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Skirt   Listen
verb
Skirt  v. t.  To be on the border; to live near the border, or extremity. "Savages... who skirt along our western frontiers."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Skirt" Quotes from Famous Books



... was that of the Canaanites, the descendants of the Semitic invaders from the desert who entered Palestine centuries before the ancestors of the Hebrews. Naturally they settled first along the fertile coast plains that skirt the western Mediterranean. In later times these were known as the Phoenicians. As the population increased, the Canaanites pushed their outposts along the broad valleys that penetrated the uplands of Palestine. These valleys were especially fertile and attractive in the ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks

... size enormous, under which King Arthur and his round-table might have dined! In the depths of the background, is a single lugubrious lamp, rendering dim-visible one of your iron cages, half-buried, and some Prison stones,—Tyranny vanishing downwards, all gone but the skirt: the rest wholly lamp-festoons, trees real or of pasteboard; in the similitude of a fairy grove; with this inscription, readable to runner: 'Ici l'on danse, Dancing Here.' As indeed had been obscurely foreshadowed ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Fenwick's comment when he heard this. "They won't let her go in, at the machines. They won't let her leave the Turkey-twill knickers and the short skirt. She always leaves them there to dry. She's all right. Let's take a turn across the field; it's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... at the sight of the first cowslip, our old people laugh and say to each other, "Will you ever forget how Aunt Dorcas used to take us children out cowslipping, and how she never thought it 'proper' to lift her skirt to cross the log by the mill, and always fell in the brook?" The log has moldered away a generation ago, the mill is only a heap of blackened timbers, but as they speak, they are not only children ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... has on his head the kapa, a cap of scarlet cloth, with black embroidery on the border and hanging fringe on one side; in some districts bordering on Bosnia a rich band of silk or coloured wools is twisted round it. Over the skirt of rough linen (the kosulja), open to show the breast, is the krozet, a waistcoat crossed on the breast with flat buttons of silver, or tin, and embroidery; it is bound to the sides with a girdle (pas) made of red strings. The trousers (benevrechi) are of ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... and shook the skirt. Not a single depreciatory criticism was ventured. Excepting the wearer, nobody present had seen such a masterpiece. But although for half a lifetime we may have beheld nothing better than an imperfect actual, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... of my own city! which Ye love not with more holy love than I, To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves, And waken Auster, sovereign of the Tempest! 130 Till the sea dash me back on my own shore A broken corse upon the barren Lido, Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt The land I love, and never ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... a lovely morning when Daisy was next roused by the fairy music, and the ponies were standing at the door. "Are we going far?" she asked, as Wee put on her riding-skirt, and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... curtain was flung aside, and Jessie, arrayed carefully in her best shirtwaist and skirt, suddenly appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were glowing with excitement and fear. But her rich coloring was alight with warmth, and the man stared in admiration. Yes, she was very good to ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... by the fire, in a short blue skirt that showed her little feet in blue stockings and buckled shoes, and a blue sweater whose rolling collar fell away from the column of her soft throat. And she was just exactly what I had known she would be! There was a gold crest to every exquisite, warm wave of her bronze ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... pasture-lands of the tribe of Reuben, and formerly the kingdom of the gigantic Og, the monarch of Bashan. It is well known that the Valley of the Jordan is bounded on the east by a range of mountains still more lofty than those which skirt its western limits; but it was not suspected till lately that the former concealed in their recesses some of the richest scenery and most valuable land anywhere to be found in Palestine. Rising gradually from the bed of the river, the traveller soon finds himself on a platform seven or eight ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... bound for France; making in all one hundred and fifty unarmed ships to be protected by his thirty-five sail of the line, in face of the British thirty-six. The trade-wind being fair, he purposed to skirt the inner northern edge of the Caribbean Sea; by which means he would keep close to a succession of friendly ports, wherein the convoy might find refuge in case ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... "Round the hollow. We'll skirt the village, and not go through it," said Munro. "We may gain something on the route to the fork of the roads by taking the blind track ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... horses will leave grain, such as corn and oats, to feed on this grass; and its wonderful nutritious properties cannot be denied. Wild oats are often seen in the mountain valleys. Along the low swampy lands which skirt the rivers of the plains, there is yet another species of grass which grows oftentimes several feet high, and has a broad blade, similar almost to that of the flag plant. On approaching the mountains the blue grass is found, which is nearly the same as that usually ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... winks," she brought down the faded pink ribbon that had been her mother's. That night she discovered that neither of the brown ginghams would go over the white muslin, as they had shrunk when they were washed, but that the alpaca would. There was not even a bit of white showing beneath the skirt, as she had discovered by ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... brown—one of these smooth, half-shiny, silky-looking affairs with lace collar and cuffs, and what I believe they call an accordion-plaited skirt. She wore a thick brown veil down to her nose, and a broad-brimmed straw hat with some kind of feathers adorning it. The man wore plain, dark clothes, and his hair was trimmed very short. He was such a man as ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... I am disguised when I am forced to wear those things, which do not suit me," said Jacqueline, pointing to her gray jacket and plaid skirt which were hung up on a hat-rack. "Oh, I know why mamma keeps me like that—she is afraid I should get too fond of dress before I have finished my education, and that my mind may be diverted from serious subjects. It is no doubt all intended for my good, but I should not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... and the shaft broke in his hand. Colter plucked up the pointed part, pinned the savage to the earth, and continued his flight. The Indians, as they arrived at their slaughtered companion, stopped to howl over him. Colter made the most of this precious delay, gained the skirt of cotton-wood bordering the river, dashed through it, and plunged into the stream. He swam to a neighboring island, against the upper end of which the driftwood had lodged in such quantities as to form a natural ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... very word "modern" implies that they are fugitive. "Old ideas" are treated as impossible, though their very antiquity often proves their permanence. Some years ago some ladies petitioned that the platforms of our big railway stations should be raised, as it was more convenient for the hobble skirt. It never occurred to them to change to a sensible skirt. Still less did it occur to them that, compared with all the female fashions that have fluttered about on it, by this time St. Pancras is as historic as ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... it fall before he felt any pain, but before he had time to be surprised he felt a burning pain and the warmth of flowing blood. He hastily wrapped the stump in the skirt of his cassock, and pressing it to his hip went back into the room, and standing in front of the woman, lowered his eyes and asked in a low voice: ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... begun when, unnoticed by either of the women, a fisherman entered. His muscular arms were uncovered; the short skirt of his garment scarce reached his knees. His heavy dark hair was pushed back from his forehead and the dying sunset falling over his swarthy face and neck gave him the appearance of bronze. He stopped behind Sara and ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... "But we'll go if you say so. I won't need any dress, and—" she hurried on as he raised his head belligerently, "neither will Irene. Isn't that lucky? My brown will do, though the over-skirt does jump up when I dance and show the red sham ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... Ainsworth, irreproachably attired in a new georgette blouse and satin skirt, betook herself to her sister's home for an evening meeting of the Current Club. And it was a decided shock to find that neither a social game nor a soul-restoring midnight supper were in store for her, but the proverbial tea and speeches. She resigned ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... was sitting on a wooden bench shaped like a sofa, under an arbor, in a loose dress of white muslin fastened with blue bows, her hair unadorned in waving bands over her cheeks, her feet on a small wooden stool, and showing a little way beyond her skirt. She did not rise; she showed me with her hand to the ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac

... die, I marry Sam Gibson, and had a nice trousseau dat time. Blue over-skirt over tunic, petticoats wid tattin' at de borders, red stockin's and gaiter shoes. I had a bustle and a wire hoop and wore a veil over ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... with wonder. The Patchwork Girl was taller than he, when she stood upright, and her body was plump and rounded because it had been so neatly stuffed with cotton. Margolotte had first made the girl's form from the patchwork quilt and then she had dressed it with a patchwork skirt and an apron with pockets in it—using the same gay material throughout. Upon the feet she had sewn a pair of red leather shoes with pointed toes. All the fingers and thumbs of the girl's hands had been carefully formed and stuffed and stitched ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... on him. "In a 'pork-pie' hat, with her hair in a long net. That was so 'smart' then; especially with one's skirt looped up, over one's hooped magenta petticoat, in little festoons, and a row of very big onyx beads over one's braided velveteen sack—braided quite plain and very ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... skirt, with a red bodice embroidered in gold; a little hat studded with diamonds and a beauty spot on the left temple. She wished me to give her the letter I found, and I sold it to her for two ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... village dressmaker. A very bad one certainly, but still she could gore a skirt. She was not a native of the village, and signified her superior gentility by a mincing pronunciation. She had also a hiss with the sibilants peculiar to herself. Before I could remonstrate, Jack ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... with a school satchel on her arm, containing a few articles. It was late in October, and I knew the child must suffer; and not daring to go out in the streets to purchase any thing, I took off my own flannel skirt and converted it into one for her. Kind Mrs. Bruce came to bid me good by, and when she saw that I had taken off my clothing for my child, the tears came to her eyes. She said, "Wait for me, Linda," and went out. She soon returned with a nice warm ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... Another pale and emaciated person, in neglected and scarcely decent attire, and distinguished by the abstracted fervor of his manner, presses through the crowd, and attempts to lay hold of Pepperell's skirt. He has spent years in wild and shadowy studies, and has searched the crucible of the alchemist for gold, and wasted the life allotted him, in a weary effort to render it immortal. The din of warlike preparation has broken in upon his solitude; and he comes forth with a fancy of his half-maddened ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... flaw from out one of the racing gray cumuli, and a faint cry or two from the distant shore. Theory had not put itself into practice as quickly as the emergency required,—all the less so in that it had to work through a crew encumbered with a longish skirt and a close jacket. The sloop keeled over; Cope was instantly entangled with the mainsail and some miscellaneous cordage; and Amy, with the water soaking her closely-fitting garments, found herself clutching ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... and then stretched her hands over her lustreless satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation were defining itself. "Oh, sir, I am fond of my own ...
— The American • Henry James

... so as to earn for himself the nickname of "the Panther," gamboled and caracoled in front of the procession as if to give it an entertainment. His two comrades had garroted with their arms the neck of the chief interpreter: another held Juan of Aragon by the skirt of his blouse, and regulated his steps by those of the youth. This accord of barbarism and civilization had in it something decidedly graceful, and rather pathetic: if ever the language natural to man was found, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... word as a child might pick it up; and when, some months later, I began to talk easily, I spoke of myself always in the third person as Una. I can remember with a smile now how I went one day to Aunt Emma—I, a great girl of eighteen—and held up my skirt, that I'd muddied in the street, and said to her, with ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... Through the hut's twilight he came, as glorious in her eyes as Michael fresh from that primal battle with old Satan. Tall Richard came to her, his face all blood, and lifted her in his arms lest Branwen's skirt be soiled by the demolished thing which sprawled across their path. She never spoke. She could not speak. In his arms she rode homeward, passive, and content. The horse trod with deliberation. In the east the young moon was taking heart as the darkness thickened, and innumerable stars ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... many things without knowing why she does them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellects with everything they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt; but we can't help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it ought to underlie her silks and embroideries, but not to show itself too staringly on the outside.—-You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... artful beguilements to make him happy and at ease. But her efforts served only to increase his unhappiness and his love. And he loved her! Oh, how he loved her! Since first his dreading eyes had clung for a breath's space to her "like man's shoes" and had then crept timidly upward past a black skirt, a "from silk" apron, a red "jumper," and "from gold" chain to her "light face," she had been mistress of his heart of hearts. That was more than three months ago. And well he ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... white-hair'd sire. They rest where Tarken pours his scanty tide, Then silently—nor moon nor star appearing— Launch forth upon the lake, and softly steal Towards the caitiff's fire gleaming through the dark Like blood-shot eye. All saving one, and he Was left to skirt the shore and give the foe Rough welcome should he 'scape to land. Who then Fair-hair'd and young stood there in melting mood, With all his mother in his swimming eyes, Of abbot's line—with dirk half drawn, fearing, Hoping, praying, as his gentler nature bade That ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... women dressed like girls of sixteen to eighteen—and some of them are that, and younger. They go hopping and laughing about—and they seem to please the men and to have no end of a good time. Especially the oldish men. Oh, yes, you know a squab on sight—tight skirt, low shoes and silk stockings, cute pretty face, always laughing, hat set on rakishly and hair done to match, and always a big purse or bag—with a yellow-back or so in it—as a kind of a hint, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... like a kitten that followed the blue-bordered handkerchief out of the voluminous skirt-pocket. A crumpled clipping from a newspaper fell to the walk as Professor Dimp ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison

... Her exceedingly short skirt was almost as weather-beaten as the coat, but it swung evenly with every step and there was no ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... red-haired bunch of galatea, stylish of cut as to upturned nose and straight little skirt but wholly and defiantly unshod save for a dusty white rag around one pink toe. A cunning little straw bonnet, with an ecru lace jabot dangled in her hand, and her big brown eyes reminded me of Jane's at her most ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... [Arranging her skirt and settling herself majestically.] Of this we may be perfectly sure; when my son finds that he has been misled, purposely or unintentionally, he will be only ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... by the door, her accordeon-plaited skirt held carefully from the floor, her hair in two glistening, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... screaming with horror, and then she opened the carriage door, and waved her arm out, mad with terror, and trying to jump out, while Morin, who was almost distracted, and feeling sure that she would throw herself out, held her by the skirt and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... a most solemn and serious function, though it was nothing to the trying-on two days later, when my uncle stood by in an agony of apprehension as each garment was adjusted, he and Weston arguing over every seam and lapel and skirt until I was dizzy with turning round in front of them. Then, just as I had hoped that all was settled, in came young Mr. Brummell, who promised to be an even greater exquisite than my uncle, and the whole matter had to be thrashed out between them. He was a good-sized ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Duke of Richmond's shooting lodge in Glen Fiddich. On the first evening of her stay the break with the luggage failed to appear, and her Majesty had to suffer some of the half-comical inconveniences of ordinary travellers. She had to dine in her riding skirt, with a borrowed black lace veil arranged as a head-dress, and she had to go to bed without the necessary accompaniments to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... She was paying minute attention to the lace insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... in a little trunk the percale robe and white skirt, a pair of cotton stockings and black shoes and then a little bouquet of flowers for Rosette to wear in her hair. Just as she was about to close the trunk, the window opened violently and ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur

... a hearty breakfast off the 'skirt', but mother wouldn't touch a bit, nor let Aileen take any; she took nothing but a bit of bread and a cup of tea, and sat there looking miserable and downcast. Father said nothing, but sat very dark-looking, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... letter had come from the archbishop, stating that there were eighty hostile caracoas at the island of Mindanao; so his Lordship, in order to surprise them, sailed with five champans for the opposite and outer coast of the island, and directed Captain Ugalde to skirt the inner coast, with the rest of the boats, as far as Point Nasso, [78] on the shore of the island of Othon. The fact that they found no trace of enemies anywhere, stamped the report as false, and as inspired by the effort of the devil for the purpose of hindering us in our journey; for we were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... toward the fresh piles of coin as if he meant to sweep them back again, but the Plunger put himself in his way and with a quick movement caught up the rolls of money and dropped them into the skirt of the woman, which she raised like an ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... don't seem the sort to wear ghastly stuff like that," he pondered, glancing after the pretty figure in the well-cut coat and skirt. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... wrench that had brought tears into his eyes, but now he was pinioning her; she could see his big face approaching, and summoning up all her strength she strove to get away, but that moment, happening to tread on her skirt, her feet slipped. He made a desperate effort to sustain her, but her ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... three-cornered hat upon his head and a brass buckler on his arm, who sacrificed to Venus in the interval between his two occupations, dancing with the coryphees; a dancer by night and a receiver of money by day. A girl was rehearsing beside him, in black bands and skirt. Then Molina, astonished, inquired who she might be. He was told that it was a girl in mourning, whose mother had just died. The Opera is a fine stage upon which to behold the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... was nothing more than an ordinary house-gown, but only at first glance. If you looked at it again, you could tell right away that it met all the requirements of a fancy ball-gown. What struck Abramka most was that it had no waist line, that it did not consist of bodice and skirt. That was strange. It was just caught lightly together under the bosom, which it brought out in relief. Draped over the whole was a sort of upper garment of exquisite old-rose lace embroidered with large silk flowers, which fell from the shoulders and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... grandfather, and that this child was saved. No one had seen Ralph after the crash; no article of clothing that he wore has ever been found; there were only a few trinkets, fireproof, that he carried in the pocket of his skirt, discovered in the ashes ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... Spicer had an old patchwork quilt, in rags, and the remains of a white one, and Mary said it was pitiful to see how these things would be spread over the beds—to hide them as much as possible—when she went down there. A packing-case, with something like an old print skirt draped round it, and a cracked looking-glass (without a frame) on top, was the dressing-table. There were a couple of gin-cases for a wardrobe. The boys' beds were three-bushel bags stretched between poles fastened to uprights. The floor was the original ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... her new spring bonnet for the first time. Yet he took in this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small, well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a tip on it, that peeped out below her frock. Critics might have hinted that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... I offer to thee here my pipe, My skirt, my tar-box, and my scripe; Home to my felowes now will I skipe, And also look unto my shepe.' Ut hoy! For in his pipe he ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... fantasy would have looked to see, on one of those noble flights of steps, standing by a vase with medallions in bas-relief, a negro boy swathed about the loins with scarlet stuff, and holding in one hand a parasol over the Duchess' head, and in the other the train of her long skirt, while she listened to Emilio Memmi. And how far grander the Venetian would have looked in such a dress as the ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... petticoats. But humanity has triumphed over clothes; the look, the touch of a dress has become alive; and the woman who stitched herself into these material integuments has now permeated right through and gone out to the tip of her skirt. It was only a black dress that caught Dick Naseby's eye; but it took possession of his mind, and all other thoughts departed. He drew near, and the girl turned round. Her face startled him; it was a face he wanted; and he took it in at once like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... gentlemen to Dowd's long ago. He contrasted her in his mind with Nora Conneely whom he had met that morning as he went to the post-office, wearing what he had heard called a Merry Widow hat, and a tight skirt, displaying open-work stockings and high-heeled shoes, a string of pearls about a neck generously displayed by the low blouse she was wearing, her right hand ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... to see me again," she exclaimed. "I could scarcely believe it when Mary brought me his card. By the bye, where is Mary? I want her to try to take that stain out of my pink silk skirt. I shall have to ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... clothes, and, to his eye at least, she looked quite entrancingly nice. Her straw hat was full of artificial roses that any one might have sworn were real; her unbuttoned jacket disclosed the delicate finery of a muslin blouse; her long skirt, held up so gracefully by the unoccupied hand, was made of veritable silk. She just looked tip-top—a picture—to the full as much a lady as the young dames he had been lately observing; and yet, wonder of ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... home; the heavy step of the policeman. Or perhaps the only sound to disturb the city's sleep would be that soft tread, timid as a mouse's, stealthy as a jackal's—the tread of a lonely woman with draggled silk skirt and painted cheeks and eyes burning into the darkness, and a heart as bitter and as sad as no money, no home, no friends, ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... said Judith, standing on the step before them, wringing the wet from her black calico riding skirt. "Nobody named it to me what they was tuck fer. I was talkin' to Creed Bonbright, and he 'lowed to find out. He said that ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan

... lady, stood waiting on the platform. She wore a huge coalscuttle bonnet, which in these days of smaller head coverings looked strange and out of proportion, a short imitation sealskin jacket, and a perfectly plain skirt, which exposed her slender build in the most uncompromising (or perhaps I ought ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... Antri in the Gwalior territory, over a fine plain of rich alluvial soil under spring crops. This plain bears manifest signs of having been at no very remote period, like the kingdom of Bohemia, the bed of a vast lake bounded by the ranges of sandstone hills which now seem to skirt the horizon all round; and studded with innumerable islands of all shapes and sizes, which now rise abruptly in all directions out of the cultivated plain.[2] The plain is still like the unruffled surface of a vast lake; and the rich green of the spring ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... but before I have time for more, Winifred is out of the room, and reappears, after ten minutes, strangely transformed by her short corduroy skirt and gaiters, her cap and gauntleted gloves, to a Lady Gay Spanker. I do not like to see her so; but then I am fifty years old, and I live in Massachusetts. Perhaps my aversion to the sporting proclivities of the modern woman is only an inheritance of the prejudices of my ancestors, ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... she made to us not to mention the name of dead Royalty before her attendant-musicians? The mystery remained unsolved for that evening; and it was not till some weeks later that the chances of an official enquiry brought us face to face again. But this time the ill-starred dancing-skirt and bells had been locked away; and in their stead we saw the silken jacket, the spangled pale-blue sari, covered by a diaphanous black veil, like a thin cloud half-veiling the summer heavens, the necklace of pearls round the olive pillar of her throat, and above ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... back, dead or alive, if you desire it; but I must have time. That uncompromising Colonel Philibert is with him. His sister, too, clings to him like a good angel to the skirt of a sinner. Since you desire it,"—De Pean spoke it with bitterness,—"Le Gardeur shall come back, but I doubt if it will be for ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... slept While round the world our influence through you has slowly crept. The coming century's great deeds lie not at Europe's doors; A grander stage awaits mankind,—the vast Pacific's shores; And we not only skirt that sea from Tokyo to Saigon, Our coastline fronts the western world from Syria to Ceylon! Again shall we supply to you the part of life you need; Again your slaves of strenuous toil shall live at slower speed; Once more, as pilgrims to a ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... descended the trail, we and the tourists aroused in each other a mutual interest. One husband was trying to encourage his young and handsome wife to go on. She was beautifully dressed for the part in a marvelous, becoming costume of whipcord—short skirt, high laced elkskin boots and the rest of it; but in all her magnificence she had sat down on the ground, her back to the cliff, her legs across the trail, and was so tired out that she could hardly muster interest enough ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... petticoat, of a still thicker texture, so that it hangs in large plaits where it is gathered in behind. Over this, in front, is tied tightly round the waist, so as to keep all trim and compact, a dark apron, the string of which passes over the little fulled skirt of the jacket behind, and makes it stick out smartly and tastily, while it clips the waist in. The head-gear consists of a sort of mob cap, nothing of which but the edge round the face can be seen, on account of the kerchief (of flowered cotton) which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... tract of swampy mangrove land which runs all along between the sandy land of the shore on one side of it, and the feet of the mountains on the other. And this low mangrove land is overflown every tide of flood by the water that flows into it through several mouths or openings in the outer sandy skirt against the sea. We came to an anchor right against one of these openings; and presently I went in my boat to search for fresh water, or get speech of the natives; for we saw smokes, houses, and plantations against the sides of the mountains, ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... forward and gained the grove immediately about the church, where he held on for an hour or two. Crawford's division, after several ebbs and flows in the tide of battle, was holding the western skirt of the East wood with one or two of its regiments still close to the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... source of worry to thousands. They must keep up with the styles, the latest fashions, for to be "out of fashion," "a back number," gives them "a conniption fit." An out-of-date hat, or shirt-waist, jacket, coat, skirt, or shoe humiliates and distresses them more than would a violation of the moral law—provided ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... whom lie bequeathed three, according who they were. Moreover, to the squires who were hidalgos, to some five hundred, and others there were who had a thousand and five hundred. And he bade them, when they arrived at St. Pedro de Cardena, give clothing to four thousand poor, to each a skirt of escanforte and a mantle. And he bequeathed to Dona Ximena all that he had in the world, that she might live honourably for the remainder of her days in the Monastery of St. Pedro de Cardena; and he commanded Cil Diaz to remain with her and serve her well all ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... shown them, they were determined to have it. They followed him across fields, and there they kept up with him. Then he reached a plain, a wild heath, and he distanced them, but at the other side of the heath was a wood—he must either skirt it or go through it. Fear drove him through it, and they rapidly gained on him again. They now were almost sure that they should catch him, but as they got to the farther edge of the wood they saw him tearing along, his horse all foam, and his ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... hesitation Dona and Marjorie plumped for the cliffs. They loved walking, and, as their own home was inland, the seaside held attractions. Elaine hastily changed into tweed skirt and sports coat, found a favourite stick, and declared herself ready, and the three, in very cheerful spirits, ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... mistaken, would astound and agonize by its magnificence all who set eyes on it. She had found the description of it, as worn by Mrs. Titus W. Trout, in an American fashion paper; it was of what was described as kingfisher blue, and had lumps and wedges of lace round the edge of the skirt, and orange chiffon round the neck. As she set off with her basket full of tradesmen's books, she pictured to herself with watering mouth the fury, the jealousy, the madness of envy which it would ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... the circumstances been otherwise, then in loyalty to Elisabeth I would have handed my lady out, bowed her farewell at her own gate, and gone away, pondering only the adventures into which the beckoning of a white hand and the rustling of a silken skirt betimes will carry a man, if he dares or cares to go. Now, I might not leave. My duty was here. This was my message; here was she for whom it was intended; and this was the place which I was to have sought alone. I needed only ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven, Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?' 10 'Oh, that's a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,— An undeciphered solemn signal of help ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... The patients of the Scottish Women's Hospital at Belgrade were so unpractised in the art of stealing that one of them—a typical case—returned one day to have her leg attended to, and in raising her skirt revealed on the petticoat, which had once been a tablecloth, a large "S.W.H." These felonious ways are in contrast with the usual Serb candour. One afternoon in Belgrade I was searching for a small street in a district which I had not ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... murmurs and ejaculations from the circle of wondering ladies, while Miss Bonkowski, a frowzy-headed lady in soiled shirt waist and shabby skirt, with a small waist and shoulders disproportionately broad; and with, moreover, a dab of paint upon each high-boned cheek,—nothing daunted by previous failures, leaned forward and putting a somewhat soiled finger beneath the child's pretty chin, inquired persuasively, "And isn't ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin

... twinge of envy. I could not guess how great a factor that vigorous figure was to be in my own affairs. As I swung down from the wall and walked toward Glenarm House, my thoughts were not with the athletic chaplain, but with the girl, whose youth was, I reflected, marked by her short skirt, the unconcern with which her hands were thrust into the pockets of her coat, and the irresponsible tilt of the tam-o’-shanter. There is something jaunty, a suggestion of spirit and independence in a tam-o’-shanter, particularly a red one. If the red tam-o’-shanter expressed, so ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... creek, or chain of deep ponds, called Coogoorderoy, which appeared to come from the south-south-west. Further on we passed plains on our left of the same name; and at length we crossed a fine one, the native name of which was Turangenoo. On the skirt of it was a hill named Boorr, which we kept close on our left, crossing its lower extremities, which were covered with a forest of ironbark eucalyptus, and ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... to the door, afraid that she might break down, but she did not break down. She gathered her skirts about her, and went up the stairs to Mary's room, and her steps were firm and proud. He could hear the rustle of her skirt on the landing as she passed along it out of his sight, and then he heard her knocking on ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... with a pathos to which I am not insensible, entreats me not to apotheosise 'that awful, befringed, beflounced, and bekilted divided skirt.' Well, I will acknowledge that the fringes, the flounces, and the kilting do certainly defeat the whole object of the dress, which is that of ease and liberty; but I regard these things as mere wicked superfluities, tragic proofs that ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... hollerin' from the wagon, a chargin' on me solemn, about the errents,—the man she works for is deef, deef as a post,—and I a noddin' to her firm, honorable nods, that I would do 'em), and I wus a slickin' up the settin'-room, and Martha, who had jest come in, wus measurin' off my skirt-breadths, when Josiah Allen drove up, and Cicely and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... I should live always by mine own place," asserted Mrs. Kukor. And to Johnnie, as she plucked a bit of Mrs. Reisenberger's skirt between a thumb and finger, "Look, Chonnie! All ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... desert expanse, had moved in front of him. Sommers hit the horse with his crop and was about to gallop on, when something in the way the woman held herself caught his attention. She was leaning against the wind, her skirt streaming behind her, her face thrust into the air. Sommers reined in his horse and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... almost every ravine, and along its courses grew green grass and wild flowers. Every little while we would come upon openings in the forest, clear meadows spangled with blossoms; or occasionally we would skirt high bald knobs of rock around which was stiff brush. For some miles we could journey at ease through clear woods, then would encounter a gash in the earth into which, at some expense of trial, we would have ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... noticed for the first time that her blouse was badly torn. Half of one sleeve was ripped away, and there was a long tear through which he caught the gleam of a white shoulder. Her skirt he saw was in no better case. She caught his glance ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... traverses an edge of a singular region. It is a part of the Landes. This great savanna, which flattens the entire space from Bordeaux to Bayonne, was crossed in coming southward from Bordeaux, and now as we strike eastward and inland we but briefly skirt its southerly portion. A sandy, marshy waste, infertile, unhealthful and poor, it lies in utter contrast with the fields and slopes of neighboring provinces. It is ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... years devoted his time and money to the collection of valuable lace, such as now can only be seen in the great national collections. The prices obtained are significant of the huge sums which must be paid to obtain wearable pieces of valuable lace such as skirt lengths, 3- or 4-yard lengths of deep ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes

... gathering of the clans, the big dinner, and the play at night. Not exactly a play, was it, Mate f More of a vaudeville performance with you as the stage manager, and I as the soubrette. Do you remember the last reunion before I was married? I mean the time I was Lady Macbeth and gave a skirt dance, and you did lovely stunts from Grand Opera. Have you forgotten Jack's famous parody on "My Country ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... side of the Rio Grande is one dreary desert, in which no water is to be procured. I believe no Indian has ever done more than skirt its border; indeed, as they assert that it is inhabited by spirits and demons, it is clear that they ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... stones. At one place a tower stood up. In another two stone lions stood on guard. It was these ruined walls that interested the people on the hill. One of the men was a Greek. A red fez was on his head. He wore an embroidered jacket and loose white sleeves. A stiff kilted skirt hung to his knees. He was pointing about at the wall and talking in Greek to a lady and gentleman. They were visitors, come to see ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall

... masses of her straight smooth hair, but was apparent as well in the long line of her carriage, from her foot to her waist and the single deep swell from her waist to her shoulder. Almost unconsciously she dressed in harmony with this note of simplicity, and on this occasion wore a skirt of plain dark blue calico and a white shirt ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... means!" interrupted Helen. "You will have such a fine opportunity of developing the tastes of your fair scholars—ha! ha! ha! Frank, methinks I already see thee helping some blushing milk-maid, with her pail, or, perhaps, leaning against a rail-fence, sketching her, as with bare feet and scanty skirt, she trips through the morning dew to feed ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... scissors, Felicite?" demanded her mistress, who had carefully smuggled them beneath her skirt as she sat. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... mind," said Effie, gravely. "The bairns will need these things before I can get two whole days at home again, and my aunt and the girls have enough to do without this. Duty before pleasure, Christie. See; you can help me by picking away this skirt. We must ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... this morning; a white canvas blouse with a broad blue collar and V-neck held to modest stricture by a flowing blue tie, a white duck skirt and whitened shoes—a costume that set off her pink cheeks ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... blond nab the red flag outer that big kike's fists?" shouted one soldier to his sweating bunkie. "Some skirt!" ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... his linen tunic embroidered with gold and girded himself with the skirt of the beggar. It gave him the look of a real slave. The queen soon reappeared dressed in the blue seamless garment of the women ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France

... the side of the Dauntless on the day of the Prince's visit, a seaman smiled down, as seamen sometimes do, at a vivid little Newfoundland Flapper in a sunset-coloured jumper bodice, New York cut skirt, white stockings and white canvas boots. The Flapper looked up from her seat in the stern of her "gas" launch (gasolene equals petrol), and smiled back, as is the Flapper habit, and the seaman promptly opened conversation by asking if the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... before her foot became entangled in the long folds of her skirt, drew her to himself, and held her. What he murmured was inaudible to the others; but a tint redder than roses are swam to her cheek, and a smile broke over her face like a reflection in rippling water. She held his arm tightly in her hand, and erect and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... and brought out the graceful oval of her cheeks. Strozzi then followed the luxurious outline of her well-developed bust, prisoned in a bodice of blue velvet, which rested on her white shoulders like an azure cloud upon the bosom of a snowy mountain-peak. The skirt, also of blue velvet, was short in front, that it might not conceal a fairy foot encased in blue satin slippers; but, behind, it fell in a long train, whose rich folds lay on the carpet, perfecting the grace and elegance ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... girl doubtfully, "and—How dy, Dick! is that you?" The interruption was caused by her recognition of the ostler, and she lounged into the room. In spite of a skimp, slatternly gown, whose straight skirt clung to her lower limbs, there was a quaint, nymph-like contour to her figure. Whether from languor, ill-health, or more probably from a morbid consciousness of her own height, she moved with a slightly affected stoop ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... country on either side of the Ohio. The French, our predecessors, claimed it, and now that all the colonists east of the mountains are busy fighting their king, it may be easy to take it from them, as one would snip off a skirt with a pair of scissors. That is why I and this faithful band are so ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... an air of wontedness seemed to repossess the room, and the two people who were left. Things fell into their places, one could observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the floor, in Alicia's hair and in her skirt. Little meanings attached themselves—to oval portraits of ladies, evidently ancestral, whose muslin sleeves were tied with blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking Persian paintings, to odd brass bowls ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... from the direction of Tucker Creek he would head for the second possible crossing, and when he drew near Caswell City if he were turned by force of numbers again he would unquestionably skirt the Asper, hoping against hope that he might find a fordable place as he galloped south. But, going south, he might be fenced again from Tucker Creek, and then his case would be hopeless and ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... almost invisible under a straw hat with feathers waving from its pinnacled crown. Miss Celandine, by no means a bad-looking young lady, wore her best black jersey, buttoned at the throat, over her cambric body, her best pique skirt, trimmed with torchon lace, her white silk mitts, and her blue-and-white bonnet. After settling Mrs. Stiles in a corner with Georgiana, Tecumseh Sherman, and Augustus, Celandine and Mr. Mecutchen disappeared, to go and stand on the door-step. Mrs. Tarbell guessed where they were going, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... strong; Warred with the world to win his mistress; passed For Custom's doughtiest iconoclast; And pored forth love in paeans of glad song—! Look at him now! In solemn robes and wraps, A two-legged drama on his own collapse! And she, the limp-skirt slattern, with the shoes Heel-trodden, that squeak and clatter in her traces, This is the winged maid who was his Muse And escort to the kingdom of the graces! Of all that fire this puff of smoke's the end! Sic transit ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... hands, I went "outside" to the nearest shop and joyously spent almost the entire amount for my first "party dress." The gown I bought was, I considered, a beautiful creation. In color it was a rich magenta, and the skirt was elaborately braided with black cable-cord. My admiration for it was justified, for it did all a young girl's eager heart could ask of any gown—it led to ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... his face and then hurries from him. Left alone he is puzzled, but being a practical man he busies himself gathering firewood, until TWEENY appears excitedly carrying cocoa-nuts in her skirt. She has made better use than the ladies of her three minutes' ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... large dark eyes and soft lips. A black 'picture' hat concealed the hair; her figure was lightly poised against the back of the bench, her knees were crossed; the tip of a patent-leather shoe emerged beneath her skirt. There was something, indeed, inexpressibly dainty about the person of this lady, but young Jolyon's attention was chiefly riveted by the look on her face, which reminded him of his wife. It was as though its ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of course, because her room was at the back of the house, beyond the kitchen, but how did the little heel tracks get on the veranda roof?—the road dust on the matting under the window? the vine twigs in that "quare" made skirt never worn by day? That Miss Flower could and did ride "asthraddle" and ride admirably when found with the Sioux at Bear Cliff, everybody at Frayne well knew by this time. That she had so ridden at Fort ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... no faith in the contention of the Lombrosians that genius is akin to insanity, neither do I think that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Lombroso, for that matter, is as old-fashioned today as a hoop skirt. ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... of the country east of the great lakes is diversified, but characterised by no outstanding features. Two ranges of hills skirt the St. Lawrence—that on the north, the Laurentians, stretching 3,500 miles from Lake Superior to the Atlantic, while the southern range culminates in the bold capes and cliffs of Gaspe. The St. Lawrence and its tributaries form the dominating physical feature in this ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... index of a strong womanly nature. Her deep blue eyes danced with life and light, while her slightly retrousse nose and her sensitive smiling mouth all spoke of gentle good humour. From her sunny face to the dainty little shoe which peeped from under the trim black skirt, she was an eminently pleasant object to look upon. So thought the passers-by as they glanced up at the great bow window, and so, too, thought a young gentleman who had driven up to the hotel door, and who now bounded up the steps and into the room. He was ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... like a wrapper made of calico made wid tight in de waist en wide in de bottom. Den I've remembers de basque waist on de over skirts dese war made real tight waists wid a point in de back en ober de stomach. De skirt wer real full dem a skirt ober dis ter de knees wid a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... your way to come to us; but, dear Mahomet, we will come to you. Will it be convenient to all the good people at Highgate, if we take a stage up, not next Sunday, but the following, viz., 3rd January, 1819—shall we be too late to catch a skirt of the old out-goer;—how the years crumble from under us! We shall hope to see you before then; but, if not, let us know if then will be convenient. Can we secure ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... the subway and he says that Kleiman & Elenbogen is showing, at a dollar less on the garment, a ringer for our Style 4022 which we sold him, Mawruss. Now, who tells them suckers how they could cut down on the buttons and the lining, Mawruss, and put one pleat less in the skirt, Mawruss? I suppose you did or ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... eyes As hope of love within her heart did rise; And when she saw she was not helpless yet Her old desire she would not quite forget; But turning back, upon the bank she lay In happy dreams till nigh the end of day; Then did she cross and gather of the wool, And with her bosom and her gown-skirt full Came back to Venus at the sun-setting; But she afar off saw it glistering And cried aloud, "Go, take the slave away, And keep her safe for yet another day, And on the morning will I think again Of some fresh ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris

... in black, and beside them came the fife player, black and sombre like the others. Following these came a personage of gigantic stature enveloped rather than clad in a gown of the deepest black, the skirt of which was of prodigious dimensions. Over the gown, girdling or crossing his figure, he had a broad baldric which was also black, and from which hung a huge scimitar with a black scabbard and furniture. He had his face covered with a transparent black veil, through which might be ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... close the door, and before she accomplished it her hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... two had taken leave of the old woman, and Miss Annie had gone out of the door, Aunt Patsy leaned very far forward, and stretching out her long arm, seized Mr Croft by the skirt of his coat. He stepped back, quite surprised, and then she said to him, in a low but very earnest voice: "I reckon dat dat ar sprain ankle was nuffin but a acciden'; but you look out, sah, you look out! Hab you ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... into the room with an impression of boundless vitality. She was dressed in a black riding-habit with a divided skirt, from beneath which a pair of glistening riding-boots shone with a Cossack touch. Her copper hair, which was arranged to lie rather low at the back, was guarded by a sailor-hat that enhanced to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... in an agate dish, then added the milk, a cupful for each person. The eggs, of course, had first been beaten up and the sugar added. Harriet, with her skirt pinned up, was frying bacon and potatoes until the smoke in the cabin was so thick as to drive out those who were not actively engaged in getting the supper. Harriet and Margery stuck to their posts, Tommy Thompson watched the operations from the deck, now and then coughing ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... best runner, was only in time to catch Johnnie by the skirt upon the third step of the staircase, crying out, "The pig!" but Johnnie, tired of the subject, and in a provoking mood, twitched away his pinafore, crying, "Bother the pig!" and rushed up after the four who had preceded him, leaving such lumps of dirt on the edge ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from an old blue skirt lay a sick boy. His face was like a death-mask already, the yellow skin stretched tightly over the bones of his face, and his mouth unnaturally wide, with parched, swollen lips. From his hollow eye-sockets ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... settled into the forward-raking line that made her the dark likeness of her father. Her body was slender but solid; the strong white neck carried her head high with the poise of a runner. She looked at least seventeen in her clean-cut coat and skirt. Probably she wouldn't look much ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... delight and encouragement from the dense circle of spectators, the lady danced round the sham clergyman, dodging his ponderous blows, slipping under his arms, and smacking back at him most successfully. Once she tripped and fell over her own skirt, but was up and at him again in ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... mentally braced himself for the trouble which he knew was coming. The little girl whose acquaintance he had made the night previous was still sleeping; and, wishing to say goodby to her in some way without awakening her, he stooped down and gently kissed the skirt of her dress. Then he went ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... of course. She can help Leota, I daresay, and I'll give her a few dollars a month. But why isn't she dressed in the usual flaming style of your other pupils—skirt, blouse, brown paper-soled boots, and a sixpenny poke bonnet with artificial flowers, and otherwise made up as one of the 'brands plucked from the burning' whose photographs glorify the parish magazines in the ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... violently that men and even women stopped to remonstrate, and separate them; now a grave, prosperous Jew dressed in red (Jewish mourning in the province of Oran); then an old Kabyle woman of the plains, in a short skirt of fiery orange scarcely hiding the thin sticks of legs that were stained with henna half-way up the calves, like painted stockings. Moors from across the frontier—fierce men with eagle faces and striped cloaks—grouped ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... anything," she said, in a tone of a self-possessed, careless, and vivacious woman. "I sing well enough, and I can dance anything, a skirt dance, a clog, a Mexican fandango, a Carmencita kind of step, anything at all. I don't know when I ever learned to dance. I didn't learn, it just came to me; but the best thing I do is whistling. I'm not afraid ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... very Nisus who had saved his life. It seemed, too, as if the others understood the import of his glance, for Decius turned away ostentatiously, and sought to arrange the leathern straps of his corselet skirt, while Manlius strode over and grasped ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... What would he say about the riding-habit that she wore? She felt very curious to learn, and shyer than ever before, and altogether different. The skirt made her more of a girl, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... through her Nose for at least an Hour as she studied the new Masterpieces of the Swedo-Scandinavian School. Each looked as if executed with a Squirt Gun by a Nervous Geek on his way to a Three Days Cure. Just the same, every Visitor with a clinging Skirt and a Mushroom Hat gurgled like a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... in a terrible state. What belonged on the left side of the parting had been blown to the right, and what belonged on the right side was thrown to the left. The little apron, instead of being in front, hung down on the side, and from the bottom of her skirt the braid hung loose, carrying upon it brambles and forest leaves. First Martha combed the little girl's hair, then she pulled the apron into place. Finally she got a thread and needle and began to mend the braid ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri

... which he had used the previous evening, while making Frances a pair of moccasins out of his own gauntlet gloves. With the help of Mr. Eddy, he then ripped out the sleeves, cut off the waists about an inch above the skirt gathers, cut slits in the skirts for arm-holes, and tacked in the sleeves. Then, with mother's wish in mind, they put the dove-colored silk on Frances, the light brown on Georgia, and the dark coffee-brown on me. Pleats and laps in the skirt bands were necessary ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... merrier and merrier as it ran on. Ivra darted and twisted away when Eric thought he had her, rolling down little hills on the snow crust, climbing trees, jumping brooks until he was lucky enough to catch her by one of her pigtails at last, or snatch her flying skirt. "Tag!" Then away he sped, and the game would go on ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... she did not forget herself. She discarded the silk skirt and jacket of pina for European costume, loaded her head with false hair, and her person with such extravagances generally as to disturb the peace of a ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... prone form completely, leaving the hat over the face as he had first placed it. With the exception of the hat, he had disturbed no part of the apparel. Even the folds of the raincoat, which fell away from the body and showed the rain-soaked black skirt, he left as he had found them. The white shirtwaist, also partly ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... broad scar underneath her right eye. Her hair was thin, straggling and tow-colored; her eyes large, deep-set and of a faded blue. The girl's dress was as queer and untidy as her personal appearance, for she wore a brown tailored coat, a short skirt and long, buttoned leggings. A round cap of the same material as her dress was set jauntily on the back of her head, and over her shoulder was slung a fiat satchel of worn leather. There was little that was feminine and less that was attractive ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... how she had sat up and repaired the damage alluded to by cutting off half an inch of the skirt all round and hemming it anew, when the breathing of the children became regular, and they fell asleep. Here were bright little minds ready for a training, which without money and influence she could never give them. The wisdom which knowledge brings, and the power which wisdom ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy



Words linked to "Skirt" :   duck, go past, skirt of tasses, lavalava, missy, travel by, sunray pleat, miss, tutu, girl, sunburst pleat, skirt chaser, crinoline, surpass, placket, annulus, girdle, maxi, lap, kilt, avoid, doll, sarong, pass, hoopskirt, gathered skirt, Fungi, cloister, hobble skirt, parry, ring, environ, full skirt, grass skirt, close in, dame, culotte, fudge, garment, border, fille, inclose, plant structure, mini, elude, chick, partial veil



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