"Tidy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you may not. Nest, who has made his room tidy these many days, is not fit to go in now. Mrs Bellingham has brought her own maid, and the family nurse, and Mr Bellingham's man; such a tribe of servants and no end to packages; water-beds coming by the carrier, and a doctor from London coming down to-morrow, as if feather-beds ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... people moved to Chicago and she left school. I didn't see her for almost ten years: then I met her accidentally on Randolph street in Chicago. She knew me, and insisted on my going out with her to see her home. It was in the suburbs, and was a very pretty, tidy little place, with a garden in front, where Martha raised vegetables, and a little plot for flowers. She was so proud of it all and of her two pretty babies, and showed me her chickens and her furniture and a picture of her husband. They had bought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... knitting-needles were laid aside, drawing was neglected, and mantua-making and millinery, on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn't quite as tidy as it used to be, and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly small caps, rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll, with a small piece of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 'It is a tidy little lark for a Blunderbore to have thought of,' said Edgar. 'Tis a good sort of giant ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will, Skinner," Easton said, taking the hand he held out. "I don't know that it was altogether your fault. My people at home are rather particular about our being tidy and that sort of thing, and when I came here and some of you rather made fun of me about it, I think that I stuck to it all the more because it annoyed you. I shall be going up for Sandhurst this term, and I am very glad to be on good ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... comes quite as a relief. It is an evidence of life. This Hotel's exceptional quietude suggests the idea of its being conducted like a prison on the silent system, with, of course, dumbwaiters to assist in the peculiarly clean and tidy salle ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... I said this, I began to fear she would think I meant it. But she only smiled and said, "It won't hurt she, sir; and my good man, who does all he can to keep her tidy, is out at toes and heels, and if I don't keep he warm he'll be laid up, and then the church won't be kep' nice, sir, till ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... stood by in grave attitudes, Packing the article tidy and neat;— As their Reverences know that in southerly latitudes "Moral positions" don't ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Hammy must set to work and tidy it up; and oh! what lots of nice manure was floating about, all for nothing the cartload ... And so the primeval family felt better, and went back to the ark to tea, feeling almost cheerful, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... into the school, a tumble down place, but clean and tidy, and with about forty bright, neatly dressed children. Stephen was delighted at the sight and beamed on them all, and yelled and laughed, gave a little chap a sum of multiplication on the blackboard which he ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... don't know what she weighs in at. But she's got a tidy gait. The Rambler—that's her name—don't take the dust of anything afloat. This is my first trip on her. I'm taking a squint along this coast just to get an idea of the countries where the rubber and red pepper and revolutions come from. I had no idea there was so much scenery ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... sewing-machine. For a little while its singing hum was heard between the blasts that shook the house, but the thread presently snapped, and the machine was put aside somewhat impatiently, with a discontented drawing of the lines around her handsome mouth. Then she began to "tidy" the room, putting a great many things away and bringing out a great many more, a process that was necessarily slow, owing to her falling into attitudes of minute inspection of certain articles of ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... looked up with a sickly smile. Take me back to the 'Gaierty' Hotel she whispered faintly. With pleasure my darling said Bernard I will just pack up our viands ere I unloose the boat. Ethel felt better after a few drops of champaigne and began to tidy her hair while Bernard packed the remains of the food. Then arm in arm they tottered to the boat, I trust you have not got an illness my darling murmured Bernard as he helped her in, Oh no I am very strong said ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... livin' on a farm there named Mrs Hardwick—an' she was a hard wick. Her husban', Jimmy Hardwick was throwed from his horse agenst a stump one day when he was sober, an' he was killed—an' she was a widder. She had a tidy bit o' land, an' a nice bit of a orchard an' vineyard, an some cattle, an' they say she had a tidy bit o' money in the bank. She had the worst tongue in the district, no one's character was safe with her; but she wasn't old, an' she wasn't bad-lookin'—only ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... will not find them burdensome. It is against the rules to sit upon your bed during the day-time. You see it will make the bed look untidy, and that is the reason for this rule. Now, we will straighten the bed out nicely, and then it will be quite tidy again." ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... alliance with the infernals, as there is too much reason to believe was the case with their North British sisterhood.[45] The common nursery story cannot be forgotten, how, shortly after the death of what is called a nice tidy housewife, the Elfin band was shocked to see that a person of different character, with whom the widower had filled his deserted arms, instead of the nicely arranged little loaf of the whitest bread, and a basin of sweet ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... in the blazing sunshine, through Iffley lock and under the green hill crowned with Iffley village and its Norman church. The hay was out in the fields, and the air was full of it. Children, in tidy Sunday frocks, ran along the towing-path to look at them; a reflected heaven smiled upon them from the river depths; wild rose-bushes overhung the water, and here and there stray poplars rose like land-marks into the sky. The heat, after a time, deadened conversation. ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with male obstinacy, always asserted that the room was tidy enough, and that he hated to live in a prim apartment. He said that he could lay his hand on anything he wanted, and that the seeming confusion was perfect order to him. Lucy gave up arguing on these grounds, but privately determined that when the honeymoon was over she would have a grand ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... parts with yellow bar soap so that it would run smoothly in the loop and tighten smartly, without undue tugging. He might have used grease or lard, but soap was tidier, and Uncle Tobe, as has been set forth, was a tidy man. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... it, doesn't it? There it is, all soaked with dew. I soon got it down, and I have been busy over the bed. You had trampled it terribly, and there were two great bits of ivy snapped off as well and lying there. I've made it pretty tidy, and there has been such a heavy due that your footprints on the grass, and those of Joe Hanson, going round the house, are pretty well taken out. They'll be all right now, ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... of the farmers' gigs, which, on a Sunday afternoon, when the principal service was held, made quite a respectable show when drawn up in a line. By the side of it was a cottage, in which lived the woman who kept the place tidy, and her husband, who looked after the horses as they were unharnessed and put in the stable close by. The backs of the gigs were sheltered from the road by a hedge of lilacs, and over the gateway a gigantic elm ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... with folly a-flutter, Until you have learned how to manage a broom, If never you know how to tidy a room, Manipulate bread or decide about butter, The duties of matron how dare you assume, Or ever be ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... agreed that they were diamonds—real diamonds! Perhaps they had been deceived, or—by George! Did these two men mean to say that they were real diamonds, but that they were manufactured? Mr. Latham's tidy little imagination balked at that. Absurd! Whoever heard of a diamond as big as the Koh-i-noor, or the Regent, or the Orloff being made? They were crazy—the pair ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... gardener. The spring boxes for the verandah steps have been filled with pink and white and yellow tulips. I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... portrait is printed in nineteen Sunday newspapers all over the country. They're launched, and Reggie comes into his own with a profit for the season in a cash balance of $50,000. He's had a bully time all summer, entertained like a Prince, and comes to the rainy season with a tidy little umbrella to keep him out of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... father says the word, I 'll bring ye back to the Lucy Ann while he goes across the neck. Ye 'll get a taste of mackerel-fishing if ye come along o' me. Ye can make yourself handy on deck and keep a quarter of your own catch for yourself if you 're lively. A tub of salt fish would be a tidy present to your mother when you ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... line to the mouth, and no twinkle in the blue eyes. Bartley stepped over to the long table and watched the game. Craps, played by these free-handed sons of the open, had more of a punch than he had imagined possible. A pile of silver and bills lay on the table—a tidy sum—no less ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he exhibit even the most elementary caution—he wrote and signed all his letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... to himself, "A suburb sink! has Hall or his son taken the trouble to walk all the way down to Aldersgate here, to peep up the entry where I live, and so have an exact notion of my whereabouts? There has been plague in the neighborhood certainly; and I hope Jane Yates had my doorstep tidy for the visit." Does Milton, answering Hall's innuendo that he was courting the graces of a rich widow, tell us that he would rather "choose a virgin of mean fortunes honestly bred"? Mr. Masson forthwith breaks forth in a paroxysm of what we ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... did that happen? Well, it was one morning when they came to tidy up the lumber-room; they threw it really rather roughly on the floor, but a servant dragged it off at once downstairs, where there ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... our house for us, and cook, and wash, and make the beds, and sew and knit, and keep everything tidy and clean, you may stay with us, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... he, "I'm glad to see you; and so is Mrs. B. Ain't you, Em'ly?" Whereupon Em'ly said that she was delighted to see Mr. Robinson. "And you're just in time for as tidy a bit of roast veal as you won't see again in a hurry,—fed down at Gogham by Em'ly's mother. I killed it myself, with my own hands. Didn't ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... clothing; while two were ticketing a pile of red flannel and blue hickory shirts. Four sewing-machines stood near the wall where grated windows admitted sunshine, and their hymn to Labor was the only sound that broke the brooding silence. The room was scrupulously clean and tidy, and the inmates, wearing the regulation uniform of blue-striped homespun, appeared comparatively neat; but sordid, sullen, repulsively coarse and brutish were many of the countenances bent over the daily task, and now and then swift, furtive ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... and if she could not find reasonable fault with any body, that seemed to vex her more than anything else. Then she scolded us all in a lump together. "Dame Hilda, what an untidy chamber!"—she usually began in that way—"why don't you make these children put their playthings tidy? (Of course Dame Hilda did, at the end of the day; but how could we have playthings tidy while we were playing with them?) Meg, your hair is no better than a mop! Jack, how got you that rent in your sleeve? (I never knew Jack ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... very tidy. A newspaper newly fallen to the rug before the fire and another—an evening one—spread flat on the table are (besides a child's mug and plate, also on the table) the only things not stowed in their prescribed places. It is evening—the light beyond the little square window ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... give them five rounds rapid while they're getting ready to fire one. Fire from the hips, they do. I never seen the likes of it." It was the professional criticism of the most perfectly trained body of marksmen in the world, and we listened with respect. "But they've got some tidy snipers," he added candidly. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... an end; therefore, as much a matter of economy of time and toil as building a road. Almost every cottage has specimens of fine art on the walls in the shape of pictures "done" by Jane or Eliza, or embroidery upon lambrequin, portiere, or tidy. It occurs to Jane and Eliza as seldom as to their fore-mothers, that cooking is an art in itself, that may be "fine" to exquisiteness. In their eyes, it is an ugly necessity, to be got over as expeditiously ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... the breeze holding bravely, we had an opportunity to test our sailing powers against the craft ahead of us; a most exhilarating race resulting, in which, to the intense satisfaction of all hands on board the Esmeralda, that tidy little barque eventually ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... his force is not only on our flank, but in front of us. There is very little left of the Army of Northern Virginia. It can fight no more. It is going to surrender here, but in the meantime there may be a tidy little scrimmage in this strip of woods, and I for one want to have my share in it. Now let me go to sleep and wake me when ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... set off alone, and on the way she met a plum-tree. 'Oh, Peasie!' cried the tree, 'stop a bit, there's a good soul, and tidy up my thorns a little; they are scattered about so ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... now at home in the shabby cottage on the outskirts of Colversham where he lived with his mother and four sisters. Poor as the place was it was spotlessly neat and Tim's family were spotlessly tidy too. Mrs. McGrew, who supported her household by doing washing for some of the families in the town, might have had a permanent and much more lucrative position elsewhere had it not been for leaving her five little ones; as it was, she clung to her children, struggling to meet her living expenses ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... "Yoshio has an Oriental imagination and quite a flair for romance. I did pull him out of a hole in 'Frisco but he was putting up a very tidy little show on his own account. He's the toughest little beggar I've ever come across and doesn't know the meaning of fear. If I'm ever in a big scrap I hope I shall have ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... something to ask. In the first place, I am better. Mr. Harness, who, God bless him, left that Temple of Art, the Deepdene, and Mr. Hope's delightful conversation, to come and take care of me, stayed at Swallowfield three weeks. He found out a tidy lodging, which he has retained, and he promises to come back in November; at present he is again at the Deepdene. Nothing could be so judicious as his way of going on; he came at two o'clock to my cottage and we drove out together; then he went to his lodgings ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... marks of poverty were plainly evident; but at the same time each object presented a tidy and cleanly appearance and although the cottage lacked many luxuries, still comfort seemed to reign supreme. The rush covered floor; the table, polished to brightness; and the flower vases, filled with odorous boquets ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... Riding-Hood was at play in the wood, the great wolf galloped on as fast as he could to the old woman's house. Grandmother lived all by herself, but once or twice a-day a neighbour's child came to tidy her house and get her food. Now, grandmother was very feeble, and often kept her bed; and it happened that she was in bed the day Little Red Riding-Hood went to see her. When the wolf reached the ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... such thoughts, she has married another, I must tidy away all the memories of yore. There's a smile on the face of her match-making mother, And her family rejoice as they ne'er have before. It has happened. Her mother, I know, always said it Would prove to be so with her beautiful girl, And the fair AMARYLLIS has done ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... an off-day—a day of cloudless summer beauty. Tired men had slept; tidy men had washed their clothes; restless men had wandered at ease about the countryside, careless of the guns which grumbled everlastingly a few miles away. There had been impromptu Church Parades for each denomination, in the corner of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... man would gladly have married her, to woo her was more than any dared; and Gentleman Jan himself, the rightful bully of the quay, as being the handsomest and biggest man for many a mile, beside owning a tidy trawler and two good mackerel-boats, had said openly, that if any man had a right to her, he supposed he had; but that he should as soon think of asking her to marry him, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... so arranged then; and though Elizabeth was rather disappointed to hear that she was not to see her tidy house at Tonsberg again, she allowed no indication of the feeling to escape her, and Salve went by himself to arrange ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... pass the battle-field of Tel-el-Kebre, the train whisking right through the centre of Arabi Pasha's earthworks. Near the battle-field is a little cemetery where the English soldiers killed in the battle were buried. The cemetery is kept green and tidy, and surrounded by a neat iron fence; amid the gray desert that begins at Tel-el-Kebre this little cemetery is the only bright spot immediately about. From Tel-el-Kebre to Suez the country is a sandy desert, where sand-fences, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and a tidy-looking lad making his appearance, he told him to get me a wench just as though he were ordering a bottle of champagne. The lad went out, and presently a girl ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... got up in good time, folded up his nightshirt, and made his room so tidy that the housemaid nearly had a surprise-fit when she went in. He crept downstairs like a mouse, and learned his lessons before breakfast. Lucy, on the other hand, got up so late that it was only by dressing hastily that she ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... at our house that is being mighty good— Keeps the front lawn looking tidy in the way we've said he should; Doesn't leave his little wagon, when he's finished with his play, On the sidewalk as he used to; now he puts it right away. When we call him in to supper, we don't have to stand and shout; It is getting on to Christmas and it's plain ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... their respective bottles of wine, spirits, &c., as the said Ganymedes had not previously consumed, while the rest, broken in to such observance by Mr. Winterblossom, waited patiently until the worthy president's own special and multifarious commissions had been executed by a tidy young woman and a lumpish lad, the regular attendants belonging to the house, but whom he permitted to wait on no one, till, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Broek-in-Waterland, the landscape, already fragrant with daintiness, began to tidy itself anew, out of deference to Broek's reputation. The smallest and rudest wooden houses on the canal banks had frilled their windows with stiff white curtains and tied them with ribbon. Railings had painted themselves blue or green, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... be covered with new of the same colour. Generally speaking, it is desirable that the characteristics of an old book should be preserved, and that the new work should be as little in evidence as possible. It is far more pleasant to see an old book in a patched contemporary binding, than smug and tidy in the ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... coach, with a crowd of glittering lackeys around, came up to the cottage of Parker Clare, the pauper. Mrs. Clare was utterly terrified, for she was standing at the washing-tub, and the baby was crying. Her greatest pride consisted in keeping the little cottage neat and tidy; but, as ill-luck would have it, she was always washing whenever visitors dropped in. The marquis, with aristocratic tact, saved poor Patty from a fresh humiliation. Hearing the loud voice of the baby ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... in a calm and soothing manner, and Jennie seemed really distressed, as she vainly tried to divert her from her grief by emptying the treasures of her pocket before her. The room was as clean as it could possibly be, and the persons of its occupants neat and tidy, but every thing betokened severe and pinching poverty. The bed for the three was in one corner, and this, with one table and a few chairs, comprised all their worldly goods. The healthy girl was washing ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... away the cooking rack in the case they had made for it, the two mothers packed up debris and burned it so the beach would be left clean and tidy, and all the others gathered wood. Such a lot as they did find! Linn piled it on high and by the time the sun went to sleep in the west, the fire was so bright that nobody noticed the growing darkness. They all sat around on the warm sand ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... of the monastery watched the work of the "Last Supper" with impatient eyes. He had given up the room to the lumbering scaffolds, hoping to have all cleaned up and tidy in a month, come Michaelmas. But the month had passed and only blotches of color and black, curious outlines marred the walls. Once the Prior threatened to remove the lumber by force and wipe the walls clean, but Leonardo looked at ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... was stern as he finished, for he had known Dick's father and mother in their own tidy little home, and he hated Mrs. Fowley's drinking habits, and her neglect of the children, and unkindness to the orphan boy. For once she looked ashamed of herself, and the neighbours, feeling guilty themselves, slipped ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... and Teen closed the door. The small apartment into which he was ushered was very meagre and bare, but it was clean and tidy, and more comfortable in every way than the one he had just left. A dull fire smouldered at the very bottom of the grate, and the inevitable teapot sat upon the hob. The little seamstress was evidently very busy, piles of her coarse, unlovely ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... by the rains of heaven (if at all), and my hair certainly looked as though it were combed by the wind, for between the rough riding and the stiff breezes that sweep over the plateau, it was impossible to keep tidy. But, thanks to Wang, I could always maintain a certain air of respectability in putting on ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... itself, place itself; fall into one's place, take one's place, take one's rank; rally round. adjust, methodize, regulate, systematize. Adj. orderly, regular; in order, in trim, in apple-pie order, in its proper place; neat, tidy, en regle [Fr.], well regulated, correct, methodical, uniform, symmetrical, shipshape, businesslike, systematic; unconfused &c (confuse) &c 61; arranged &c 60. Adv. in order; methodically &c adj.; in turn, in its turn; by steps, step by step; by regular ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had not yet made her magnificent entry into the war—as he had already said to himself a hundred times. "Lost their chance of coming in on the side of civilization, and helping sweep the world up tidy of barbarism. Shoulder to shoulder with us, that's where they ought to have been. English-speaking races—duty to the world—" He then damned the Americans; but was suddenly interrupted by perceiving that if they had been shoulder to shoulder with him and England ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... case. A poor widow called once, and said she would be so grateful if we would admit her little girl and boy into the schools. She looked clean and tidy, and the children had not been neglected. She could not afford to pay for them, as she had not a penny in the world, and applied to us because we made no charge. The children were admitted and supplied with a plain but nourishing ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... actress is her hair. But it is equally true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig. Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of a toy-shop. Tropic ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... that, Mrs. Kronborg. I wish we could get the old man off his bottle and keep him tidy. Do you suppose if I gave you an old overcoat you could get him to wear it?" The doctor went to the bedroom door and Mrs. Kronborg looked up ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... had finished and had made everything tidy in the room, and he had gone to the cellar and replenished the coal-hod, he told her something of his own life. For a little while she listened, but soon the room became blurred to her and she sank farther and farther among the ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... get her a first-class place as a parlor maid where she can have eighteen dollars a month, which I couldn't afford to pay. There is a cook and a laundress kept, so she won't lose by coming down. She is very nice, pleasant and tidy, and we had to have some one in the emergency. And poor little Marilla must have gone to a hospital but for your kindness. We are all so obliged and if Mr. Borden can be of service to you, sometime, he will be very glad. These are ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... and tried with the long claws on her little black hands to comb through Dot's long gleaming curls; but they were so tangled that the child called out at this awkward method of hairdressing, and the Kangaroo stopped. She then licked a black smudge off Dot's forehead, which was all she could to tidy her. Then she started back with a hop, and eyed the child with her head on one side. She was not quite satisfied. "Ah!" she said, "if only you were a baby Kangaroo I could make you look so nice! But I can't do anything to your sham coat, which gets ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... up an' the house to tidy in my veil and bonnet. Thar ain't many women, I reckon, that would wash up china in a crape veil, but I've done it befo' an' ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... it was possible to soften the terrible impression his face produced. With this in view, skillful painters, barbers, and artists were summoned, and all night long they were busy over Lazarus' head. They cropped his beard, curled it, and gave it a tidy, agreeable appearance. By means of paints they concealed the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face. Repulsive were the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they were puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth background, wrinkles of good-tempered ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... beautifully kept by Monsieur Benoit, and withered old Mere Michele, who did the weeding and helped Rose once a week in the laundry. There were such pretty trellises, covered with roses and clematis; such masses of bright flowers and sweet mignonette; such tidy gravel walks and clipped box edges; such floods of sunshine; so many butterflies and lizards basking in it; the birds singing with excess of joy. I used to fancy they sang in gratitude to the dear old Marquise, who never forgot them in ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Do you remember them?' We weren't very tidy, perhaps, because we'd been playing brigands in the shrubbery; and we knew we should have to wash for dinner as soon as we ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... had looked to him during those memorable days, so much prettier than the other young girls of his flock, whose hair was tumbled ere the day's work was done, and whose dresses were soiled and disordered; while here was always so tidy and neat and the braids of her chestnut hair were always so smooth and bright. How well, too, he remembered that brief ten minutes, when, in the dusky twilight which had crept so early into the church, he stood alone with her, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... could tidy a house as well as a woman, and John Upham followed his directions with clumsy zeal. When the kitchen was set to rights Mrs. Upham went in there, as she was bidden, with the baby, and sat down in a rocking-chair by the open window towards ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... tightening of the grasp as if in acquiescence and comfort; but the nurse came back to tidy the room, and still Fernando clung to Felix, and would not let him go. She opened the shutters, and then both she and Felix were dismayed to see how ill and spent her patient looked; for she had slept soundly through his night of silent anguish and remorse—misery that, as Felix saw by ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to work. While you get everything tidy and in good shipshape, the cooks will get to work at the coppers; and I can promise you a good breakfast, washed down by sound cider, such as you ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... object, Michael?" he added, with his customary consideration for the self-respect of all persons in his employment. Michael's color rose a little; he looked at me. "I am afraid the young lady will not find my room quite so tidy as it ought to be," he said as he opened the ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... thing more than another I enjoy,' she says, 'it's making myself useful. Mrs. Molly, I've taken a fancy to your boy-baby,' she says, 'and I mean to make myself useful to him.' If you will believe me, Miss Jillgall has only let me have one opportunity of putting my own child tidy. She was late this morning, and I got my chance, and had the boy on my lap, drying him—when in she burst like a blast of wind, and snatched the baby away from me. 'This is your nasty temper,' she says; 'I declare I'm ashamed of you!' And there she is, ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... minutes," he told her. "Two minutes, that is, in which to make yourself tidy before the mirror. A third in which to say good-bye and be outside ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... went he looked round to see that everything was tidy and in its place. Yes, there was the Cat dozing in front of the fire. The Fiddle was standing upright in a corner of the room. The Dish was on the dresser and the Spoon in the basket. The little Dog was guarding the door outside. The Cow was lying by the cow-tub in ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... known you!" exclaimed the good woman, surveying the boy with great satisfaction; for, though still very thin and tired, the lad had a tidy look that pleased her, and a lively way of moving about in his clothes, like an eel in a skin rather too big for him. The merry black eyes seemed to see everything, the voice had an honest sound, and the sun-burnt face looked several years younger since ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... that what he wanted was a house exactly like Sam Clark's, which was exactly like every third new house in every town in the country: a square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broad screened porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resembling the mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to church once a month and owns a ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... they might be allowed to step into the hut, to see how it looked inside. That he could well afford to let them do, for Katrina always kept the house so clean and tidy that they could receive callers there at ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... near the Woolpack, over which was a wooden bridge, and farther on was another bridge of more substantial character, called "Carter's Bridge." In flood times, Cars Lane also brought from the higher lands copious streams of water, and the keeping of Moor Street tidy often gave cause to mention these ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... marriage, by "making a present of a young pig to every child born in wedlock, and according as their funds will admit of it, giving rewards to those married persons living faithfully, or single persons living virtuously, who take a pride in keeping their houses neat and tidy, and their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... an enormous thick fur coat, cap, and gloves, so their wardrobes are not large, and some of the men seem to take little interest in keeping even their few garments clean or tidy. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... it was a cannibal island," he observed. "All so tight and tidy-like here. It would take a ship's guns to batter her down. A man might dig under these here two gate logs, if no one was against him. Like to ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... there were no second course articles recognized. The tin pot had a hook in front so that it could be hooked on to the galley grate to boil, though it was not uncommon in long voyage ships to dispense with the hook pot and have instead a large kettle for the whole of the forecastle hands. The tidy man kept his utensils spotlessly clean. At seven bells in the morning the watch below were knocked out to have breakfast; this generally consisted of cracker hash, i.e., bread hash; or cold salt beef or pork, whichever joint they had had on the day previous hot for ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Susan's allusions are not always very clearly stated, though her meaning, no doubt, always is quite clear in her own mind. I may mention here that eventually we were so fortunate as to obtain a middle-sized cow that got along in the stable very well. We had a tidy colored girl who did the cooking and the rough part of the house-work, and who could ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... piano. As she played I dreamed again, till presently Mrs. Luckett began to argue with Hilary that the shrubs about the garden ought to be cut and trimmed. Hilary said he liked to see the shrubs and the trees growing freely; he objected to cut and trim them. 'For,' said he, 'God made nothing tidy.' Just then ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... crest of the hill, and had Tish not thoughtfully brought her wire cutters along I do not believe we would have succeeded in reaching headquarters. We got there finally, however, and it was in a cellar and—though I do not care to reflect on our gallant army—not as tidy as it should have been. Mr. Burton having remained behind temporarily the three of us made our way to the entrance, and Tish was almost bayoneted by a sentry there, who was nervous because of a number of shells falling ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... passed in. It was a mean little room, not as tidy as it might have been, and far from as clean. There on the low pillow was a pale face, with golden hair disordered about the brow; a face so wasted that it was not easy in the first moment to identify it with that ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... things upstairs and make sure where your rooms are, and tidy up if you want to," said Mr. Lenox's young brother, "and then hop down, and we'll take you to see the caravan, and show you about a little, and perhaps go on the river; and in the evening we're going to have supper in my rooms. Fizzy's going to conjure, and perhaps ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... happy—with pictures on the walls and toys in the glass-doored cupboard, and rocking-horse and doll-house, and everything a child's heart could wish for. Spring sunshine faint but clear, like the first pale primrose, peeping in at the window, a merry fire crackling away in the tidy hearth. And just in front of it, for it is early spring only, a group of children pleasant to see. A soft-haired, quiet-eyed little girl, a book open upon her knee, and at each side, nestling in beside her, a cherub-faced dot ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... man becomes inwardly changed and filled with new ambitions, ideals and hopes, he, in course of time, rises above his sordid surroundings and attracts to himself an environment that corresponds to his new state of mind. It would be useless to tidy up the house of a slut for her, for she would soon make it like a pig-sty again, but if you could get a new ideal of neatness, cleanliness, order and spotlessness into her mind, she would not rest satisfied until her immediate environment corresponded, in some measure ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... Nancy as she spoke, but for once Nancy remained in the background, clutching her parcel and staring at Kettles over Pennie's shoulder. The old Kettles, who had been in her mind all this time, was gone, and Keturah, clean, tidy, and proper, stood in her place. It was too surprising a change to be understood in a moment, and Nancy was not at all sure ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie. He would have liked to linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton |
