my apprenticeship on the back stairs. I believe I'll ascend the front myself. Good-bye, darlin', ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... right on the terrace," and turning Nelly ran in-doors. Once in her room she speedily shifted into her linen riding suit, then slipping down the back stairs, sped across the dark lawn to the stables. They were dark and silent. Not a soul was in Shelby's cottage where the stable key was kept and a moment later Nelly had taken it from its hook and was at the stable door. A bubble of nickers, or the soft munching of feeding ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... concealment]. — N. camouflage; mimicry; hiding place; secret place, secret drawer; recess, hold, holes and corners; closet, crypt, adytum^, abditory^, oubliette. ambush, ambuscade; stalking horse; lurking hole, lurking place; secret path, back stairs; retreat &c (refuge) 666. screen, cover, shade, blinker; veil, curtain, blind, cloak, cloud. mask, visor, vizor^, disguise, masquerade dress, domino. pitfall &c (source of danger) 667; trap &c (snare) 545. V. blend ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... just as quietly as I could, and slipped through mother's room and down the back stairs. Mother was in the vegetable garden watering the transplanted lettuce. I ran out to her. "Mother," I said, "may I go over to Lorraine's and ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... ambitions; showing us the great Duke of Marlborough not as the military hero, the idol of war-crazed multitudes, but as without personal honor, and governed by despicable avarice. In a word, Thackeray gives us the "back stairs" view of war, which is, as a rule, totally neglected in our histories. When he deals with the literary men of the period, he uses the same frank realism, showing us Steele and Addison and other leaders, not with halos about their heads, as popular authors, but in slippers and dressing gowns, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... gate and crept quietly to the backyard of Freddie's house. The kitchen-door was locked, but Toby found a window which was unfastened. He raised it noiselessly, and helped Freddie to climb in. With a whispered good-night the Little Boy left his friend and tiptoed into the house and up the back stairs in the dark to his ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... in a little tobacco shop, with a pipe in his mouth and a glass and bottle on the table at his elbow. Henri was at home, still scrubbing and cleaning. The front of the great house was in order, with even the fires laid on all the hearths ready for lighting. Now he was scrubbing the back stairs. His brush bumped noisily against the steps, and the sound of its scouring was nearly drowned by the jerky tune which the old fellow sung through his ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... visitors, of whatever name or nation, direct to the upper regions the moment they enter? Why, then, make the northwest passage thither the most conspicuous route from the door? Do you intend to restrict the family to the back stairs, which by your showing are, like the famous descensus Averno, wonderfully easy to go down, but mighty hard to get up again? Yet you place these front stairs at the very farthest remove from the ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... plate, was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant came to shew Emily to hers. Having passed up a large stair-case, and through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which led into a short passage in a remote part of the chateau, and there the servant opened the door of a small chamber, which she said was Ma'amselle Emily's, who, once more alone, indulged the tears she had ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... agility, the audience opening a way for him sufficient to receive them both; in hurrying out at the south gate of the church, he stumbled over the collection money. Thence he reeled and staggered through the Parliament Close, and got down the back stairs, which have now disappeared, often stumbling by the way, and thus got into the Cowgate, some of the town-guard being close after him. He crossed the Cowgate, ran up the Horse Wynd, and proceeded along the Potterrow, the crowd all the way ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... looking at each other in utter dismay, then—" The back stairs," whispered Dan. "Fly, children, scoot, and hop into bed as ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... moment she stood undecided in her room, and pressed both hands against her wildly beating heart. Then she went resolutely to the door and hastened down the back stairs. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... each other's, an' no hard feelin'—only good spirits an' pleased with each other's taste. Everybody knew who'd sent what, an' everybody hed bought it for some not so high-minded use as it hed hed before, an' kep' their dignity that way. Front-stair carpet was bought to go down on back stairs, sittin' room lamp for chamber lamp, kitchen stove-pipe for wash room stove-pipe, an' so on, an' the clothes to make rag rugs—so they give out. The things kep' on an' on bein' snapped up hot-cake quick, an' the crowd beginnin' to gather outside, waitin' to get in, ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... I crep' down a back stairs to the telephone I do believe he'd have set about me with ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... to put the horse into the stable immediately, and the basket into the brew-house. Then she hurried Mary up the back stairs to her room, and went with a beating heart to find Mr. Hope ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... minutes' walk. We felt perfectly at home there. We opened the front door, and walked in without ceremony. No one was in the front rooms. We passed quickly through them into the little room at the foot of the back stairs. I noticed the furniture as soon as I entered. It was new, and was arranged pretty much as Miriam had described it. Ackermann and Annie stood by the window looking into the garden. I am not sure, but I think he was holding her hand. They turned as we entered, and, for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the kitchen of the good housewife shows at four in the afternoon. In the woodshed beyond she gathered a great armful of wood, not to bother with the basket, which would not hold so much—and hurried back again, making toward the front stairs this time, because the back stairs were narrow and steep, and one could not rush up them at great speed with one's ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... talk!" she commanded. "Just get up and do as I say. Go down the back stairs, mind! I'll let you in again in time to ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... ill, very ill indeed. We have two nurses. Nora and Connie are shut away in the morning-room and to the back stairs and their own rooms with Miss Ellis, and have not seen us since the dear child was first taken ill. Tell your young friend that I am sending you a hamper from Buzzard's, with double of everything, and I am writing to Miss Ware to ask her to take you both to anything that may be going on ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... mother will never know when she kisses you good night. Then after the roast I will go to your house, and climb up that tree, and go to bed in your room. And I will have one of your gingham dresses to wear, and very early in the morning I will get up, and you get up, and we both of us can get down the back stairs without being ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... theatre; the overfed inhabitants of the villa in the stalls hoping for gross excitement to assist them through their hesitating digestions; an ignorant mob in the pit and gallery forgetting the miseries of life in imbecile stories reeking of the sentimentality of the back stairs. Were other ages as coarse and common as ours? It is difficult to imagine Elizabethan audiences as not more intelligent than those that applaud Mr Pettit's plays. Impossible that an audience that could sit out Edward II. could find any pleasure in such sinks of literary infamies as In ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... before the news of the Latham divorce was made definitely public by a paragraph under the heading of "Society News," in one of the New York papers, though of course the rumour had crept into every house on the Bluffs, by way of the back stairs. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... in the honoring of artists and men of letters. Let a young unknown writer accomplish a successful tragedy, and the next day he sits at the king's table—not in a metaphor, but face to face. See how different the matter is in our court, where the artists are shown up the back stairs, and where no poet (even by the back stairs) can penetrate, unless so fortunate as to be a banker also. What is the use of kings and queens in these days, except to encourage arts and letters? Really I cannot see. Anybody can hunt ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... state of her health. Every one noticed how ill she looked when she came up stairs. Margaret, there is a back door, you are aware, leading from your lady's bath-room down to the flower garden. Go around and go up the back stairs and see if that door is open—if so, enter the rooms by it and open this," said her ladyship, never ceasing, while she talked, to rap at and shake the door at ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... out by the back stairs again and the kitchen —now in a state of great activity, the gas ring lit and preparations for lunch going on apace—and forth into the yard. Out in the open air he drew a long breath: safe in tweeds and a felt hat, he was his own man ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... Little Sweetheart; "nobody will ever know me in this. I'll put it on, and creep down the back stairs, and beg a mouthful of food from some of the servants, and they'll never know who I am; and then I'll go back to bed, and stay there till the Prince comes to fetch me. Of course, he will come before long; and if he ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... bed, paused to listen at the door of his mother's room but heard no sound. Reassured, he crept noiselessly down the back stairs into the kitchen, out through the rough room into the shed where the corn was kept. He filled the pockets with hen corn, the bright moonlight shining in through the window gave him all the light he needed, until his pajamas looked as though they had the bubonic plague. ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... close to the kitchen, which was allotted to General Ivolgin, the nominal master of the house, who slept on a wide sofa, and was obliged to pass into and out of his room through the kitchen, and up or down the back stairs. Colia, Gania's young brother, a school-boy of thirteen, shared this room with his father. He, too, had to sleep on an old sofa, a narrow, uncomfortable thing with a torn rug over it; his chief duty being ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pass over "les autres") generally sneaked into his house or apartment by the back stairs and into the bathtub before he showed himself to his adoring family; but after those first strenuous hours of scrubbing and disinfecting and shaving, and getting into a brand new uniform of becoming horizon blue, there followed hours of rejoicing unparalleled by anything but ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Parsons had disappeared down the back stairs Beth drew a long breath and approached Tom Gates, who still stood by the wall staring at the place ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686, Gentleman Usher of the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset (on the decease of George, second Viscount Castlewood), accompanied his Majesty to St. Germains, where he died without issue. No Groom of the Posset was appointed by ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came running up the back stairs with some that he had gone to get, and the woman bade Maxwell sprinkle his wife's face. But he said: "No—you," and he stooped and took his wife's head into his own hands, so that she might not come to in the lap of ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... only go out this evening after dinner, and come in again immediately, and you will see! You will see whether I have been lying! Just try it, and you will see." She had reached the kitchen door and escaped, but he ran after her, up the back stairs to her bedroom, into which she had locked herself, and knocking ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... for answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and in due time, they heard the "Sweet Bye and Bye" going up the back stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain's shoes on ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... was a gentleman; for the Vishnu Pooran was his Chesterfield, and he had its precepts by heart. "A wise man," he would say to the pert young Kitmudgars, as they bragged and wrangled, between their hubble-bubbles, on the back stairs,—"a wise man will never address another with the least unkindness; but will always speak gently, and with truth, and never make public another's faults. He will never engage in a dispute with either his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... butler's pantry. On the bedroom floors the passages are large enough for dressing-rooms and baths, connecting with the bedrooms, and for outer halls and laundries connecting with the maids' rooms and the back stairs. In this way, you see, the maids can reach the dressing-rooms without invading the bedrooms. The kitchen and its dependencies occupy the first floor of the new wing, the servants' bedrooms the next ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... an alarm the night preceding, the prisoners in the jail having broken out. A serious affray had been expected, and everything was prepared for putting the person of the president in safety. The back stairs and secret passages in these old convents lead to excellent hiding-places, and have been put to frequent use during the revolutions. In the old Monte Pio there is a communication with a convent of nuns, and in cases of pillage, the jewels used ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca |
