"Laundress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the river that a brown woman washed his clothes on the stones, returning them with the buttons pounded off; but for every missing button there was sure to be a bright yellow, semi-indelible stain, where the laundress had spread the garments to dry upon a ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... There's no such thing in nature. I confess, gentlemen, I have a cook, a laundress, a house-drudge, that serves my necessary turns, and goes under that title: but he's an ass that will be so uxorious to tie his affections to one circle. Come, the name dulls appetite. Here, replenish again: another bout. [FILLS ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... hear about that. You ought to have known before you married me that to keep house without money is a beastly nuisance. Now we have this ceaseless dunning every day: one day it's the butcher, the next the baker, and the day after the laundress,—and they all want money. I can't cut ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... put its finger in its eye and weep. Ha! ha! ha! poor Risberg! how would he laugh to see these compassionate tears! It seem she has written in a very doleful strain to thee,—talked very pathetically about his debts to his laundress and his landlady. I have a good mind to leave thee in this amiable ignorance; but I'll prove for once a kind brother, by telling you that Risberg is a profligate and prodigal; that he neglects every study but ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... at Montmartre—we are before the door of a laundress. A girl approaches. Her gaze is troubled, she frowns a little. What ails her? I shall tell you: the laundress has refused to deliver her washing until her bill is paid. And the girl cannot pay it—not till Saturday— and she has need of things to put ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... intended to accept Mis' Sykes's invitation hastened with relieved eagerness to follow with flowers its regrets to the "comen out recep." For every one was genuinely attached to the little laundress and interested in her welfare—up to the point of sacrificing social interests in the eyes of the Sykeses. Friendship gardens were rich with Autumn, cosmos and salvia and opulent asters, and on the morning of the two parties this store of sweetness was rifled for ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... to crack almonds; she there earned ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right royally, without even a question from Fine as to what became of the money. The young girl was next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon as she received two francs a day for her work, the two francs strayed in a similar manner into Macquart's hands. Jean, who had learnt the trade of a carpenter, was likewise despoiled on pay-days, whenever Macquart succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... outside were twittering more loudly; even the lawnmower which black Jeff was already rolling over the grass had assumed a peculiarly agreeable clatter. And though, at breakfast, father grumbled at his eggs being overdone, and though mother complained that the laundress hadn't come, and though Aunt Nettie's head was still aching, all these things, somehow, seemed trivial and ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... was "What's mine is my own, and what's yours is mine." He relied on Trudy to mend his clothes and make his neckties, keep house and manage with a laundress a half day a week, yet always be as well dressed and pretty as when she had slacked in the office and boarded without cares at Mary's house. She must always seem happy and proud of her husband and have her old pep—being on the lookout for a way to ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... artist in the next block expects me to pose for him, and his laundress comes at 3. He is ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... course, the bank-clerk complained in extreme displeasure of the way the laundress had of late dressed his collars—these were so high that, as Laura was not slow to notice, he had to look straight down the two sides of his nose to see his plate—and announced that he would not be home for tea, as he had an appointment to meet some 'chappies' at five, and in ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... published an extraordinary case of blue discoloration of the skin in a young laundress of sixteen. Her neck, face, and upper part of the chest showed a beautiful blue tint, principally spreading over the forehead, the alae, and the mouth. When these parts were rubbed with a white towel the blue ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... that low fever broke out, in the spring of 1825, which is spoken of in "Jane Eyre." Mr. Wilson was extremely alarmed at the first symptoms of this. He went to a kind motherly woman, who had had some connection with the school—as laundress, I believe—and asked her to come and tell him what was the matter with them. She made herself ready, and drove with him in his gig. When she entered the schoolroom, she saw from twelve to fifteen girls lying about; some resting their aching heads on the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a dirty old woman with an inflamed countenance, emerging from the bedroom, with a barrel of dirt and cinders.—This was the laundress. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... imperfectly and with damage to the fabric. When what I may call the main portion of the collar is affected, the speckled area may occasionally be concealed by a careful disposition of one's tie. But not often. The laundress, with diabolical cunning, takes care to place her trade-mark as near the top rim as possible. I have not by any means exhausted the subject," he concluded, "but I think I have said enough to clear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... are held and many house parties are given by the hostess a full corps of servants is required. Each one should have certain, definite tasks to perform every day. In the luxurious American home, seven servants are usually employed. They are a butler, a chauffeur, a parlor maid, a cook, a laundress, a nurse-maid and a chambermaid. A lady's maid and a valet are sometimes added. A footman, laundry-maid and scullery-maid are also added, sometimes, to the corps of servants. But this list may be increased or diminished according to the requirements of the individual family. For instance, ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... early, and looking at my shirt, found stains still visible, and that I had so mucked it in washing, that an infant could have guessed what I had been doing. I knew that my mother who now did household duties herself, selected the things for the laundress; and in despair hit on a plan: I filled the chamber-pot with piss and soap-suds, making it as dirty as I could, put it near a chair and my shirt hanging over it carelessly, so as to look as if it had dropped into the pot by accident; left it there, and put on a clean shirt. After ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... are partaking of the economic joint, and the modest half-pint of wine at the Club, entertaining themselves and the rest of the company in the Club-room, with Circuit jokes and points of wit and law. Nobody is in chambers at all, except poor Mr. Cockle, who is ill, and whose laundress is making him gruel; or Mr. Toodle, who is an amateur of the flute, and whom you may hear piping solitary from his chambers in the second floor: or young Tiger, the student, from whose open windows come a great gush of cigar smoke, and at whose door are a quantity of dishes ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... couldn't hit a croquet ball to save his soul. His deep-set gray eyes, under their tangled thatch of brown, gazed straight into the face of every man on the Platte, soldier, cowboy, Indian or halfbreed, but fell abashed if a laundress looked at him. Billy Ray, captain of the sorrel troop and the best light rider in Wyoming, was the only man he ever allowed to straddle a beautiful thoroughbred mare he had bought in Kentucky, but, bad hands or good, there wasn't a riding ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... of delicious honey and some flowers. The order to go ahead again was scarcely given, before a third boat, in, if possible, hotter haste than the two previous ones, put off after us, bringing some things the laundress had forgotten. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... forge close to them, they had not heard a commotion in the court outside. Dennet had been standing on the steps cleaning her tame starling's cage, when Mistress Headley had suddenly come out on the gallery behind her, hotly scolding her laundress, and waving her cap to show ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... household economy gave her always so warm a welcome that the child came to think of the faithful woman as one of her choicest friends. Working with her over a little ironing board, Barbara quickly became expert in all the finer and more delicate operation of her art, or as the laundress herself said: ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... private gallery we will, for the present, bring forth but one picture. That of a Black Nun was wont to fetter the eyes of visitors in the royal galleries of France, and my Sister of Mercy, too, is of that complexion. The old woman was recommended as a laundress by my friend, who had long prized her. I was immediately struck with the dignity and propriety of her manner. In the depth of winter she brought herself the heavy baskets through the slippery streets; and, when I asked her why she ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... no other than the laundress's son, who respectfully took off his cap in passing. His cap was broken in the rim, and adapted to be put into the pocket on occasion; his clothes were poor, but clean, and very neatly mended, and he wore heavy wooden shoes. ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... long enough. I waited nearly three hours before my name was called, and when it was, I unlocked my trunks and handed them over to one of the officers, whose dirty hands made no improvement on the work of the laundress. First one article was taken out, and then another, till an Iron Collar that had been worn by a female slave on the banks of the Mississippi, was hauled out, and this democratic instrument of torture became the centre of attraction; so much ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... and support the "Maison de Retraite" offers rooms, board, attendance, laundress and even a small plot of garden for the annual sum of L16 to L24 per inmate, the second sum procuring larger rooms and more liberal fare. Personal independence is absolutely unhampered except by the fact that the lodge gate is closed at 10 p.m. As most of the tenants ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Trigger," lived at Upperton, a suburb of Eastbourne, and had accommodation for seventy boys, but during the whole time I remained there we never had more than fifty. His advertisements in local and London papers offering "Commercial training for thirty guineas including laundress and books. Bracing air, gravel soil, diet best and unlimited. Reduction for brothers," were glowing enough, but they never whipped up business sufficiently to attract the required number of boarders. Nevertheless, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... conceive: it was next to impossible to fancy one of those ladies scrubbing a floor or making a bed. The butcher called for orders, and took in the meat, which was nearly always mutton-chops; the baker left his bread at the door, and the laundress was admitted inside ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... were Madisons, and you didn't interdict your daughters' marrying them. The Mastertons ate no meat, and didn't believe in banks. They kept their money in queer corners, and there was so much of it that they couldn't always remember where, and the laundress had orders to turn all stockings before wetting, and did indeed often find bills in the toe. But the laundress, being also of Addington, though of another stratum, recognised this as a Masterton habit, and faithfully sought their hoarded treasure for ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... answered Sister Anne. "Poor, poor Mr. Sly! He made a will leaving you all, except five pounds a year to his laundress: he made his will, locked his door, took heart-rending leave of his uncle at night, and this morning was found hanging at his bedpost when Sambo, the black servant, took him up his water to shave. 'Let me be buried,' ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... that the monkey, Chee-Chee, was to do the cooking and mending; the dog was to sweep the floors; the duck was to dust and make the beds; the owl, Too-Too, was to keep the accounts, and the pig was to do the gardening. They made Polynesia, the parrot, housekeeper and laundress, because she ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... only creditors were my landlady and my laundress, two poor widows who never willingly distressed me, but who occasionally asked for 'that little amount' so piteously that my heart bled to lack it to give them. And as victuals and clean shirts were absolute necessaries of life, every week my debts ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... seat. You could walk the four miles quicker than the horse does,—it is uphill nearly all the way,—but time is no longer any object with me. Amelie has a donkey and a little cart to drive me to the station at Couilly when I take that line, or when I want to do an errand or go to the laundress, or ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... Kate. "I have dragged it from Florence that they foregathered purposely some time ago with the laundress's little boy who has the same complaint, but since it did not seem to have communicated itself to them they made another trial to-day. Well, Edith will have to leave the hotel now and take a ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... is much extra washing, you may have to use much diplomacy as regards the laundress; and if it is very disgusting washing, it is well to have a large pail, with a cover, upstairs. Thoroughly disinfect the clothes before you send them to the washing, as the odors are often sickening, and ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... stairs again, and all over the rooms in the top of the house, opened all the cook's bundles, the waiter's boxes, the chambermaid's trunk, and the laundress's umbrella; but not a single steamboat was to ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... common rules of arithmetic. After this age they were practised by a writing-master in drawing out bills neatly, keeping accounts, and applying to every-day use their knowledge of arithmetic. Some were taught by a laundress to wash and get up fine linen and lace; others were instructed by a neighbouring traiteur in those culinary mysteries with which Sister Frances was unacquainted. In sweetmeats and confectioneries she yielded to ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... sausages at home, and living on something like two shillings a day," he remarked in meditation; and then it struck him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of his drawers at home—that is, if the laundress had left the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Person interviewed: Hannah Brooks Wright W. 17th, Highland Addition, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 85 Occupation: Laundress ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... shrieking anathemas on her drunken spouse, reproaches on her frightened child, and invocations to all the blessed saints in heaven to reward the gintleman who had saved her hoarded money,—a smoking packet that she hugged to her breast,—Mrs. Clancy, "the saynior laundress of Company B," as she had long styled herself, was prancing up and down through the gathering crowd, her shrill voice overmastering all other clamor. The vigorous efforts of the men, directed by cool-headed ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... the sister of one of my mates. Her mother is the head laundress in our common dwelling, and as she was in want of assistance, and we always take in preference the relations of members of the association, Mrs. Bertin (that's the mother's name) sent for her daughter from Lille, where she had been stopping ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... testimony of reputable friends. If, unhappily, he was guilty, he might rehabilitate himself by formally abjuring his indiscretions. Both scholars and others of the Privilege frequently appeared before the Chancellor in the character of penitents. In 1443 a certain Christina, laundress of St. Martin's parish, swore that she would no longer exercise her trade for any scholar or scholars of the University, because under colour of it many evils had been perpetrated, wherefore she was imprisoned and freely abjured the aforesaid evils in the presence of Master ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... his own estimate of himself. In any event, he was a treasure. Booth's house was always in order. Try as he would, he couldn't get it out of order. Pat's wife saw to that. She was the cook, housekeeper, steward, seamstress, nurse and everything else except the laundress, and she would have been that if Booth hadn't put his foot down on it. He was rather finicky about his bosoms, it seems—and his cuffs, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... for Lady Jean," responded the laundress, rubbing energetically away—yet carefully, too, for the old linen was not so stout as ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... Alfred Braddell's son,—for we must proceed regularly in these matters,—I next set my wits to work to trace that son's exodus from the paternal mansion. I have hunted up an old woman-servant, Jane Prior, who lived with the Braddells. She now thrives as a laundress; she is a rank Puritan, and starches for the godly. She was at first very wary and reserved in her communications; but by siding with her prejudices and humours, and by the intercession of the Rev. Mr. Graves (of her own persuasion), I have got her to open her lips. It seems that these Braddells ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when they were both children. Grandmother was nurse to the children; she lived over a hundred years and nursed all the children and grandchildren. She died at the Bissell's home on Rutledge Avenue years and years after slavery. Mother Ellen was laundress; she died first part of the War. My father tended the yard and ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... worse," interrupted the Baron; "as Dufresny said, when he married his laundress, because he could not pay her bill. Hewas the author, as you know, of the opera of Lot; at whose representation the great pun was made;—I say the great pun, as we say the great ton of Heidelberg. As one of the performers was singing the line, 'L'amour ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... contemplated the gloomy old houses, with a bill of lodgings to let here and there in a parlour-window; anon a working jeweller's humble shop breaking out of a private house; here a cheap restaurant, there a French laundress; everywhere the air of a life which is rather a struggle to live than actual living. In this neighbourhood, which was the only humble quarter of the great city whereof she had any knowledge, Clarissa fancied they might find a temporary lodging—only a temporary shelter, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "When there's such a good, good woman, Jane's sister Meg-Laundress, what washes for us just 'cause I mend her things. An' tailor-Jake who showed me to do a buttonhole an' him all doubled up with coughin'; an' Billy Buttons who gives us a paper sometimes, only neither of us ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... unique days are consumed by being used, they do not return, one cannot live them again here when one has lived them elsewhere; I felt that it was towards the week that would begin with the Monday on which the laundress was to bring back the white waistcoat that I had stained with ink, that they were hastening to busy themselves with the duty of emerging from that ideal Time in which they did not, as yet, exist, those two Queen Cities of which I was soon to be able, by the most absorbing kind of geometry, to inscribe ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... does Bailey or Sheridan seem at all fly to it; and even slang Grose has no touch of its extensive signification. The squeamish Fair One who takes it on the sly, merely to cure the vapours, politely names it to her friends as White Wine. The Swell chaffs it as Blue Ruin, to elevate his notions. The Laundress loves dearly a drain of Ould Tom, from its strength to comfort her inside. The drag Fiddler can toss off a quartern of Max without making a wry mug. The Costermonger illumines his ideas with a flash ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the administration of Andros in Massachusetts," says Mr. Bancroft, "the daughter of John Goodwin, a child of thirteen years, charged a laundress with having stolen linen from the family. Glover, the mother of the laundress, a friendless immigrant, almost ignorant of English, like a true woman, with a mother's heart, rebuked the false accusation. Immediately, the girl, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Each little division is marked with a name. This one is Groceries, this one is Butcher, this is Milk, butter, and eggs, this is Baker, this is Cheesemonger, and this is Sundries—oh yes, and laundress, I must screw in a division for laundress somehow. Now, father, this is my delightful plan. When you give me my four pounds—my eighty shillings—I'll get it all changed into silver, and I'll divide it into equal ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... this she approached the laundress and said to her: "Let me try, I pray you. I think I ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... turn of a plump calf, such as Ben Cohen had never even thought of before, the realisation of which was like wine: freshly tasted, red, fruity, running through his veins, mounting to his head. He had known that women had legs; his mother, the laundress, suffered from hers—complainingly, devoted woman as she was—swollen with much standing, and "them there dratted veins": stocky legs, with ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... a Walter who should have been called Clifford, and a Margaret whom I wanted to name Beryl, and so on. Even my laundress preferred to select names for her twins from some she had seen on a circus poster rather than let me ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... saw only Aun' Jinkey ironing, and her niece sitting with her handkerchief to her face. "Ah!" said the old lady to her laundress, "I'm glad you realize the importance of doing my work when it's needed." Then followed a few brief directions in regard to the articles she had brought. "Louise, I wish you to come with me. This is no place for you," concluded Mrs. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... slaves, and they loved him and his children very dearly. And the little girls loved them, particularly "Mammy," who had nursed their mother, and now had entire charge of the children; and Aunt Milly, a lame yellow woman, who helped Mammy in the nursery; and Aunt Edy, the head laundress, who was never too busy to amuse them. Then there was Aunt Nancy, the "tender," who attended to the children for the field-hands, and old Uncle Snake-bit Bob, who could scarcely walk at all, because he had been bitten by a snake when he was a boy: so now ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... strong as a Judith or a Delilah. They arrived at the appointed spot. Eugenie ordered the porter to put down the portmanteau, gave him some pieces of money, and having rapped at the shutter sent him away. The shutter where Eugenie had rapped was that of a little laundress, who had been previously warned, and was not yet gone to bed. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... drawing-room." I confess to little acquaintance with modern ethical novels; but real mediaeval knights, and still more the knights of mediaeval romance, were capable of very ethical actions. To halt an army for the protection and comfort of a laundress was a highly ethical action. Perhaps Sir Redvers Buller would do it: Bruce did. Mr Harrison accuses the ladies of the Idylls of soul-bewildering casuistry, like that of women in Middlemarch or Helbeck of Bannisdale. Now I am not reminded by Guinevere, and ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... vestment closer about his poetic loins; anon he gave it loose to the zephyrs which plentifully insinuate their tiny bodies through every crevice, door, window, or wainscot, expressly formed for the exclusion of such impertinents. Then he caught at a proof-sheet, and catched up a laundress's bill instead; made a dart at Bloomfield's Poems, and threw them in agony aside. I could not bring him to one direct reply; he could not maintain his jumping mind in a right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... great fairness and impartiality in the game. Something was always going up from the foot of this Jacob's ladder called "the Master" to the higher regions called the Court of Appeal. The simplest possible matter, which any old laundress of the Temple ought to have been competent to decide by giving both the parties a box on the ear, was taken before the Master, from the Master to the Judge, from the Judge to the Divisional Court, and from the Divisional Court to the Court of Appeal, at the expense of the unfortunate litigants; ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... excellent blacksmith, bell-founder and designer of ladies' robes. Chriemhild in the Nibelungenlied was an industrious and skillful milliner. In the corresponding period of Grecian and Roman history, we find Penelope and Lucretia at the loom, Nausicaa, a laundress, the daughter of the king of the Lestrigons, fetching water from the spring, Odysseus, a carpenter, a queen of Macedonia as a cook, and finally the distaff of Tanaquil.(348) In the highlands of Scotland, in 1797, there were a great many peasants all of whose clothing was home-made, with ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... courage in his two hands and suddenly decided to make a bold dash for liberty. Laying a wager with his guards that he could run upstairs again faster than they, he reached his room first, bolted the door and seizing a cord, or rope, which had been brought to him by his laundress, he made it fast to the window, slipped out and dropped fifteen feet. With shots whistling all about him he flew around the tower to the Faubourg de la Riche, where he leaped upon the back of the first horse that he saw; the saddle turned and threw him and a soldier came ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... certain effect, and the expediency of changing one's linen at least three times a day; though had he changed his six, I should have said that the purification of the last shirt would have been no sinecure to the laundress. His accent was decidedly Scotch: he spoke familiarly of Scott and one or two other Scotch worthies, and more than once insinuated that he was a member of Parliament. With respect to the rest of the company I say nothing, and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... a suburb of Prague, there lived about twenty years ago, two poor but honest people, who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow; he worked in a large printing establishment, and his wife employed her spare time as a laundress. Their pride, and their only pleasure, was their daughter Viteska, who was a vigorous, voluptuous-looking, handsome girl of eighteen, whom they brought up very well and carefully. She worked for a dress-maker, and was thus able to help ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... noticed the wounds made by the two nails. The ladies, as soon as the news was imparted to them, came out from their rooms, weeping and lamenting in so natural a manner as to disarm any suspicions. The only person who formed any was the laundress to whom Beatrice entrusted the sheet in which her father's body had been wrapped, accounting for its bloody condition by a lame explanation, which the laundress accepted without question, or pretended to do so; and immediately after the funeral, the mourners returned ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... weather—wet or fine—I could at will discourse, Or bargain for a bonnet, or a boot-jack, or a horse; Tell dentists, in three languages, which tooth it is that hurts; Or chide a laundress for the lack ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... the kitchen of Dr. W.'s house a foul-mouthed Irish laundress who used coarse language to me concerning urination. I loathed the woman, and yet one night I dreamed that I was embracing her naked form and rolling over and over with her on the bed; and in spite of my sight of female genitals a few months before, I thought of her as ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... necessity of a little cordial refreshment, to brighten the one and enliven the other, and therefore takes it on the sly, under the polite appellation of white wine. The knowing Kids and dashing Swells are for a drap of blue ruin, to keep all things in good twig. The Laundress, who disdains to be termed a dry washer,—dearly loves a dollop {2} of Old Tom, because, while she is up to her elbows in suds, and surrounded with steam, she thinks a drap of the old gemman (having no pretensions to a young one) would comfort and strengthen ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... disenthralment. She wandered far and near, and soiled her white gowns, to the despair of the Otter servant who did up the master's shirts and managed the mistress's clear-starching, but who never dreamt, in those days of frills, robes, and flounces, of styling herself a laundress. Leslie filled her apron with mosses and lichens: she stole out after the reapers had left the patch of oats which was not within sight of the house, and gathered among the sheaves like a Ruth. She grew stout and hardy, and, in spite of ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... difficulty in providing for the wants of the family, in food as well as clothing. Besides the father's small earnings as a tailor of the lowest standing, the mother occasionally earned a little money as a laundress. A grandfather, Boe, formed one of the family group. He had been a soldier, but was now too old to serve in the ranks, though France was waging war in Italy and Austria under her new Emperor. Boe, however, helped to earn the family living, by begging with ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... the last garment, was probably like Poins'] and if the reader [Footnote: "one for superfluity and one other for use." The cap was probably that which he wore when he laid aside his wig. His hose, of colored silk, probably made only "semi-occasional" visits to the laundress.] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... shiftlessness, slovenliness, dirt, and active assertion of Ohio vim. Sick of vermin and slime, I would take pail, scrubbing brush and lye, and fall to; sick of it all, I would get a Summit county breakfast, old fashioned pan cakes for old times' sake; sick of the native laundress who cleansed nothing, I would give an Akron rub myself to my own clothes and have something fit to wear. These attacks of energy depended somewhat on the temperature, somewhat on exhausted patience, somewhat on homesickness, but most on dread of revolt and attack; or of ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... years, was saved from the stake at which she would have been burned by being baptised; and the said defunct and his wife had then been godfather and godmother to this child of hell. Being at that time laundress at the convent, she who bears witness has remembrance of the flight which the said Egyptian took twenty months after her entry into the convent, so subtilely that it has never been known how or by what means she ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... "I have called on you this morning in relation to your servant Mark. I hope you will not think it impertinent in me to interfere in this matter, but I am very much interested in him. His wife has been my laundress for several years, and is exceedingly distressed at the idea of being separated from him. She came to me yesterday, and told me that he had been impertinent, and that Mr. Nelson intended selling him down South. I promised to use what influence ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... had been a good deal of talk between the old women of dying, a subject to which their minds had been very prone to revert. Besides Mrs Love there were two other visitors, but they too failed to cheer the old couple up. One of the visitors, a laundress of the Temple called Mrs Oliphant, had done her best, poohpoohing such melancholy talk, and attributing the low spirits in which the old women found themselves to the bleakness of the February weather, and promising them that they would find a new lease of ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... upon being asked by Marforio, why he wore such foul linen, replied, he could get no other, for the Pope had made his washerwoman a princess,—meaning thereby the Pope's sister, Donna Camilla, who had formerly been a laundress, but was now established with a fortune and a palace. "This stinging piece of raillery was carried directly to his Holiness, who ordered a strict search to be made for the author, but to no purpose. Upon which he stuck up printed papers in all the public ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... got into bed I was surprised to hear a voice in the dining-room, where the laundress was lighting a fire. She had found the door unbolted, notwithstanding my design to fasten it, and must have passed the bed-chamber door while I was hanging on it, and yet never perceived me. She heard me fall, and presently came to ask me if I was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of the society column in the sensational newspapers keeps more critical detachment than he is usually credited with. In any case neither the boisterous nor the shrinking multimillionaire has any representative standing. He is not what a poor person means by a rich person. Ask your laundress who is rich in your neighborhood, and she will name all who live gently and do not have to worry about next month's bills. True pragmatist, she sees that to be exempt from any threat of poverty is ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... be pleased to meet Miss Killigrew," which was a white one. Hillard would have paid court to a laundress ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... be sure, in these respects; for every gentleman on board appeared to have had a difference with his laundress and to have left off washing himself in early youth. Every gentleman, too, was perfectly stopped up with tight plugging, and was dislocated in the greater part of his joints. But about this gentleman there was a ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... municipal burthens it has nothing to do. The inhabitants may live in town or country, as they please, for both are within the domain. They may occupy an attic, a first floor, a parlour, an area, just as they like. The Templar seems in constant sanctuary, where no one dares intrude upon him but his laundress and his clerk. Both these, as figured by our author, are admirable specimens of the natural history of the Temple; but we have no room to give them entire, and must not spoil them by abridgment. Besides, the aspirant waits: he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... the spacious drying-ground, the fine orchard, and that large field quartered into four different crops. How comfortable this cottage looks, and how well the owners earn their comforts! They are the most prosperous pair in the parish—she a laundress with twenty times more work than she can do, unrivalled in flounces and shirt-frills, and such delicacies of the craft; he, partly a farmer, partly a farmer's man, tilling his own ground, and then tilling other people's;—affording ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... is that broadest of broad, but morally inoffensive stories, in which the laundress, in trying to cure a smoking chimney, blows herself to death, having merely power to speak a few words to Betty,—who gaspingly explains to her mistress ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Perfecta's house this excellent lady suffered a species of capitis diminutio. In times far distant and very bitter for the family of the good Penitentiary, Maria Remedios (since it is the truth, why should it not be told?) had been a laundress in the house of Polentinos. And let it not be supposed that Dona Perfecta looked down upon her on this account—nothing of the kind. She behaved to her without any haughtiness; she felt a real sisterly affection ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... foot a moment before she sank into a chair. She was a tall woman, who had been a beautiful girl, and her gray hair had a memory of blondeness in it like Lindau's, March noticed. She wore a simple silk gown, of a Quakerly gray, and she held a handkerchief folded square, as it had come from the laundress. Something like the Sabbath quiet of a little wooden meeting-house in thick Western woods expressed itself to him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the breakfast had not of itself been bad, for Mrs. Whereas had been a daughter of Themis all her life, waiting upon scions of the law since first she had been able to run for a penn'orth of milk. She had been laundress on a stairs for ten years, having married a law stationer's apprentice, and now she owned the dingy house over the covered way, and let her own lodgings with her own furniture; nor was she often without friends who would recommend her zeal and honesty, and make excuse for the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Nancy the laundress, of a gentleman residing at the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... blows stiffly from the nor'-east, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a general knocking about of Nature; but the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... *strange prating accuser * That tabour* in your eares many a soun', *drum Right after their imaginatioun, To have your dalliance,* and for envy; *pleasant conversation, These be the causes, and I shall not lie, company Envy is lavender* of the Court alway, *laundress For she departeth neither night nor day Out of the house of Caesar, thus saith Dant'; Whoso that go'th, algate* she shall not want. *at all events And eke, parauntre,* for this man is nice,** *peradventure **foolish He mighte do it guessing* no malice; *thinking For ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... write them. There is old Ralph, the peddler, who is too deaf to hear if you shout at him ever and ever so much, but he'll enjoy seeing a good time; and we'll have Florrie Maynard, with her crutches and her banjo, and she'll have a happy time and sing for us; and Mrs. Maloney, the laundress, with her blind Patsy. I don't see Jackie, but you'll have a Scripture party after all. Run along and write your letters, and to-night we'll ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... settled. My establishment consists of a housekeeper, cook, and chambermaid, seamstress, and two footmen. There are, besides, two fishermen and four bargemen always at command. The department of laundress is done abroad. The plantation affords plenty of milk, cream, and butter; turkeys, fowls, kids, pigs, geese, and mutton; fish, of course, in abundance. Of figs, peaches, and melons there are yet a few. Oranges and pomegranates just begin to be eatable. The house affords Madeira ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... embellishing hand of woman. Entering one of these houses, we found the men and young women out gathering the harvest. An elderly woman acted as our hostess. She was maid of all-work, a chamber-maid, cook, dairy-woman, laundress, and children's nurse; and yet she found time to make us a cordial welcome. The house was only one year old, and rather open to the weather, but bore the marks of womanly thrift and even ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... of the laundresses referred to above (as a trained and skilful laundress she was in charge of the fine linen only), was a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, with moles on her left cheek. Moles on the left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in Russia—a token of unhappy life.... Tatiana could not boast of her good luck. From her earliest ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... say that, indeed, he thanked her, and had been infinitely comforted and refreshed by her care, and that all he meant was to express his distaste to Mother Jugge, the lavender (i.e. laundress), and his desire for Richard Fowen's company; but he was little attended to, and apparently more than half offended, the brisk old lady ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... does not come into the question. The lady is rather strong-willed. So, Ricky," he laughed, "we'll leave you two to fight it out. But Lucy may be able to find us a laundress." ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... know, I rather thought she patronised me? Are all women spoiled by their contact with the world, and their bloom rubbed off in the market? I know one who seems to me to remain pure! to be sure, I only know her, and this little person, and Mrs. Flanagan our laundress, and my sisters at home, who don't count. But that Miss Newcome to whom once you introduced me? Oh, the cockatrice! only that poison don't affect your wife, the other would kill her. I hope the Colonel will not believe a word which Laura says." ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... indeed—crimpled, pierced with pinholes, corner creases torn, soft, tarnished, decrepit while yet young. Some have been half-burned; one has been found half-digested in the stomach of a goat, and one boiled in a waistcoat-pocket by a laundress. No matter; the cashier at the bank will do his best to decipher it; he will indeed take an infinity of trouble to put together the ashes of a burned note, and will give the owner a new note or the value in coin, if satisfied of the ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... perform the work of two by a close packing of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in America, reduce the labors of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... peculiar lucidity. I have observed, as you know, the wonderful effects produced by diet upon the imagination. My lodgings cost me three sous daily; I burnt three sous more in oil at night; I did my own housework, and wore flannel shirts so as to reduce the laundress' bill to two sous per day. The money I spent yearly in coal, if divided up, never cost more than two sous for each day. I had three years' supply of clothing, and I only dressed when going out to some library or public lecture. These expenses, all told, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Aunt, "suppose she had a very beautiful thin dress to be washed, and had a very poor laundress to do it who might spoil it; don't you think she would wish she knew how to ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... when off for the woods, take with you only those things which seem to be absolutely necessary; remember that you will carry your own pack and be your own laundress, so hesitate about including too many washable garments. Make out your list, then consider the matter carefully and realize that every one of the articles, even the very smallest, has a way of growing heavier and heavier and adding to the ever-increasing weight of your pack the longer ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... his wish to black his own boots (an occupation in which he shone but little), and to live in every way like a Bow working man. Bow working men were not so lavish in their patronage of water, whether existing in drinking glasses, morning tubs, or laundress' establishments. Nor did they eat the delicacies with which Mrs. Drabdump supplied him, with the assurance that they were the artisan's appanage. She could not bear to see him eat things unbefitting his station. Arthur Constant ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... watchman on the block. The watchman remembered. He knows everything that goes on in the Bowery. Maggie was the wayward daughter of a decent laundress, and killed herself by drinking carbolic acid less than a month before. She had wearied of the Bowery. Nigger Martha was her one friend. And now she had ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... nose too," said another girl. "And he has not a morsel of starch in his shirt ruffles, I declare," said a third, who officiated as laundress to the Mayor ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... I observe was that of four children of a person called John Goodwin, a mason. The eldest, a girl, had quarrelled with the laundress of the family about some linen which was amissing. The mother of the laundress, an ignorant, testy, and choleric old Irishwoman, scolded the accuser; and shortly after, the elder Goodwin, her sister and two brothers, were ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... ask her what really happened. With the knowledge that you already possess, it will be hard, indeed, if we cannot arrive at the truth. There must be people who supplied things to the cottage—the restaurant, the pharmacien, the laundress. See them all—you know them already, and we will put the facts together. As for finding her ladyship, that will depend entirely upon herself. I shall expect you back in about a week. If anything happens here I shall be able to tell ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... laundress, you know, and at times brings back the clothes herself. My servant is usually in, though. I see what you mean. That she might have received the manuscript from Bolton, and have left ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... conception of all that was noble and cultured and aristocratic. He was her Viscount Reginald Vere de Vere, speaking to her as from between yellow paper covers. He was her prince incognito who fell in love with Lily, the Lovely Laundress. He had threaded the mazes of more than one of her palpitating dreams, and in her innermost heart of hearts she had cherished the fond belief that one day their orbs would meet and their souls would rush together in such a head-on collision ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... go into his landlady's room, and work by her light. When he went into the street, he must walk as lightly as he could, and as cautiously, upon the stones, almost upon tiptoe, in order not to wear his heels down in too short a time; he must give the laundress as little to wash as possible; and, in order not to wear out his clothes, he must take them off, as soon as he got home, and wear only his cotton dressing-gown, which had been long ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... people who will try to get you to confide in them, and then use their knowledge of your domestic unhappiness to blackmail you; there will be threats of law-suits from people who will claim that they have contracted a disease from you or your child—your laundress, perhaps, or your maid, or ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... washings, and by the denunciations which in every hotel are pasted up in every room against the practice. I could not at first understand why I was always warned against washing my own clothes in my own bed-room, and told that no foreign laundress could on any account be admitted into the house. The injunctions given on this head are almost frantic in their energy, and therefore I conceive that hotel-keepers find themselves exposed to much suffering in the matter. At these hotels they wash with great rapidity, sending ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... paying pupils, and remain till sixteen. They make everything for themselves at the school excepting hats and boots, and do all their own domestic work, the kitchen and laundry being under the superintendence of a cook and laundress. Large orders of needlework are executed, but the mornings ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... was not of so generous and forgiving a Temper. Upon his being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was one Night dressed in a very dirty Shirt, with an Excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear foul Linnen, because his Laundress was made a Princess. This was a Reflection upon the Pope's Sister, who, before the Promotion of her Brother, was in those mean Circumstances that Pasquin represented her. As this Pasquinade made a great noise in Rome, the Pope offered a Considerable Sum of Mony to any Person that should discover ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... an integral part of him and are the same whether in his dressing-room or in a ballroom, whether in talking to Mrs. Worldly or to the laundress bringing in his clothes. He whose manners are only put on in company is a veneered gentleman, not ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... whimsical blunders made in the course of a performance of Macbeth, at a poor little country theatre. The Lady Macbeth—who, not unlikely, had been a laundress—instead of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... sapumajxo, sxauxmajxo. Latin Latina. Latter lasta, tiu cxi. Lattice palisplektajxo. Laud lauxdi. Laudable lauxdebla. Laudation lauxdego. Laugh ridi. Laughable ridinda. Laughter ridado. Laundress lavistino. Laundry lavejo. Laurel lauxro. Lava lafo. Lavish malsxpara. Law, a regulo, legxo. Law, the legxoscienco. Lawful rajta. Lawn herbejo. Lawsuit proceso. Lawyer legisto. Lax laksa. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... assurance came forth, there seemed to be no need for any variation. It was not before the fifth day that I discovered that he had taken from the start a pint of whiskey every day. When he first arrived he had bribed a laundress of the hotel to bring to his room every day the whiskey hidden in the laundry and he drank it during the night. Then I declined any ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... bereft of their walk, unable to employ their miserable legs and eyes, exercise themselves by a continual barking, which is answered by all the dogs in the neighborhood. An urchin returning from the laundress, delighted with the symphony, lays down his white bundle in the gutter, seats himself on the curb-stone, and attempts an imitation of the music of cats as a tribute to the concert. The door-bell rings. Chi e? "Who is it?" cries the handmaid, with unweariable ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... he visited Elsie, he found her more composed and comfortable than she had been for several weeks, and Mrs. Gerome had seemed almost cheerful, as she sat beside the bed, crimping the borders of the invalid's muslin caps which the laundress had sent in, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... dreadfully awful," said the laundress. "I was carried in from the spot, and have not been able to move a limb since. I doubt I never shall put a ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope |
