"Bodice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cut of the skirt is lovely, but I am not altogether satisfied with the severe bodice. I want you to wear this fichu of mine, it is a ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... always keeping her hand in his. The woman, with a despairing movement, laid her face down on the table, with her forehead touching the wood. Then she lifted it up. The paroxysm seemed to have passed. She took out a handkerchief from inside the bodice of her dress and dried her eyes. Ruffo struck the table with his glass. An attendant came. He paid the bill, and the woman and he got up to go. As they did so Ruffo presented for a moment his full face to Artois, and Artois swiftly compared it with the face of the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... us as a study of bygone fashions, and is painted with exquisite care for detail. The pointed bodice is as stiff as a coat of mail, like that so long in vogue at the court of Spain. Perhaps the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands may have brought the corset with it. Certainly it is not conducive to an easy carriage; only a graceful figure like this could wear it ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... ceiling of stars; above their heads they beheld the light of a rising sun. All at once, the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible through the lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius' glance, blushed to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... York, had seen it in a confectioner's window on Fifth Avenue, and instantly it had captivated his attention, brought him to a halt. The doll, beautifully dressed in the belled skirt of the eighteen-forties, wore plum-colored silk with a bodice and wide short sleeves of pale yellow and, crossed on the breast, a strip of black Spanish lace that fell to the hem of the skirt. It wasn't, of course, the clothes that attracted him—he only grew conscious of them ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that hour and in that season, notably one of her friends, one of the Bonapartes living in Rome, who came thither to hunt when overheated. If she were to try to catch that same disease?.... And she took up the oars. When she felt her brow moist with the second effort, she opened her bodice and her chemise, she exposed her neck, her breast, her throat, and she lay down in the boat, allowing the damp air to envelop, to caress, to chill her, inviting the entrance into her blood of the fatal germs. How long did she ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Hilda came home to tea, on the next day but one, with a demeanour whose characteristics were heightened by nervousness. The weather was still colder, and she had tied the broad ribbons of her small bonnet rather closely under her chin, the double bow a little to the left. A knitted bodice over the dress and under the jacket made the latter tighter than usual, so that the fur edges of it curved away somewhat between the buttons, and all the upper part of the figure seemed to be too strictly confined, while the petticoats surged out freely beneath. A muff, brightly coloured to match ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... artificial and detestably petty many of his devices, that it is not malice, but charity, that bids us remember that, during his whole maturity, he could neither dress nor undress himself, go to bed or get up without help, and that on rising he had to be invested with a stiff canvas bodice and tightly laced, and have put on him a fur doublet and numerous stockings to keep off the cold and fill out his shrunken form. If ever there was a man whose life was one long provocation, that man was the author of the Dunciad. Pope ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... girl with a brown throat showing through an open bodice munched an apple, like Audrey in "As You Like It," and between her bites told me that she had had a brother killed in the war, and that she had been nearly killed herself, a week ago, by shells that came bursting all round her as she was tying up her ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... later, that they have a dormant faculty which is at last waking up,—and that they who came because others came, and began by staring at the audience, are listening with a newly found delight. Every one of us has a harp under bodice or waistcoat, and if it can only once get properly strung and tuned it will respond ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... over the back, buried in the curve of one arm. A tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay, palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs. The folds hung from her waist, and the short close bodice that she wore above them, like a Bengali woman, left visible the narrow gap of flesh which nobody notices when it is brown. Her head covering had slipped and clung only to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked, pathetically, the conscious hand to draw it forward. She was ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... joy of life ran high. Miss Wilkes had a small, round face, with melting eyes, and when she lifted her head, her ringlets seemed to vibrate and shiver like the bells of a pagoda. She had a charming way of clasping her hands, and holding them against her bodice, while she said, 'Oh, but—really now?' in a manner inexpressibly engaging. She was very earnest, and she had a pleading way of calling out: 'O, but aren't you teasing me?' which would have brought a ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... startling contrasts of transformation. Will it not be a wonderful sight in that near future to watch that woman judge of the Supreme Court, in the midst of some learned tangle of inter-state argument, turn aside for a moment, in response to a plaintive cry, and, unfastening her bodice, give the little clamourer the silver solace it demands! What a hush will fall upon the assembled court! To think of such a genius for jurisprudence, such a legal brain, working in harmony—with such a bosom! So august a pillar of the law, ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... their bent backs, felt their nimble fingers exhibiting this dress whereon Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Symond had for days been expending all the poetry of their natures. What white wonder, what manifold marvel of art! Dress of snow satin, skirt quite plain in front. Bodice and train of white poplin; the latter wrought with patterns representing night and morning: a morning made of silver leaves with silver birds fluttering through leafy trees, butterflies sporting among them, and over all a sunrise worked in gold and silver thread; then on the left ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... fluttering over great baskets of flowers, birds were swinging on blossoming vines, bees were hovering round their hives, and doves were billing and cooing on the roof of their cots. One of the beaux in the neighborhood expressed his admiration of it by saying "It beats all natur'." It was made in bodice-fashion, with a frill of fine linen nicely crimped; and the short, tight sleeves were edged just above the elbow with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... with more fancy. The little brown girl, who yesterday had not one square inch of cloth on the whole of her tiny person, comes out a petite miss in a crimson bodice and a white skirt, with her shining black hair oiled and combed and plaited and decked with flowers, and her neck and arms and feet twinkling with ornaments. Her brother of six or seven looks as if he were ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... gold of the small picture inclosing a brownish landscape with a blue and white sky, and the broad black frame of the picture of Cupid tell strongly, yet fall into plane behind the figure in white satin—quite a different quality of white, and warmer and brighter than the wall. The bodice is a steely blue silk, which is repeated in the velvet seat of the chair; while the blue and white landscape upon the open lid of the spinet repeats the blue and white landscape on the wall, and the blue ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat again? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy will look upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what it is when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip of the bodice seems unendurable as the embrace of the iron virgin of the Inquisition. Think what it would be if the grasp were tightened so that no breath of air could enter ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... It is disgraceful to try and make me eat more than I do already. I am getting hideously stout. I found my maid in tears to-night because I positively could not get into my most becoming bodice." ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... large easel, I watched it for awhile in silence. Above a heavily flounced blue skirt, which fell in creases on the floor and trailed a couple of yards or so behind, it wore a black low-cut sleeveless bodice—much too big for it—of the fashion early Victorian. A good deal of dark-brown hair, fastened up by hair-pins that stuck out in all directions like quills upon a porcupine, suggesting collapse with every movement, was ornamented by three enormous ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... have a practical but peculiar costume; the thickly-pleated skirt has a bright-coloured border, while the close-fitting bodice is adorned with embroidery, and pretty antique buttons. A folded cotton kerchief and accordion-pleated apron give a daintiness to the whole dress. The head-dress, however, gives the most singular finish to the costume. A dark, ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... mourning gown over her petticoats and a mourning bodice over her shawls, and she tarried in a field as long as it would take her to have traveled to Moriah; and in the heat of the ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... will when thee sets me an example," retorted Janice, making a deep curtsey, the absence of drapery and bodice revealing the straightness and suppleness of the slender rounded figure, which still had as much of the child as of the woman ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... little silly her out of a difficulty. And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice—not a ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... loved her so. She hastily drew from her shoulder the knot of violets that were still humid with freshness; and as she drew the fastenings the lace fell from her shoulder, disclosing her too-low cut bodice, and Cedric's quick eye saw why the screen of lace was used, and with trembling fingers caught up the lace and drew from his steenkirk a rare jewel and pinned it safe as deftly as her maid. He touched her hand with his warm red lips, saying in a voice resonant as music: ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... head, more of the same flowers fastened to a swansdown plume. She was wearing, under her cloak, a flowing gown of black velvet, caught up on one side so as to reveal a large triangular patch of her white silk skirt, with an 'insertion,' also of white silk, in the cleft of her low-necked bodice, in which were fastened a few more cattleyas. She had scarcely recovered from the shock which the sight of Swann had given her, when some obstacle made the horse start to one side. They were ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... foam a beautiful foss, lived an old woman and her grandchild Ilda. They were really tenants of Klaus's father; and in their wanderings the boys often stopped for a glass of milk or a slice of fladbroed (oat-cake), which the old woman was glad to give them. Ilda, too, in her red bodice and white chemisette, and her pretty, shy ways, was almost as attractive as the birds or beasts they were seeking. Neither the old woman nor Ilda often left their cottage, and so the boys were the more welcome ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lovers—such pairs as Jude and Arabella had been when they sported along the same track some months earlier. These pedestrians turned to stare at the extraordinary spectacle she now presented, bonnetless, her dishevelled hair blowing in the wind, her bodice apart, her sleeves rolled above her elbows for her work, and her hands reeking with melted fat. One of the passers said in mock terror: "Good Lord ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Her bodice, which was dark and close fitting, had a very high-standing ruff, which enclosed her slightly elongated and very pale face, just as the half-open shield of a leaf encloses a white flower-bud. Her whole person, in that chamber, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... her movements in the glass panel, she was diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it. Dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try again the Roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble. Seeing her image slowly advancing, she thought "I am beautiful"—not exultingly, but with grave decision. Being beautiful ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... taken to her by a discreet official, and this time she received the letter, pressed it to her heart, and then slipped it into the bodice of her gown. But this time, as before, she left ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... one, at the best; but now the very earth, perhaps, will never receive her. Oh yes, anything you like—the body trimmed with jet, if you wish it, and let me see, a gauze bodice, goffered, fastened to the throat. That is all, I think; the sleeves confined at the wrist just enough not to expose the arm, and yet look ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... man is talking to her, she dances with him, and she refused a young man a moment before. This is a bad sign; our Lovelace knows it; there is a stout woman of thirty-five, who is looking at him, red satin bodice, doubtful taste. He looks away; a little blonde woman fixes her eyes on him, she looks as innocent as a child; instinctively our Lovelace turns to his host. "Who is that little blonde woman over there, the right hand corner?" he asks. "Ah, that is Lady ——." ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... was turned, for the bridal party was advancing. Slowly down the aisle came M'haley, in the pink chiffon gown from Paris. Mom Beck's quick needle had altered it considerably, for in some unaccountable way the slim bodice fashioned to fit Lloyd's slender figure, now fastened around M'haley's waist without undue strain. The skirt, though turned "hine side befo'," fell as skirts should fall, for the fulness had been shifted to the proper places, and the broad sky-blue sash covered the mended holes ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... This had sharpened the tip end of her tongue to so fine a point that when it became active—and once in a while it did—it could rip a sham reputation up the back as easily as a keen blade loosens the seams of a bodice. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the tug of the old personality. He stared at her, suddenly conscious that she was a woman and that she was smiling at him. Charming, in her way. Bare arms. A little black bodice laced over a white waist. Straight blonde hair, braided thickly and twisted around her head. A peasant, but pretty.... You see, his desire was to frighten her, as he most certainly would have frightened her had he been true to Cecil Grimshaw. But the impulse passed, leaving him sick ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... is very varied: the young girls, or those who are in tolerably easy circumstances, generally wear a black bodice laced up with a string, and adjusted to their figures, and contrasting with the scarlet-coloured saya, which only covers a part of the leg; their shoes are cut very low, and are adorned with little buckles of silver; the breast, and the upper part of the bodice, are covered ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... all the way out in gondolas, certain existing enterprises might as well go out of business. The steamer was full of Venetians, and we saw that they were charming, though momma wishes it to be understood that the modern Portia wears her bodice cut rather too low in the neck and gazes much too softly at the modern Bassanio. Poppa and I thought it mere amiability that scorned to conceal itself, but momma referred to it otherwise, admitting, however, that she ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... interfere with me. I think they believe that I am "Ngai" (of the Divinity) because I am so white and have fair hair. And look here,' and diving her little hand into the bodice of her dress she produced a double-barrelled nickel-plated Derringer, 'I always carry that loaded, and if anybody tried to touch me I should shoot him. Once I shot a leopard that jumped upon my donkey as I was riding along. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... on the right is the mantle of St. Cecilia; others are the bodice of St. Agnes, St. Stephen's robe, a prophet's tunic; and above these, before reaching the lapis-lazuli border of sky, the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... had fair, fluffy hair, cut short behind her neck; large, round eyes, heightened by a fringe of dark lashes; rough, ruddy cheeks, and a rosy, full-lipped, unstable mouth. She was dressed quite simply, in a black, close-fitting bodice, a little frayed at the sleeves. Her hands and neck were coarsely fashioned: her comeliness was brawny, ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... the wells sprang upon Halima, opened her scarlet bodice roughly, plunged his claw into her swelling bosom, and ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... going to spare seven and sixpence out of eleven shillings—we've got to eat something, and live somewhere. You can't eat marriage licences, nor use them as shelter. I've seen one once, belonging to Mrs. Mactavish. She kept it sewed inside the lining of her bodice, all among the bits of whalebone that made her stand up straight. It's a crackly ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... ruby lips, handsome faces grow tender as they bend over white necks and drooping beads; timid eyes convey things that lips dare not speak, and beneath silken bodice and broadcloth, hearts beat time to the sweet notes of "Love's ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... of the proprietor, came in to entertain me presently, dressed in a bodice of blue pina, with the wide sleeves newly starched and ironed, and with her hair unbound. She sat down opposite me in a rocking-chair, shook off her slippers on the floor, and curling her toes around the rung, ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... dress and trimmed it and a sailor hat. We went to church and they led me by the hand. After church I had to take off my dress and hang it up till next Sunday. Had a apron made of cross barred muslin. Don't see any of that now. It was made with a bodice and had ruffles round the neck. Wore brass toed shoes and balmoral stockin's in my gal time. When my husband was courtin' me, my dress was down to my shoe top. He never saw ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... appeared to the little girl in her sleep. The goddess said, "My child, a snake will come to bite your husband: give it milk to drink. Then put near it a new earthen jar. When the snake has finished drinking, it will enter the earthen jar. Then at once pull off your bodice and stuff it into the jar's mouth. Next morning give the jar to your mother." Next evening everything happened as Parwati had said. The snake came to bite her husband as he slept. But the little girl offered ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... slightly retrousse nose, and the curling locks are faithfully represented; yet we realize the force of character that lies under this soft, child-like face, and the frank joyousness which made her so attractive. Each stray lock of hair is rendered with delicate accuracy, the brocaded bodice of her gown and the scarf lightly thrown over her shoulders are elaborately adorned with the triangular diamond and other favourite devices of the house of Este. The quaint figure of the two hands holding a veil, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... from her writing to where the dark girl, her figure raked very much back in her stiff bodice, played daintily with the tassels of the curtain next ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... this moment a knock at the front door. Emmy swayed, grew pale, and then slowly reddened until the colour spread to the very edges of her bodice. The two girls looked at one another, a deliberate interchange of glances that was at the same time, upon both sides, an intense scrutiny. Emmy was breathing heavily; ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... alone than before. She thought with longing about her innocent homeland: about the breezy sky, about the laughing young gentlemen, about tennis matches, and she felt nostalgia for the Sunday afternoons—she took off her garters, placed her little bodice on a chair. She ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... these promising fragments was a large, weary-looking person, with no lack of powdered shoulder above her pink bodice and a profusion of "undulated" hair of so decided a blond that it might have been suspected that the decision had lain ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... their hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to the strangers. They were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress. Yet Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect, although he could not quite determine what it was, in the little while that he had to ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... as an old-fashioned lace-paper valentine. The dress was made of a much-mended lace curtain. The front of the bodice had two square lapels wired at the edges, so that they could be folded together like the front of a real valentine, or opened back like shutters to show on her breast a panel of pale blue satin, on which was outlined two white doves perched above a great red heart. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a great, heavy, iron-bound oak chest, which she permitted no one but herself to open. Here she treasured all the things she had inherited from her mother, and of these she was especially careful. Here lay a couple of old-time peasant dresses, of red homespun cloth, with short bodice and plaited shirt, and a pearl-bedecked breast pin. There were starched white-linen head-dresses, and heavy silver ornaments and chains. Folks don't care to go about dressed like that in these days, and several times his mother had thought of getting rid of the old ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... said Heinz, interrupting the new ally, "that though you might understand how to show a poor knight his folly, no kinder heart than yours throbbed under any bodice in Switzerland, Swabia, or France." Cordula struck him lightly on the shoulder with her riding whip, saying with a laugh: "Who permits you to peep under women's bodices through so wide a tract of country, you scamp? Had I been in Jungfrau Ortlieb's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... motionless in his corner, against the wall, too startled to understand anything as yet, too frightened to move a finger, while Henriette, with her hands resting on a small, round table, her head bent forward, with her hair hanging down, the bodice of her dress unfastened and bosom bare, waited like a wild animal which is about to spring, and Parent went on, in a stronger voice: "Go away immediately.... Get ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the garden-palings, or about Castlewood: it was, "Lord, Mr. Henry!" and "How do you do, Nancy?" many and many a time in the week. 'Tis surprising the magnetic attraction which draws people together from ever so far. I blush as I think of poor Nancy now, in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and a canvas petticoat; and that I devised schemes, and set traps, and made speeches in my heart, which I seldom had courage to say when in presence of that humble enchantress, who knew nothing beyond milking a cow, and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thick silk, which were so full of plaits that they stood out stiff, like the hooped petticoats of our good old times. These trousers are from twenty to five and twenty yards wide, and reach down to the ankle. The upper part of the body was covered as far as the hips by a bodice, which, however, did not fit close to the body. The sleeves were long and narrow. The corset resembled that of the time of the hooped petticoats; it was made of thick silk, richly and tastefully embroidered round the corners with coloured silk and gold. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... innkeeper retired than the old woman, with remarkable dexterity, rummaged about among the disordered furniture, and seized a certain number of papers, which she hid in her bodice. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... She was sitting in one of those palm-filled cafes where the sun sprinkles in across the floor. She was dressed in black, not a funeral black, but one of those fluffy things that make crepe look like royal purple. She had a rose, a long-stemmed rose, in her bodice, and one of those Spanish lace things over her hair. I can see her now,—almost reach out and touch her. I went in and took a table not far away and ordered a drink. Then I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was with an ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... as regards the language, the manners, and the picturesque costumes. In each valley the dress is different; in one place the women wear a short skirt, an apron held in by a girdle, and a bright colored bodice; in another they wear a cap above which is a large shady hat; in the Val Maroblio they have a woolen dress not very different ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... herself, returned his kisses. All at once she ceased to struggle, and, vanquished, resigned, allowed him to undress her. One by one he neatly and rapidly stripped off the different articles of clothing with the light fingers of a lady's maid. She had snatched her bodice from his hands to hide her face in it, and remained standing amidst the garments fallen at her feet. He seized her in his arms and bore her towards the couch. Then she murmured in his ear in a broken voice, "I swear to you, I swear to you, that I ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... and her cloak fallen upon the grass. Howat could see her face beneath hair faintly powdered with silver dust and the ruffled patch of white tied pertly under her chin. Her smoothly turning shoulders, filmed in lawn, and low bodice crowned an extravagant circumference of ruffled silk and rosettes. Against the night of the Province, the invisible but felt presence of immutable hills, she was like a puppet, a grotesque figure of ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Sarah, upsetting of Mr Clay for nothing, let alone that I never told no story? You asked me what I came for—at least, so I understood it—and I answered you, "Dinner," and that's what I am here for. Oh, do make haste, Miss Sarah! You could keep on that white skirt, and just slip on this pretty bodice; master won't never notice. There's the gong! Oh dear, oh dear!' said Naomi, getting quite flustered in her anxiety to get Sarah ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... to look charming in any case, and I am already busy with my dress. It is a black silk gown with a tight-fitting bodice. The bodice has windbag sleeves, formed of shawl pieces of guipure lace, and some lilies of the valley on the breast, finished with a waistband of heliotrope velvet, and I am going to wear long black gloves ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... through the streets. Early in the morning, Billy was led into the sawdust ring, and a peculiar saddle like a little platform was strapped to his back. This the monkey was to dance on, dressed as a ballet girl, with yellow, spangled skirts, a satin bodice and a blue cap with a feather in ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... sex behind. No longer shall thy comely tresses break In flowing ringlets on thy snowy neck; Or sit behind thy head, an ample round, In graceful braids with various ribbon bound: No longer shall the bodice aptly lac'd From thy full bosom to thy slender waist, That air and harmony of shape express, Fine by degrees, and beautifully less: 430 Nor shall thy lower garments' artful plait, From thy fair side dependent to thy feet, Arm their chaste beauties ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... came forward. Beautiful, but not radiant, she was; cold and calm, but not blushing and uncertain. Her wedding gown was all in white, true enough to tradition, though but of delaine, pressed new from its packing trunk by her mother's hands. Her bodice, long and deep in front and at back, was plain entirely, save for a treasure of lace from her mother's trunk and her mother's wedding long ago. Her hands had no gloves, but white short-fingered mitts, also cherished remnants of days of schoolgirl belledom, did service. Over white stockings, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... day all the children gave amusing amateur theatricals, gotten up by Lorraine and Ted. The acting was upon Laura Roosevelt's tennis court. All the children were most cunning, especially Quentin as Cupid, in the scantiest of pink muslin tights and bodice. Ted and Lorraine, who were respectively George Washington and Cleopatra, really carried off the play. At the end all the cast joined hands in a song and dance, the final verse being devoted especially to me. I love all these children and have great fun with ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... custom of the Kunbis, but without feasting or music. Widows are permitted to marry again. Married women do not wear bangles nor toe-rings nor the customary necklace of beads; they put on no jewellery, and have no choli or bodice. The Bhope or Bhoall, the third division of the caste, are wholly secular and wear no distinctive dress, except sometimes a black head-cloth. They may engage in any occupation that pleases them, and sometimes act as servants in the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... with a dark bodice, and a big, soft straw hat, tossed back on her head, did not hide the beauty of her abundant locks. Her crook had fallen from her hand, and rested at the bottom of the little mound of hay. It was a delightful representation, and Dorothy seemed actually painted upon the canvas, so naturally did she ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... Nellie, Let us study BOTTICELLI When we feel the gnawing craving to be smart; If we want to be de rigueur We must educate the figure To show the downward trend of "plastic art." The outline should be slack, Slippy-sloppy, front and back, Till bodice, skirt and tunic—every stitch— Seems to call for the support Of the handy-man's resort— That naval gesture termed the "double hitch." The shoulders must be drooping. The knees a trifle stooping, And the widest waist, remember, takes the prize; When ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... instrument of plucked wires, with its quiver of a love-sick clock about to run down; this parody of an aeolian harp always annoyed Krayne, and he was glad when the man finished. A stout soprano in a velvet bodice, her arms bare and brawny, the arms of a lass accustomed to ploughing and digging potatoes, sang something about turtle doves. She was odious. Odious, too, was her companion, in a duo through which they screamed and rumbled—"Verlassen bin i." At ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... dainty and beautiful. The Dresden flowered overdress was of silk, looped above a quilted satin petticoat, and a black velvet bodice laced up over a fine white muslin chemisette. A broad brimmed hat with roses and a be-ribboned ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... fair golden hair, simply but tastefully arranged, leaving the ears free, and adorning but not hiding the comely shape of the head. She wears a dark-brown silk dress, covered with fine Brussels lace around the neck, at the wrists, along the bodice, and here and there on the skirt. A few rings glitter on her fingers, and her hands are constantly busy with a piece of point lace embroidery; for many Dutch ladies cannot stand an evening without the companionship of a 'handwerkje,' as fancy-needlework is called. It does not ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... "But I have no money, monsieur." If you have no money, you have friends; a friend has given you your new pillow, you know, and another friend, perhaps, may give you a room to live in." Her eyelids drooped, her color came and went quickly, I detected beneath her bodice the convulsive movement of her heart. The agitation she betrayed communicated itself to me; I rose from my chair and leaned against the window-sill, so that my face might be no longer on a level with her eyes. "I understand you, monsieur!" she cried, and immediately burst ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... said Hardy, "the superstition that struck me most was that of the Huldr, who in different districts was differently described. Generally the Huldr was described as a tall fair woman, with a yellow bodice and a blue skirt, with long fair yellow hair loose over the shoulders; but she was as hollow as a kneading trough, and had a cow's tail. She was described as coming to the Saeter farms on the fjelds, after they were vacated by the Norwegian farmers, with a quantity of cattle and ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... might see that her lips are crimson with the glow of youth, though her face is pale. Her hair, parted in the middle and dressed straight back, and her white gown give her the appearance of a Madonna. In her bodice, she wears a white rose which from time to time she ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... vest. Josephine, in her large-heartedness, had a pair of scissors brought; she then cut her dress into several pieces sufficiently large for a vest, and divided them among the gentlemen present, so that only the bodice of the dress remained, with a small piece around the waist But this improvised spencer over the white richly-embroidered under-dress, was so exceedingly becoming to the empress, and brought out so exquisitely ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... the drawing-room and was ready to receive her visitor. There was a very large mirror in the room, and pending her entrance Elizabeth stood before it noticing the set and flow of her black lace dress, its heliotrope ribbons, and the sparkle of the hidden jets upon the bodice. Some heliotrope blossoms were in her breast, and her hands were covered with gloves of the same delicate colour. Denas saw her thus; saw her reflection in the glass before ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fashion merely so far as is absolutely necessary. She gets the latest model perhaps, but has it adapted to her own type, so that she has just that distinction of appearance that the sheep lack. She has even clung with slight modifications to the "Worth" ball dress, and her "wrapped" or fitted bodice has continued to look the smartest in every ballroom in spite of the Greek drapery and one-piece meal bag and all the other kaleidoscopic changes of fashion the rest of us ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... it, which he did not know! His beautiful wife (now Mrs. George Cornwallis West) wore a dress at supper one evening which gave me the idea for the Lady Macbeth dress, afterwards painted by Sargent. The bodice of Lady Randolph's gown was trimmed all over with green beetles' wings. I told Mrs. Comyns Carr about it, and she remembered it when she designed my Lady Macbeth dress and saw to its making by clever ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Celestine, you may get out that pale yellow dress. No, beautiful, the one with the black satin stripes on the bodice—because I don't want my hair cast completely in the shade, do I? Now, let me see—black feather, gloves, large pompadour, and a sweet smile. No, I don't want a fan—that's a Lydia Languish trade-mark. And two silk skirts rustling like ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... (in blue chucu, white cotton bodice, and red mantle secured by a golden topu or pin, set with emeralds, and a blue skirt), and the princess CUSI COYLLUR (in a chucu, with feathers of the tunqui, white bodice and skirt, and grey mantle with topu, ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... Easter. My pleasure club," she explained, turning to me—"my pleasure club, 'The Moonlight Maids,' give a ball to-night." Which fact likewise explained the curl-papers as well as the slattern shirt-waist, donned to save the evening bodice worn to the factory that morning and now tucked away in a ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... caress of her eyes. "Ah-yess! I have recognized it, mooch. It es ze same. Of no change—not even of a leetle. No, she ess always—esso." She stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed her fan below a spray of roses on her full bodice as if to indicate some thrilling memory beneath it, shook her head again, suddenly caught sight of Demorest's serious face, said: "Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs himself at me," and then herself broke into ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... Nelly, his wife, a round, buxom, laughter-loving dame, with black eyes, a tight well-laced bodice, a green apron, and a red petticoat edged with a slight silver lace, and judiciously shortened so as to show that a short heel, and a tight clean ankle, rested upon her well-burnished shoe,—she, of course, felt interest in a young man, who, besides being very handsome, good-humoured, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... and her long hair fell on either side of her head, like horse-tails, half-way down her waist; her skin was dark and swarthy, like that of a toad, and the expression of her countenance was particularly evil; her arms were bare, and her bosom was but half-concealed by a slight bodice, below which she wore a coarse petticoat, her only other article of dress. The man was somewhat younger, but of a figure equally wild; his frame was long and lathy, but his arms were remarkably short, his neck was rather bent, he squinted slightly, and his mouth was much awry; his complexion ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... nephew disgracing the De Chenier blood by carrying his own baggage and outraging several centuries of devilishly fine history by running—positively running—from ill-armed footpads who had never worn breeches. She would frown, her bosom would swell till her bodice would appear to crackle at the armpits, the seven hairs on her upper lip would bristle all the worse against her purpling face as she cried it was the little Lyons shopkeeper in his mother's grandfather that was in his craven legs. Doubt it who will, an imminent ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... ladies to wear curl papers on rising, but hinting that they should be hid under a cambric cap; and although taking it for granted a lady would 'not put on stays' at the same early hour, reminding her that she may still wear a bodice, and begging her not to make hot weather an excuse for going about with naked arms 'and legs and feet thrust into slippers,' but to adopt fine thin stockings; 'and,' says our author, 'although the tenue du lever for a gentleman is a cotton or silk night-cap, a waistcoat with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... my dear, were to open one of those drawers, and find Nurse's Sunday dress folded up in the corner, it would hardly amuse you; but if, instead thereof, you found a dress with a long stiff bodice, square at the neck, and ruffled round the sleeves, such as you have seen in old pictures, no matter how old or useless it might be, it would shed round it an atmosphere of delightful and mysterious speculations. ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and windows of the sitting-rooms, and to call their mistresses, who were enjoying their undress in their own apartments. When they appeared, I could scarcely believe that one half were gentlewomen. As they wear neither stay nor bodice, the figure becomes almost indecently slovenly, after very early youth; and this is the more disgusting, as they are very thinly clad, wear no neck-handkerchiefs, and scarcely any sleeves. Then, in this hot climate, it is unpleasant to see dark cottons and stuffs, without ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... later when Juno entered the living-room, an exquisite bit of Venetian lace filled in the V at the back of the bodice; the softest white maline edged the front, and when, she raised her train a lace petticoat which any girl would have pronounced "too sweet for words" floated like sea-foam about her ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... with the yellow blossoms, and I often found these fragrant tokens of her presence scattered about my house after she had been there. Once, when we were all out walking together, she stopped to pick some from a bush, and as she was putting them into her bodice she made a remark which gave ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of tuition, was in the act of removing her dress. She was in too indulgent a mood to withhold her "Come in," and as Miss Macy crossed the threshold, Lizzie felt that Vincent Deering's first letter—the letter from the train—had slipped from her loosened bodice to the floor. ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... Bonkowski, rushing in a little later, "give her to me, quick, Mary! If you stand right here in the wings you can see nicely," and the excited lady, wonderful as to her blonde befrizzlement, gorgeous as to pink skirt, blue bodice and not the most cleanly of white waists, bore the Angel, like a rosebud in a ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... and in truth his attention was diverted from that gentleman ere he had time to fully observe the effect of his entrance. For he had scarcely reached his pew, when Squire and Deacon Timothy Edwards came up the aisle, followed by his family. Desire wore a blue silk skirt and close-fitting bodice, with a white lace kerchief tucked in about her shoulders, and the same blue plumed hat of soft Leghorn straw, in which we have seen her before, the wide brim falling lower on one side than the other, over her dark curls. As she swept up the aisle between ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... of lace and flowers, fastened by a diamond-headed pin; the ringlets that half hid the contours of her face added to her look of youth, and suited her style of beauty. Her foulard gown, designed by the celebrated Victorine, with a pointed bodice, exquisitely fringed, set off her figure to advantage; and a silken lace scarf, adroitly thrown about a too long neck, partly concealed her shoulders. She played with the dainty scent-bottle, hung by a chain from her bracelet; ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... unresisting. When they reached the bedroom she halted and stared around as one who had lost her bearings. She winced once and shook as Molly's gentle fingers began to unfasten her bodice, but afterwards stood quite passive and suffered herself to be undressed as a little child. Molly unlaced her shoes. Molly brought cool water in a basin, bathed her face and hands, braided her hair—the masses of red-brown hair she had ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Giles," said the miniaturist quickly, pausing amidst the laces of her bodice. "Don't make any mistake about Medora. When she goes in for all that sort of thing, she's merely 'creating atmosphere,' as we say,—she's simply after ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... on account of the glare caused by the reflection on the water, he grunted with pleasure and content. Malva was coming. A few minutes more and she would be there, laughing so heartily as to strain every stitch of her well-filled bodice. She would throw her robust and gentle arms around him and kiss him, and in that rich sonorous voice that startles the sea gulls would give him the news of what was going on yonder. They would make a good fish soup together, and drink brandy as they chatted ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... the safe and took out the ruby and clasped the chain about her neck. The chain was long and the great jewel took a deeper and more mysterious color from the somber background of her bodice. ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... soft red material, trimmed with old cream lace. The material of a woman's dress had never interested him before. He knew calico from silk, but beyond that he never ventured an opinion. To colour alone he was responsive. This combination of red and creamy white, with the bodice cut low, showing the lines of her beautiful white shoulders, and the great mass of dark hair rising in graceful curves from her full round neck, heightened her beauty to an ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... a practised writer, You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, As if it held but the might of a child; You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. Tell him — No, you may quibble there, For it would split his heart to know it, And then you and I ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... intermitting her protests, adjusted her own dress upon her mistress,—short striped petticoat, black bodice, winged turban-like white cap, and a great muffling gray cloth cloak and hook over the head and shoulders—the costume in which Veronique was wont to run to her home in the twilight on various errands, chiefly to carry her mistress's linen; for starching Eustacie's plain bands ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so pretty thus, with her feet bare, and plump fingers, fine and pink, loaded with rings. Under her bodice of gilded cloth and the folds of her flower-patterned dress was suggested a lovable creature, rather blessed materially, rounded everywhere, and nice enough to eat. The amber mouthpiece of a narghileh smoked at her lips, and enveloped her wholly in ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... friend Miss Chubb had entirely succumbed to the extreme dishabille of the Spanish toilet—not without a certain languid grace on the part of Mrs. Brimmer, whose easy contour lent itself to the stayless bodice; or a certain bashful, youthful naivete on the part of Miss Chubb, the rounded dazzling whiteness of whose neck and shoulders half pleased and half frightened her in her low, white, plain camisa—under the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress. It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's ploughing, and ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... with Russia and realized he'd sat down on a bench with its back to mine and only a bush between. You see, here we were, two females undignifiedly twisted together, at the moment getting her into that crazy crouch-deep bodice that's like a big icecream cone, and yet here at the same time was Queen Elizabeth the First of England, three hundred and umpty-ump years dead, coming back to life in a Central Park dressing room. ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... housemaid, not bad-looking, but very stout and snub-nosed; in a white dress, of which the bodice is short and ill-fitting. About her neck is a little red kerchief; her hair is ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... gown; and though this was simple for the fashion of the day, it transformed the child into a woman. The long, pointed bodice, the square neck, with its bordering of handsome lace, showing the exquisite throat sloping into the shoulders and chest, the puffings that fell like waves about the hips and made ripples as they went down the skirt, the sleeves ending at the elbow with a fall ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... her white skin and the bodice of her gown, tossing the ivory figure contemptuously amid ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... intervals," smiled Marna. "You see, my days are made up of taking care of baby, and of intervals. How fetching that black velvet bodice is, Kate. I didn't know ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... commendation—enjoyed an hour's rest, taken coffee, and were rising to depart, when the landlady appeared with a hop, skip and jump. She was a lively, voluble little woman, who, though she had attired herself for us in two enormous cloth petticoats, a stuff bodice and yards of Bohemian lace in frills and ruffles, by way of displaying the wealth of her wardrobe, bobbed and curtseyed as if set on wires. Great was the difficulty, between the amusing, friendly wife and the husband ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... been rendered unfit for marriage, she began to spit, and ejaculated, 'Jesus, what cruel barbarians!' and she made wry faces at the lady's nuptial repast; but she was eagerly curious to know the particulars of her marriage-dress; whether she wore high-breasted stays or bodice, a robe of silk or velvet, and laces of Mechlin or minionette — she supposed, as they were connected with the French, she used rouge, and had her hair dressed in the Parisian fashion. The captain would have declined giving a catagorical explanation of all these particulars, observing, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... repaired till nothing of the original structure remained, and clasped on his feet with two massy silver buckles. If the dress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his granddaughter was gay, and even rich. She wore a bodice of fine wool, wrought round the bosom with alternate leaf and lily, and a kirtle of the same fabric, which, almost touching her white and delicate ankle, showed her snowy feet, so fairy-light and round that they scarcely ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... emboldened him; again he knocked, this time more sharply, more persistently. Again inattention; then, as he lifted his hand for the third time, the hum of the machine ceased abruptly, the door opened, and he turned to confront a small woman with wispy hair and untidy clothes, whose bodice was adorned with innumerable pins, and at whose side hung a pair of scissors ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... dresses: Maruja was wearing the costume of her maid; Faquita was closely veiled and habited like her mistress; but it was characteristic that, while Faquita appeared awkward and over-dressed in her borrowed plumes, Maruja's short saya and trim bodice, with the striped shawl that hid her fair head, looked infinitely more coquettish and bewitching than on ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... marble. The figure is fourteen feet in height and represents the bold navigator wearing the dress of the period, the richly embroidered doublet, or waistcoat, thrown back, revealing a kilt that falls in easy folds from a bodice drawn tightly over the broad chest beneath. Not only the attitude of the figure but the expression of the face is commanding, and as you look upon the clearly cut features you seem to feel instinctively the presence of the man of genius and power, which the artist ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... and in all my life (as I have since often reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared. The woman had actually thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left her arms free—and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were. How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... her companions, in a coarse linen skirt, whose uncouth folds disguise her hips, and a calico smock imprisoned in a black laced bodice, a sort of shapeless, barbarous cuirass. A broad-brimmed straw hat, adorned with a faded ribbon, casts its shadow on her shoulders; but, when she bends her head, I see the glint of her hair, whose tightly bound and twisted masses shine like ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... tender. He put his arm lightly about her shoulders—lightly, but his finger-tips were sensitive to every thread of her thin bodice that seemed tissue as warmly living as the smooth shoulder beneath. She pressed her eyes against his coat, her coiled dark hair beneath his chin. A longing to cry like a boy, and to care for her like a ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... stout, ruddy, grey-eyed Rusha, in her tight round cap, and stout brown petticoat with the homespun apron over it; the other was like a fairy by her side; slight and tiny, dressed in something of mixed threads of white and crimson that shone in the sun, with a velvet bodice, a green ribbon over it, and a gem over the shoulder that flashed in the sun, a tiny scarlet hood from which such a quantity of dark locks streamed as to give something the effect of a goldfinch's crown, and the face was a brilliant little brown one, with glowing cheeks, pretty little white ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was both happy and sad when the dear maid took a flower from her bodice and gave it to him as a token of remembrance. He solemnly tucked it away in a pocket, stammered his farewells, and went to join his uncle who waited in the yawl at the wharf. Once on board the Plymouth Adventure, they were swept into ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the young man vaguely, sinking back in his chair with his arms folded. He looked at Mrs. Luna with intelligent incredulity. She was sufficiently pretty; her hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack with her vivacity; and from beneath the stiff little plaits of her petticoat a small fat foot protruded, resting upon a stilted heel. She was attractive and impertinent, especially the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... prefer her to all other women in the world?—well, I can't tell you. When I look at her, with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her bare and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white tunic with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her look like a living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags in her hand to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paper hoops which tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully on the galloping horse to such applause,—no hired clapping,—well, ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... (he stood as if appalled,) that, ere he had gained his self-possession, she drew from her girdle a pearl-hilted stiletto, and in attempting to ward off the dreadful lunge, he struck it from her hand, and into her own bosom. The weapon fell gory to the floor-the blood trickled down her bodice-a cry of "murder" resounded through the hall! The administrator of justice rushed out of the door as the unhappy girl swooned in the arms of her partner. A scene so confused and wild that it bewilders the brain, now ensued. Madame Flamingo calls loudly for Mr. Soloman; ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... she placed the flowers in her bosom,—but, the little maid noticed, not as an ornament, but quite out of sight, where her close bodice would crush them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... faded and rubbed. A few early Victorian lithographs hung on the walls, portraits of ballet-dancers and noblemen with waists and whiskers. No one had tidied the room since the night before, and fine underclothing was flung carelessly about on chairs, a fussy petticoat here, the bodice of an evening dress there; everywhere just that touch of mingled daintiness and disorder which by this time Milly ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... light, from the lavish use of beautifying arts. She has pronounced features, dark eyes, low brows, black hair bound by a jewelled bandeau, and brought forward in curls over her forehead and temples, long heavy ear-rings, an open bodice, and sleeves puffed at the shoulders. A cloak and other mufflers lie on a chair ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... her eyes blue-gray and smiling, her face featly fashioned, the nose high and fairly set, the lips more red than cherry or rose in time of summer, her teeth white and small; and her breasts so firm that they bore up the folds of her bodice as they had been two walnuts; so slim was she in the waist that your two hands might have clipt her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... raising flaming eyes to mine; her lips were slightly parted. With that wild abandon which betrayed the desert blood in her veins, she wrenched open the neck of her bodice and slipped a soft shoulder free of the garment. She twisted around, so that the white skin was but ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... cypress-tree; her skin was white as milk, her eyes two darkest sapphires, her head of a coppery golden that seemed to glow like metal as the sunlight caught it. She was dressed in a close gown of white, the bodice cut low and revealing the immaculate loveliness ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... proposals as you at first make to me. Let there be a surrender of Monsieur Scott—" Here she blushed so deeply that all her sweet-rounded cheek, and her neck, and her delicious little shell-like ears, became a crimson, deep as her bodice—"and a consent to entertain as favourably as I can the suit of M. Riel. Meanwhile we can see what is the next best step. I do not think that we have much to dread by leaving Red River. We can go ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the picture of his gentle, sweet-faced wife. She was painted seated, a little son on either side of her; and now in the dimness she looked out from the heavy gold frame, a half smile playing about her lips, on her lap an open book, and about the low-cut crimson velvet bodice rare old lace pinned at the bosom with a large brooch of wrought gold, framing a ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... in! On condition that you are under twenty-five and that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time you appear in Broadway with the hat and balzarine, we will pay the bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done as this letter, and you may 'snuggle' down on the sofa and consider us paid, and the public ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... in her swift faring, a poised moment of indecision. During the halt her face lost its blithe serenity, showed a faltering uncertainty, then stiffened into resolution. Inside her muff her hands gripped, inside her bodice her heart jumped. Both these evidences of agitation were hidden and that gave her confidence. Assuming an air of nonchalance she moved forward, her gait slackened, her eyes abstractedly shifting from the sky to ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... presents a properly imposing appearance. There are signs of social life about the mansion befitting its own style of conscious superiority. In the wide arched entrance hall stands a high-born dame attired in gay Watteau costume—red-heeled slippers, brocaded petticoat, and bodice and train of puce-colored satin. She is receiving the adieux of an elegant gentleman, hatted, booted, and spurred, who, with whip in hand and dog by his side, is about to descend the steps and mount his horse for a ride over his estate. A bird-cage ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... company of braves with long spears. We were ushered into the royal presence without either ceremony or delay. The queen was sitting in a hammock with her feet resting on the ground. She wore a bright-colored, loosely-fitting bodice, a skirt to match, and sandals. Her long black hair was arranged in tails, of which there were seven on each side of her face. She was short and stout, and perhaps thirty years old, and though in early ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... dome. Marjorie peeped about, opened some of the boxes and examined the dresses, and inspected a variety of odd objects, such as pasteboard crowns, fairies' wings, sceptres, wands, and swords. She was just about to try on a green-velvet Rumanian bodice when she turned in alarm. Steps were heard coming up the staircase towards the Observatory. In an instant Marjorie shut the box and slipped behind one of the screens. She was only just in time, for the next moment Miss Norton entered the room. Through ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... rage. She looked hideous in her brown Venice waistcoat; frightful in her orange tiffany farthingale;—absolutely unbearable in her black velvet hood, wire ruff, and taffety gown. So that in the end she was nigh going to bed again in the sulks, had not a jacket of crimson satin, with slashed bodice, embroidered in gold twist, taken her fancy. Her little steel mirror, not always the object of such complacency, did for once reflect a beam of good humour, which so bewitched Kate that for the next five minutes she found herself settling ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... yards away from us, over the dark water, was Mildred. She stood on a slender azure cylinder that came just to the surface. Tall, slender, superbly graceful, with only the scant bodice of green silken stuff about her, she looked like the statue of a goddess in white marble. Her head was thrown up, golden-brown hair fell behind her shoulders, and the pure notes of her ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... personality with her clothes, and whirled in astride over two horses with neither saddle nor bridle, guiding them and keeping them together by the pressure of her feet. She had full skirts, to her knees, of white satin, and pearl-coloured silk stockings. Her satin bodice was cut heart-shaped and there was a high jewelled band round her long throat. Her hair hung down in a thick plait, tied with a ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... in the grounds of other noblemen. There was not one that spread such delicate and graceful tresses on the breeze as our White Birch; not one that fanned it with such a gentle, musical flutter of silver-lined leaves; not one that wore a bodice of such virgin white from head to foot, or that showed such long, tapering fingers against the sky. I was glad to see such justice done to a tree in the noblest parks in England, which with us has been treated with such disdain ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... I give you a little of this cheese?" said Maryanne. What a story such a question told of the heartlessness, audacity, and iron nerves of her who asked it! What power, and at the same time what cruelty, there must have been within that laced bodice, when she could bring herself to ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... of the bride had been gathered up, and, save two massive braids, shading her brow and cheek, was concealed under a head-dress, somewhat resembling an eastern turban, but well suited to her countenance. Her dress, of the fashion before described, was all of white—the jacket or bodice richly woven with gold threads; but so thick a veil enveloped face and form, that her sweet face was concealed, until, at one particular part of the mysterious rite (for such, to the Spaniards, this ceremony must have been), the veil was uplifted ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... her form. Sleeves she had none. A trifle of gauze traveled over one shoulder, leaving the other bare save for a supporting strap of tiny scarlet beads. Her triple skirt was serrated like the petals of a black carnation, and outlined with the same minute beads. Her bodice could scarcely be said to exist, so deep was its V. From her ears long ornaments of jet depended, and a comb in scarlet bead-work ran wholly across one side of her head. A flower of the same hue and workmanship trembled from the point of her corsage. She wore ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... on chattering thus to put off what she had really come to say. Her heart was beating so fast that its throbs could be seen under the embroidered front of the bodice which fitted her so smoothly. She wondered how Madame d'Argy would receive the suggestion ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... her back partly toward him, but he knew that she was a pretty woman as well as a handsome one, though he saw her face only in profile, and she was too far off for him to see it very well. Her hair was arranged simply; her head was set beautifully on her shoulders. She was dressed in black, the bodice covered with spangles that with her slightest movement shimmered and reflected the light like a coat of flexible mail. A number of men were standing about her, and many women, as they passed, held out their hands to her in the way that ladies of fashion ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... outline, and expressing its beauty. And then there are the marvels of the dress to consider: the perfect and spontaneous creation of the glitter of the long silk arms, and the muslin of the wrists, soft as foliage, and then the hardness of the bodice stitched with jewellery and set so romantically on the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... the front side plaits be careful and do not allow a fold or crease to be apparent on the bodice beyond where the stitching commences. To avoid this, before beginning stick a pin through what is to be the top of the plait. The head will be on the right side, and holding the point, one can begin pinning the seam without ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... long time von Briest really held fast to this view with remarkable tenacity. But after the second rehearsal, at which Kaethchen was half in costume, wearing a tight-fitting velvet bodice, he was so carried away as to remark: "Kaethchen lies there beautifully," which turn was pretty much the equivalent of a surrender, or at least prepared the way for one. That all these things were kept secret from Effi goes ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various |
