"Honest woman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... done! May hell get you! To suspect me of cutting trees!—me, the most honest woman in the village. To hunt me like vermin! I'd like to see you lose your cursed eyes, for then we'd have peace. You are birds of ill-omen, the whole of you; you invent shameful stories to stir up strife ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... women to have no souls, are shocked at the idea of confession; and say; How can an honest man think of listening to the recital of the actions or the secret thoughts of a woman? May we not also ask, on the other hand, how can an honest woman consent to reveal them? ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... the wickedness, there is a personal offence contained in every such attempt. It is calling us villains: for no man asks the other to act the villain unless he believes him inclined to be one. No man attempts to seduce the truly honest woman. It is the supposed looseness of her mind that starts the thoughts of seduction, and he who offers it calls her a prostitute. Our pride is always hurt by the same propositions which offend our principles; for when we ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... indeed in all others, Madame Bauche had the reputation of being an honest woman. She had a certain price, from which no earthly consideration would induce her to depart; and there were certain returns for this price in the shape of dejeuners and dinners, baths and beds, which she never failed ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... Major's cheque there would have been a difficulty about payment on the part of the respected bankers on whom he drew. On your honor and conscience, do you think that old widow who was walking from Tunbridge Wells to Harlow had a daughter ill, and was an honest woman at all? The daughter couldn't always, you see, be being ill, and her mother on her way to her dear child through Hyde Park. In the same way some habitual sneerers may be inclined to hint that the cabman's story was an invention—or ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alone knoweth an he be still alive or he be now dead; however, if his olives be in good condition I will go bring some hither that we may taste them: so give me a platter and a lamp that I may fetch thee somewhat of them." His wife, an honest woman and an upright, made answer, "Allah forbid that thou shouldst do a deed so base and break thy word and covenant. Who can tell? Thou art not assured by any of his death; perchance he may come back from Egypt safe and sound tomorrow or the day after; then wilt thou, an thou cannot deliver unharmed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... entered into it with a social enthusiasm that didn't seem to Mrs. Julia to have quite enough womanly shame for her dark past in it. Still, anything to get the guilty couple lawful wedded; and before she left it was all fixed. Uncle Henry was to make an honest woman of Aunt Mollie as soon as she ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... sea. There was a pause. I longed to hear the details of the scene, which could not have lacked humorous elements. But she left them to my imagination. "After that," she continued, "he saw I was an honest woman and talked about marriage." ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... only crime, your highness. I was not cruel to myself; I received the happiness that was offered. I have been called a coquette, my prince; it is time to bind myself in marriage bonds, and show the world that love can make an honest woman of me. Can your highness blame ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... true. But, placed as I am, if friends whom we have in all the ministries in Paris warn me to beware of every woman I meet, and assure me that Fouche has employed against me a Judith of the streets, it is not unnatural that my best friends here should think you too beautiful to be an honest woman." ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... said Paul; "me find honest woman who fight like one panther 'fore she let any one come ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... you to marry me. I want you to play the game of life with me as an honest woman should. Come and live with me. Be my wife and squaw. Bear ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Go, hasten, act as you like. We shall see if the vile calumnies of an incendiary can stain the pure reputation of an honest woman. We shall see if a single speck of this mud in which you wallow can reach up ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... the Captain was engaged to, which he never would have been if he had taken my advice, since of all the fish-blooded little serpents that ever I set eyes on she's the serpentest, though pretty, I allow. Solomon said in his haste that an honest woman he had not found, but if he had met the Honourable Miss—well, never mind her name—he'd have said it at his leisure, and gone on saying it. Now, no one should never take back a servant what has given notice and ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... I was so tired; and when Bridget, the crathur, 'woke me in the morning, she was cryin' like a spout afther a thunder-storm, and said her characther would be ruined when the story got abroad over the counthry, and sure she darn't face the world if I wouldn't make her an honest woman." ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Godden. Martin, I don't know that I like your having dinner with Joanna Godden. It marks you—they'll talk about it at the Woolpack for weeks, and it'll probably end in your having to marry her to make her an honest woman." ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... strong sexual appetite, marries an honest girl of good family, and has several children by her. Such an action is positive from the egoistic point of view, for the individual in question benefits himself. From the ethical point of view, it is negative, for it makes an honest woman unhappy, and probably leads to the procreation of children of ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... L'Hospital; he was absent, but his wife was in the house, and she fortunately was a very honest woman, who had wit, sense, and courage. Nonancourt is only five leagues from La Ferme, and when, to save distance, you do not pass there, they send you relays upon the road. Thus I knew very well this post-mistress, who mixed herself more in the business than her husband, and who has herself ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... your word of honor as an honest woman—for you are, alas for me! an honest woman—never to mention my name or to say that it was I who betrayed ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... should be considering it over a tea-table in Surrey while Imogen was battling with all the somber accompaniments of grief in New York, challenged her not to deny some essential defect in her own maternity. She was an honest woman, and after her hour of thought she could not deny it, though she could not see clearly where it lay; but the recognition was but a step to the owning that she must try to right herself. And at this point,—she had drawn a deep ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Nancy, "I'm a hardworking, honest woman, and I don't see why my substance is to be wasted by your Reverence when you won't ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... I have been a good mother to you as well as to him. I had you taught a trade. It has been no fault of mine that you are not an honest woman and did not marry in your station. I loved you tenderly and I love you still. I forgive you and I love you. But do not speak ill of Evariste. He is a good son. He has always taken care of me. When you left me, my child, when you abandoned your trade and forsook ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... my sailors, who had come to a determination to make an honest woman of Poll and an ass of himself, at one and the same time. The ceremony took place on the quarter-deck. "Who gives this woman away?" said I, with due emphasis, according to the ritual. "I do," cried the boatswain in a gruff ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to treat these dear little things as if they were goods—poultry or vegetables. When folks do that I can understand that their hearts get hardened, and that they pass the little ones on from hand to hand without any more care than if they were stock-in-trade. But then, monsieur, I'm an honest woman; I'm authorized by the mayor of our village; I hold a certificate of morality, which I can show to anybody. If ever you should come to Rougemont, just ask after Sophie Couteau there. Folks will tell ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... are an honest woman, Mrs Abbott; and so is Mr Louvaine an honest man; and if you would have me keep my tongue off your doings, see that you keep yours off his. Now I have given you warning: ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... an honest woman entertain any feeling beyond the pleasure of enjoying music with him? But if you like, I am ready to never see him again, even on Sunday, although everybody has been invited. Write him that I am indisposed, and that will end the matter. Only ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... honorably tendered me their affections. It is said, and basely and most falsely too, that my sweetheart, Capt. Allan Brewster, has lodged this information. I have ridden here to deny it. I have ridden here to demand of you that an honest woman's reputation shall not be sacrificed to the interests of politics; that a prying mob of ragamuffins shall not be sent to an honest farmer's house to spy and spy—and turn a poor girl out of doors that they might do it. 'Tis shameful, so it is; there! 'tis ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... short pause, "You are an honest woman, Alice,—the honestest I ever knew. I will bring Kate to order,—and, now, we may be friends again; may we not?" And he extended his hand to her across ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... decided which she loved, have frankly told the husband the mistake both had made, and demanded her liberty. If the lover was worthy, have openly married him and borne the world's censures. If not worthy, have stood alone, an honest woman in God's eyes, whatever the ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... George," I said icily, "that I appreciate the fact of being deprived of the services of an honest woman in favor ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... her task, and him! She was a singularly honest woman, but she must play the siren; must allure this scoundrel to forgetfulness, with a hurried and yet elude the very familiarity her manner invited. She knew her part, the heartless enticing coquette, compounded half of passion and half of selfishness. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... preevileege, lassie, and ane that ye'll hae to answer for, to be sae muckle wi' ane o' the Lord's elec' as ye are wi' Tibbie Dyster. She's some thrawn (twisted) whiles, but she's a good honest woman, wha has the glory o' God sair at her hert. And she's tellt me my duty and my sins in a mainner worthy o' Debohrah the prophetess; and I aye set mysel' to owercome them as gin they had been the airmy o' Sisera, wham Jael, the wife o' Heber, the Kenite, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... thee up my marriage lines, and I shall be an honest woman, and a wretched one, and my boy will not be a bastard; and of course, then we could both go into any honest man's house that would be troubled with us; and even for thy goodness this day, I will—I will—ne'er be so ungrateful as go past thy ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... her, she would have been more renowned than ever was Eleanor Gwynne; even as it was, she had been celebrated in a song, which has not been lost to posterity. After a few years of dissipated life, Nancy reformed, and became an honest woman, and an honest wife. By her marriage with the smuggler, she had become one of the fraternity, and had taken up her abode in the cave, which she was not sorry to do, as she had become too famous at Portsmouth to remain there as a married ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... of extraordinary abjection. She saw at last where her lawlessness had brought her, and she despised herself. But she did not love him any the more for understanding him. She saw at last that one cannot be an honest woman without actually being—an honest woman. She was going to get honesty if ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... you're standin' there. Come nigher—I've got to whisper it." He leaned forward close to her where she sat. She looked swiftly from right to left; then raising her lips she breathed into his ear: "I'm an honest woman, Hi. I was married to Levi West before ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin; "but the game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman—" ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... was a very just observation: and she thought it a pity there was not a law, that every man who made a harlot of an honest woman, should be obliged to marry one of ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... a young man is never wanting in excellent arguments to prove that his mistress is very nearly, if not quite, an honest woman. This distinction originates in the refinement of our manners and has become as indefinite as the line which separates bon ton from vulgarity. What then is meant ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... example of it in this evening's paper. Mary McKenna lives south of Market Street. She is a poor but honest woman. She is also patriotic. But she has erroneous ideas concerning the American flag and the protection it is supposed to symbolize. And here's what happened to her. Her husband had an accident and was laid up in hospital three months. In spite of taking in washing, she got behind ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... now put in for my interest. 'Hollo, good folks, remember that I am to send the boy to Mount Sharon, and if you go to the Shepherd's Bush, honest woman, how the deuce am I to guide the blind man where he is going? I know little or ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... in such matters a fool is indispensable." I heaped before him the papers that made an honest woman of my mother and a marquis of me, and seizing the flint, I cast a spark among them that set them crackling cheerily. Oh, I knew well enough that patience would coax a flame from those twigs without my paper's aid, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... being called a thief and a liar," said Ursula; "a person may be a liar and a thief, and yet a very honest woman, but ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that of a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had been for his little personal wants,—that he should be warmed, and fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep, and love ever so true, a man will ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... prevented you from wasting your money on bad women—and then I didn't see anything out of the way in the girl till now. But now it won't do at all. They're telling stories in the quarter—a heap of horrible things about us. A pack of vipers! We're above all that, I know. When one has been an honest woman all her life, thank God! But you never know what will happen—mademoiselle would only have to put the end of her nose into her maid's affairs. Why there's the law—the bare idea gives me a turn. What do you ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... ushers and heralds their fees. Aye, that he is a knight: and so might you have been too, if you had been aught else but an ass, as well as some of your neighbours. An I thought you would not ha' been knighted, as I am an honest woman, I would ha' dubbed you myself. I praise God, I have wherewithal. But as for ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... estate. Look here, Maria, I had set my heart upon this thing coming to pass; I have thought of it for years. I loved your father, and you are like your father, girl; ay, I love you too, because you are a generous, honest woman, and will bring a good strain of blood into a family that wants generosity—ay, and I sometimes think wants honesty too. And then your land runs into ours, and, as I can't buy it, I am glad that it should come in by marriage. I have always wanted to see the Abbey, Isleworth, and Rewtham estates ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... a gunsmith. He plays the piano to perfection, and has a very beautiful voice. Had he employed these talents, he could have made his way to the opera, but his dignity held him back. Now you know what has been communicated to me by Baron B—-. On the faith of an honest woman, I have neither added nor ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... cried, brandishing it above her head, "I'll gar ye to know ye're not coming flisking to an honest woman's house setting folks by the lugs. Keep to your ain whillying hottle here, ye ne'er-do-weel, or I'll mak' windle-strae o' your banes—and what ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... was how I raised her up and made an honest woman of her, so as folks shouldn't get to know how as she'd gone ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... always a good, honest little girl, and you have grown up an honest woman; you want to do your duty and slave for Marcus and Dot, and you have begun nobly by starving yourself until you are on the verge of an hysterical attack, but we must think of Marcus. Martha must not go, ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... declining years. The young couple, neither of whom had a penny, were now virtually engaged: the thing was subject to Ralph's putting his hand on some regular employment. People more enamoured couldn't be conceived, and Mrs. Highmore, honest woman, who had moreover a professional sense for a love-story, was eager to take them under her wing. What was wanted was a decent opening for Limbert, which it had occurred to her I might assist her to find, though indeed I had not yet found ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... woman getting on in years; plain to see that a glance from one of these warm-blooded menfolk came all unexpectedly to her; she was grateful for it, and returned it; she was a woman like other women, and it thrilled her to feel so. An honest woman she had been, but like enough ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... nor there. If I have played the fool a dozen times, that's no reason that I am to do so again. Go shares, and promise to make an honest woman of Mary, and you shall not ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Ballycloran. But who is it now rules all at Ballycloran? Who, but that bloody robber, Ussher? They'd go through the country for him, the born ruffian,—may food choke him!—and he making little of them all the time. Bad manners to the like of him! they say he never called an honest woman his mother. Will I, Mr. Brady, be giving my blood for them, and he putting my brother in gaol, and all for sitting up warming his shins at Loch Sheen? No; may this be my curse if I do!" and Joe Reynolds swallowed a glass of whiskey; "and you may tell Mr. Thady, Pat, if he wants ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... visit afore you?' 'That is no odds,' says I; 'I would not be doctored by a woman.' Then she says to me, says she, 'Now you look me in the face.' 'I can do that,' says I; 'you, or anybody else. I'm an honest woman, I am;' so I up and looked her in the face as bold as brass. 'Then,' says she, 'am I to understand that, if you was to be ill to-morrow, you would rather die than be doctored by a woman?' She thought to daant me, you see, so I says, 'Well, I don't know as I oodn't.' You do laugh, miss. Well, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... could not speak, his landlady came out to us, and told us that he had eat nothing for three days, and did nothing but drink. She begged us to take care of him, as he disregarded all she said. This honest woman gave us Jack's wages to a cent, for I knew what they had come to; and we made a collection of ten dollars for her, calculating that Jack must have swallowed that much in three days. Jack we took with us, bag and hammock; ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... dears they were, I mind them, a-hanging of their heads to see a stranger, an' a finger in mouth—they falling sick, the woman of Brentford come again, an' this time all afraid to say her nay. An' layin' off her cloak, she took the youngest from the mother's breast, dandling an' chucking it like an honest woman, whereupon it fell ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... influence, and that you will yield to temptation at every step? On such a supposition as this, believe me, Don Luis—and do not be offended with me for saying so—you are not even worthy to be the husband of an honest woman. If, with all the ardor and tenderness of the most passionate lover, you have pressed the hand of a woman, if you have looked at one, with glances that foretold a heaven, an eternity of love, if you have kissed a woman that inspired you with no other feeling than one that for me ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... quite cross. This Rufus—I can't give 'im up. 'E don't belong to me. I never ask for 'im. 'E come into my dressing-room and I like 'im for 'is cheek and I give 'im a good time. Now he is ennuyeux. 'E want to marry me and make an honest woman of me." She patted Stonehouse on the shoulder with so droll a grimace that he bit his lip to avoid a gust of ribald, incredible laughter. It was as though by some trick she changed the whole aspect ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... encampments. In an age when the passions are strongest, and often blind reason and silence conscience, they have not the means nor the permission to marry; in their vicinity it is, therefore, more difficult to discover one honest woman or a dutiful wife, than hundreds of harlots and of adulteresses. Notwithstanding that many of them have been accused before the tribunals of seductions, rape, and violence against the sex, not one has been punished for ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... "Marry your daughter, honest woman!" said I, "on the faith of a Christian, I never saw your daughter; and you may rest assured in this, that I will neither marry you nor her. Do you consider how short a time I have been in this place? How much that time has been occupied? And how there was even a possibility ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... the shame of unchastity and man none, I want to see him destroyed politically by his past. The men who defend him would take their wives to the White House if he were president, but if he married his concubine—'made her an honest woman' they would not go near him. I can't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... things—one in particular. But you wouldn't promise to keep it a secret. I'll tell you now if you promise? As an honest woman I wish you to know it... It was what I began telling you in the night—about that gentleman who managed the Sydney hotel." Arabella spoke somewhat hurriedly for her. "You'll keep ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... to the honest woman's face, and then crawled hurriedly all about the veranda, as if trying to hide in corners. Thanks to Coronado's fluency and invention, there was a mutually satisfactory conversation between the couple. He amplified the lady's compliments ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... but in the afternoon she received a visit from the man's wife. This honest woman began to depict, in forcible colours, the necessity ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... "you are for springing game in all parts of the house, and at all times too. How came you here?"—"Not by my appointment, Sir," replied the old lady, who still remained rolled up in the curtain. "I never did such a thing in all my born days: I'm an honest woman, and mean to remain so. I never was so ashamed in ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... most unfortunate situation for an honest man and an honest woman, and saddened a union which was otherwise pure and beautiful; for to the day of her death Jackson and his wife loved each other most tenderly. It brought into his life a new element of bitterness and passion. Whoever, by the slightest ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... "And she an honest woman! A mother the President of the United States, or the first commodore in the ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... roughly speaking, is the man who wants to eat his cake and have it. He has no sense of honour about ideas; he will not see that one must pay for an idea as for anything else. He will not see that any worthy idea, like any honest woman, can only be won on its own terms, and with its logical chain of loyalty. One idea attracts him; another idea really inspires him; a third idea flatters him; a fourth idea pays him. He will have them all at once in one wild intellectual ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... Did you suppose, because I ran away to act, that I wasn't an honest woman?" She stretched out her left hand; and there was a thin gold ring on her third finger. "He isn't much of an actor, poor dear. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, he has been hissed off two-and-thirty stages in Great Britain alone. Indeed, he's ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... answered: "That is quite true; but I am an honest woman, and I am bound to give you the message that is given to me for you, even when it goes ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... Sheila's character, and begin to perceive how much more valuable were these genuine qualities of heart and mind than any social graces such as might lighten up a dull drawing-room. Had Lavender yet learnt to know the worth of an honest woman's perfect love and unquestioning devotion? Let these things be put before him, and he would go and do the right thing, as he had many a time done before, in obedience to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... said Quennebert behind the arras, "'tis as amusing as a play! Is the commander also going to offer to make an honest woman of her? But ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... all for me when I'm to be left with him that's not my actual husband, left without love, hope, or self-respect? God help poor women! It's Milk-and-Water then; that's settled, and I'm to see you at the kirk with her for a lifetime of Sundays after this, an honest woman, and me what I am for you that have forgotten me—forgotten me! I was as good as she when you knew me first, Sim; I was not bad, and oh, my God! but ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... but really to do something extraordinary for her, towards making her easy in her affairs. And I added, that I had no hangers-on that should trouble him; that there was nobody belonged to me but what was thoroughly provided for, and that, if I did something for this honest woman that was considerable, it should be the last gift I would give to anybody in the world but Amy; and as for her, we were not agoing to turn her adrift, but whenever anything offered for her, we would do as we saw cause; that, in the meantime, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little pistol; I shall be easy, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... away." The storm then falls upon my cousin. Caroline never puts on her airs of a victim, now, but speaks in the kindest manner of me to the whole world. In short, she is happy in my pleasures. And as she is a scrupulously honest woman, she is conscientious to the last degree in her use of our fortune. My house is well kept. My wife leaves me the right to dispose of my reserve without the slightest control on her part. That's the way of it. We have ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... hope to fathom the mystery, and then the ghost story will resolve itself into a ridiculous reality. Early to-morrow morning I shall have all the soldiers called up, who were on duty at the castle to-night, and question them myself. The castellan's wife, too, must be summoned. She is an honest woman of bold and sober wits, and from her I shall be best able to learn what is the meaning of this masquerade. Good-night, Lehndorf, sleep off your fright, you sentimental man, over whom a childish shudder still creeps, whenever he ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the wife of my only surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had long gone before. She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the best attained by any life, that she left the world ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... troubled me, and Mad. de Meilhan seemed annoyed. She evidently thought: "She is an honest woman, and wants to marry Edgar, I fear," I took no notice of her sudden coldness of manner, but thought to myself: How delightful it would be to carry out these ambitious plans, and gratify every wish of this woman's heart! ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... I knew Mrs. Grote, however, her artistic sympathies were keenly excited in a very different direction; for she had undertaken, under some singular impulse of mistaken enthusiasm, to make what she called "an honest woman" of the celebrated dancer, Fanny Ellsler, and to introduce her into London society,—neither of them very attainable results, even for as valiant and enterprising a person as Mrs. Grote. When first I heard of this strange undertaking I was, in common ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... without a character?" said Mercy, sadly. "I went back again to the matron. Sickness had broken out in the Refuge; I made myself useful as a nurse. One of the doctors was struck with me—'fell in love' with me, as the phrase is. He would have married me. The nurse, as an honest woman, was bound to tell him the truth. He never appeared again. The old story! I began to be weary of saying to myself, 'I can't get back! I can't get back!' Despair got hold of me, the despair that hardens the heart. I might have committed suicide; I might even have drifted ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... me up and down very earnestly for a minute, and then he said: 'What is there under the roof of heaven like the love of an honest woman! It makes the world ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... worse. Where were your eyes, then? And where was your nose? Why, I smelt the cakes a hundred yards away, and you sitting over them, and as you say awake, neither saw them burning nor smelt them! You are enough to break an honest woman's heart with your mooning ways. You are ready enough to eat when the meal-time comes, but are too lazy even to watch the food as it cooks. I tell you I will have no more of you. I have put up with you till I am verily ashamed of my own patience; but this is too much, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... unborn—yet when he's living and not dead—where's his soael then? Parson he says the soael's sleeping inside him afore going to glory, like a grub afore it turns into a fly; but I asked him how he knowed, and he just said he knowed, an' I mun b'lieve, and that's no way to answer an honest woman.' ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... moaned aloud; 'I promised Jeannie to mak her an honest woman, but I haena done it. But I will, I swear it, by Heaven above. Minister Macgregor,' he yelled again, 'come, help me, or I'll gang clean daft.' Shaking like an aspen leaf he lay upon the ground and covered his eyes with ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... beasts and ravening lions. However, if this be thy will, there is no help but we first show thee those of us who are like unto wild beasts. But, O our lord, what wouldst thou of us at this present?" Quoth Hasan, "I would have you carry me forthwith to the city of Baghdad, me and my wife and this honest woman." But, hearing his words they hung down their heads and were silent, whereupon Hasan asked them, "Why do ye not reply?" And they answered as with one voice, "O our lord and ruler over us, we are of the covenant of Solomon son of David (on the twain be Peace!) and he sware us in that we ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... assertion of his friend's fidelity to his marriage-engagement, I have no right, and no wish, to make any attempt to alter your opinion. But you have asked for my advice, and I must not shrink from giving it. I am bound as an honest woman, to tell you that your uncle's resolution to break off the engagement represents the course that I should have taken myself, if a daughter of my own had been placed in your painful and ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... him, and also because he is partial to you. But as he loves so does he hate; and I believe him to be the man to bring his mace down upon your head, to take his revenge, if you but compel me to utter one cry. Do you desire both my death and your own? But be assured that, as an honest woman, whatever happens to me, good or evil, I shall keep no secret. Now, will you let ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... a right every honest woman has," said Montalais, in an affected tone. "When we know we cannot constitute the happiness of a man it is much ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... it up" with Nancy, and here the note of approval was not wholly lacking. There were good-hearted souls to say that boys will be boys, and to express the hope that Tom would go on from this beginning and make an honest woman ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... time getting the ink the right colour (mixing it over and over again in pots and bottles of mine), and some time afterwards in practising the handwriting. But he succeeded in the end, and made an honest woman of his mother after she was dead in her grave! So far, I don't deny that he behaved honourably enough to myself. He gave me my watch and chain, and spared no expense in buying them; both were of superior workmanship, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... 'Make me an honest woman before I die,' said Annette, in a voice that barely reached him. 'I was brought up to be a good girl, and I have suffered—oh Paul, dear, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of hanging round on the edge of events while the dastardly deed was being committed, not seeming to be responsible in any way. My Lord! I still wanted to be able to face the bereaved man as an honest woman and tell him it was only some nonsense of the boys for which I could not be held under the law, no matter how good a lawyer he'd get. When they come trooping out of the bunk house I was pretending to consult Abner, the blacksmith, about some mower parts. And right off I was struck by the fact that ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... to his knowledge of Wickham's previous history, found out where Lydia and he were lodging, and by dint of paying his debts to the tune of a thousand pounds, buying his commission, and settling another thousand pounds on Lydia, persuaded him to make her an honest woman. That is to say, thought Elizabeth, Darcy had met, frequently met, reasoned with, persuaded, and finally bribed the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... that was sent to her. At regular times, she wrote to him, as to a benefactor, touching and truthful letters, with news of the growing child. He knew that it was all without affectation of any sort, and that she had turned out a thoroughly good and honest woman. The little girl knew that her father was dead, and that her own name was really and legally Malipieri, beyond a doubt. Her mother kept the copy of her certificate of birth together with the certificate of ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... pressure of penury, what have you done? You are not in the front rank, and you have not a thousand francs of your own. That is the sum-total of the situation. Can you, in the decline of your powers, support a family by your pen, when your wife, if she is an honest woman, will not have at her command the resources of the woman of the streets, who can extract her thousand-franc note from the depths where milord keeps it safe? You are rushing into the lowest depths of the ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... had not been as strong as he is," she said, "he would have killed me. My husband is not jealous, for he understands me, and then he is ill, you see, so he is not so hot-blooded; besides, I am an honest woman, madame. But my brother-in-law believes everything that is told him about me, and he is jealous for my husband. I am sure he will make another attempt upon my life, but if I have a little pistol I shall feel safe, and I shall be sure ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... a hundred millions; that temptation might be too great for either of us to withstand. Only, I do think that an honest woman may permit herself, in all honor, certain harmless little coquetries, which are, in fact, part of her social duty ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... and say so before the world," said the attorney, dashing his fist down violently upon the table. "Go and say so, and let men hear you, instead of sitting here whining like a woman. Like a woman! What honest woman would ever bear such insult? If you do not, you will convince all the world, you will convince me and every neighbour you have, that you have done something to make away with that will. In that case we will not leave a stone unturned ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... very coward! And he has fled before the glance of an honest woman's eye. Come, Mrs. Mackinnon, shall we go back to the city? I am sorry that the amusement of the day should have received this check." And she walked forward to the carriage and took her place in it with an air that showed that she was proud ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... this honest woman," thought Snow-White; and she unbolted the door and bargained for ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... with 'Bias, and he allows we should advertise for a single housekeeper; a staid honest woman to look after the pair of us—with maybe a trifle of extra help. That gel, for instance, as ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... drink he could make non to work where upon he tould me that he beleved I was behaged: and I tould him I had thought so a good while: and he asked me by hom I tould him I did not care for spaking for one was counted an honest woman: but he uging I tould him and he said he did beleve that mis Bradbery was a grat deal worss then goody martin: then presently affter this one night I being a bed & brod awake there came sumthing ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... was trying to get him to go away, and he said how he didn't want to; but she had influence with him and was worrying around. Well, the third day he sent me a note by a little boy. 'Caroline,' it said, 'you'se a good woman and an honest woman and we could get on first rate together; but, Caroline, I don't love you when she is about. She ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... told a bosom-friend the story of his great trouble, and how the "influence of a pure honest woman, and an angel as well" had saved him. When the man—startled at anything good being laid to Mrs. Reiver's door—laughed, it cost him ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... she, a respectable matron, a known figure, the mother of adult daughters, had fallen in love with a man not her husband, had had a secret interview with her lover, and was anticipating, not a retreat, but an advance? And she thought, as every honest woman has thought in like case: 'This may happen to others; one hears of it, one reads about it; but surely it cannot have happened to me!' And when she had admitted that it had in fact happened to her, and had perceived with a kind of shock that the ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without distaste, and she does not startle at bawdry. She is the confusion of a pottle of sack more than would have been spent elsewhere, and her little jugs are accepted to have her kiss excuse them. She may be an honest woman, but is not believed so in her parish, and no man is a greater infidel in ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Cuff's last random shot might not have hit the mark. I began to question whether my share in the proceedings was quite as harmless a one as I had thought it. It might be all in the way of the Sergeant's business to mystify an honest woman by wrapping her round in a network of lies but it was my duty to have remembered, as a good Protestant, that the father of lies is the Devil—and that mischief and the Devil are never far apart. Beginning to smell mischief in the air, I tried to take Sergeant Cuff out. He ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... am to pension her for life if I live to have money again. Don't interrupt me. This honest woman goes this morning to the succursale. I promise myself a delicious bifteck of horse. She gains the succursale, and the employee informs her that there is nothing left in his store except—truffles. A glut of those in the market allows him to offer her a bargain-seven ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... horrible hypocrisy and falsehood the abbess could no longer hold her peace, and cried, "In my opinion, sister, you err much; the old dairy-mother is a pious and honest woman, as all the convent can testify, and attended diligently on our dead pastor here to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Empire under its Theodoras, are truer examples of my argument. I am speaking of the unwisdom of assuming all women to be perfect. Belisarius ruined himself and his people by believing his own wife to be an honest woman." ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... promise you," said the laundress, "my young master will stick nothing to call an honest woman slut and quean, if there be but a speck of soot ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott |
