"Duenna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rum from the store room, and distributing it amongst their friends and acquaintance, and they have resorted to the same plan as the boys, to prevent the exposure, which they dreaded. One of them, who acts as a duenna, is the favourite and confidante of Boy, and she wears a bunch of keys round her neck in token of her authority. She has likewise the care of all her master's effects, and as a further mark of distinction, she is allowed the privilege of using a walking-stick with a knob at the end, which ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... from her post, and, snatching the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we discussed traveling ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of the duenna of the Queen's household, a rigid Spanish dame, were already searching for stray members of her flock, and Veronique had to hurry to her place, while Berenger remained to hatch new plans, each wilder than the last, and torment himself with ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seen several spots that would make an admirable Eden. Besides, there is something in the story of what happened in the Garden that rings true; not that all women would adopt Eve's bold method, but much may be forgiven a woman who had no mother or maiden aunt to play duenna, and who lived before either was fashionable, or, according ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... paces and followed him. The way was long, and ill lighted at intervals by oil lamps hung from the vault by small chains; they cast a broad black shadow beneath them, and shed a feeble light above. Several times persons passed them, and Dolores' heart beat furiously. A court lady, followed by a duenna and a serving-woman, stopped with a winning smile, and dropped a low courtesy to Don John, who lifted his cap, bowed, and went on. They did not look at Dolores. A man in a green cloth apron and loose slippers, ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... school-days endure through life. This association of the sexes operates as a restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old, wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she witnesses ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... attendant in the old gray-haired man, whose primitive appearance and manner seemed to indicate that he was a country servant. The stranger was scarcely placed in the boat when, somewhat to his surprise and pleasure, he saw this old man carefully depositing the duenna of his young friend in a seat near him; and in another moment there was a light footfall on the ladder, a waving of white garments, and she was herself placed beside him, whilst the sailors, pushing off from the side of the vessel, made all speed towards the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... in studying her indolent walk, the walk of the woman without occupation, but in the movements of which one devines all the pleasure that lies asleep. Well, she turned back again, she saw me, once more she adored me, once more trembled, shivered. It was then I noticed the genuine Spanish duenna who looked after her, a hyena upon whom some jealous man has put a dress, a she-devil well paid, no doubt, to guard this delicious creature.... Ah, then the duenna made me deeper in love. I grew ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... there is a replica in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. In yet another version (also a contemporary atelier piece), which is in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, and has for that reason acquired a certain celebrity, the greedy duenna is depicted in full face, and holds ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... any trouble. It seems I must look elsewhere for the brains of this party, and to find a solution of this young man's mystery; and, if I judge correctly, it is with this beautiful young agitator of revolutions and her oratorical duenna ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... ironwork for a blacksmith on the route; last of all, Mary and the sailor, for all the world like the old father and mother of the party. Mr Pennycuick excused himself from excursions nowadays, and so did Miss Keene, the elderly and quite uninfluential duenna of the house, when one was needed (she "did the flowers" and knitted singlets ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... nicely adjusted dress, the dainty shoe and cobweb stocking, the raven tresses exquisitely braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among them like a gem, show that earth divides with Heaven the empire of her thoughts. Keep an eye upon her, careful mother, or virgin aunt, or vigilant duenna, whichever you may be, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... odds the most eligible young man in town; good looking in a spare, ruddy, sandy-haired Scottish fashion; important, incorruptible, "rising." But he took good care of his heart. Precisely that; like a sharp-eyed duenna to his own heart. One felt that here was the man, if ever was the man, who held his destiny in his own hand. Failing, of course, some quite ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... margravine. 'But you little know, my good Roy, the burden of an unmarried princess; and heartily glad shall I be to hand her over to Baroness Turckems. That's her instituted governess, duenna, dragon, what you will. She was born for responsibility, I was not; it makes me miserable. I have had no holiday. True, while she was like one of their wax virgins I had a respite. Fortunately, I hear of you English, that when you fall to sighing, you suck ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Handel. Linley removed to London in 1775, and was manager with Doctor Arnold of the Drury Lane Oratorios. With his son Thomas, he composed the music for his son-in-law Sheridan's comic opera of "The Duenna," and his other works include the music for "The Camp," and other pieces by Tickell, another son-in-law, for a version of Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," and for "Selima and Azor," and "Richard Coeur ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... I suppose, as that for which the girls of other places go to the parks and matinees nowadays, for it seems to have been a notorious fact that had even spread to other countries, that the girls of Nahor came down to the well in the blushing sunset, and that too, without chaperon or duenna. And I suppose the young men went down too, to flirt with the charming damsels, from the fact that the ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... to be trusted, and only to such parties as are presided over by responsible patronesses. This should be exceptional for any but the young woman who has been left without immediate family and who has been already in society more than one season. The duenna who acts as her natural guardian and chaperon, ordinarily ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... day I got him out of a bad fix. It was on a Friday at half-past six in the morning, I still remember, because I hadn't breakfasted. That lady who is followed by a duenna is the celebrated Pepay, the dancing girl, but she doesn't dance any more now that a very Catholic gentleman and a great friend of mine has—forbidden it. There's the death's-head Z——, who's surely following her to get her to dance again. He's a good fellow, and ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... this man, his wife was faithful enough to him, always ready, like a candlestick, arranged for her duty like a chest which never moves, and opens to order. Nevertheless, the advocate had placed her under the guardianship and pursuing eye of an old servant, a duenna as ugly as a pot without a handle, who had brought up the Sieur Avenelles, and was very fond of him. His poor wife, for all pleasure in her cold domestic life, used to go to the Church of St. Jehan, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... your wish that I should ascertain if all things appeared to be safe in your chambers, and I am happy in being able to report that the whole establishment carries an appearance of security, which is confirmed by the unceasing vigilance of your faithful and frigid Duenna [Mrs. Mule]. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Mr. Henry Huntington in a wild goose chase all around the island, and next, we find you holding a very confidential 'tete-a-tete' with young Mr. Arthur. Such proceedings are really too bad, and, as your watchful 'duenna,' I must enter my serious ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... which I have taken this morning," said Florine, putting a paper into the duenna's hand. "Happily, I have ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... gracious gifts, and that the downy couch cost her nothing, mattered little; her niece needed her, she needed her niece; ergo, her niece sought in every way possible to render her happy and comfortable; and she, in return for her comfort and happiness, was a model duenna; never questioning, never criticising, humoring all that young lady's whims, yet retaining that free, hearty out-spokenness, that made her seem not in the least a dependent, and which was, as Mrs. Aliston well knew, most pleasing to ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... scene represents a hall in the king's palace at night. The wedding has taken place that day; and the closed door of the nuptial chamber is in view of the audience. Inside, the princess awaits her bridegroom. A duenna is in attendance. The bridegroom enters. His sole desire is to escape from a marriage which is hateful to him. An idea strikes him. He will assault the duenna, and get ignominiously expelled from the palace by his indignant father-in-law. To his horror, when he ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... highborn lady, not without royal blood indeed, but with rather a bend sinister; not precisely beautiful, but very fastidious; encased over her whole person with a gelatinous covering, literally a starched duenna. Sometimes she is suspected of conspiring to drive her mistress from the throne; for we have observed certain slow watercourses where the leaves of the water-lily have been almost wholly replaced by the similar, but smaller, leaves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... not need a duenna to watch her; that is what I think. And an American girl, pure and free, would not suffer herself to be watched by any woman, old or young. Her lover comes boldly into her home; she is too proud, to meet him ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... I said nothing, for those hands, soft as the peel of an onion, enjoined me to silence. A whisper breathed into my ear, 'He sleeps!' Then, as we were sure that nobody would see us, we went to walk, Zena and I, upon the ramparts, but accompanied, if you please, by a duenna, as hideous as an old portress, who didn't leave us any more than our shadow; and I couldn't persuade Madame Pirate to send her away. The next night we did the same thing, and again I wanted to get rid of the old woman, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... duenna had made all preliminary arrangements, she took from the well-filled pouch of my conductor, which he had hung up by the door, one or two salmon, or GRILSES, as the smaller sort are termed, and selecting that which seemed best and in highest season, began to cut it into ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... modesty. So bashfulness, like soft and sloping ground, being unable to repel or avert any attack, lies open to the most shameful acts and passions. It is a bad guardian of youth, as Brutus said he didn't think that person had spent his youth well who had not learnt how to say No. It is a bad duenna of the bridal bed and of women's apartments, as the penitent adultress in Sophocles ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... to go, and if you back out we are lost, for we must have a duenna. You can lie round in Europe just as well as here, and I have no doubt it will do you a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... need not look so arch. The old lady was not even a faithless duenna. It was an invitation to an assembly, or something of the kind, at a place, somewhere, as Theodore Hook or Mr. Croker would say, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... is humiliating to her to see all her girl friends married before her," replied the mother, with a duenna's air. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... decide upon something," she insisted. "I hate giving up my rooms here, I should hate having my worthy aunt as resident duenna, and I suppose it would be gloriously improper for us two to go on living here if I didn't. Are you quite sure that you love ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... soldierman, with a son soldiering somewhere in India, she managed to do a great deal on very small means. She was a woman of the world, a woman of character. She knew how to deal with people of queer races. Heaven indicated her for appointment by Barbara as Liosha's duenna in the Boarding House. Mrs. Considine, herself compelled to live in these homes for the homeless, gladly accepted the proposal, came down, interviewed her charge, who happened then to be in a mood of meekness ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... patronage of this mystic duenna, the Little Countess enjoys an absolute independence, which she uses to excess. After spending the winter in Paris, where she kills off regularly two horses and a coachman every month for the sole gratification of waltzing ten minutes every night in half a ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... absent at Havana, and will probably remain so for a few days, until his wrist gets well; in the meantime, his sister acts as duenna over Donna Clara. She is quite a nice old lady, however, and allows my sister far greater liberty in her brother's absence than ordinarily, as, for instance, to-day. I will get her to permit Clara to spend a few days at my villa down ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... marries her. Emanuella escapes from the nunnery and wanders to a little provincial town where she bears a son to Emilius. Berillia, who has been rusticated to a village near by in consequence of her amour, encounters her unfortunate friend by chance and runs away from her duenna to join her. She persuades Emanuella to draw a large sum on Don Jabin, robs her, and goes to join her gallant. The injured lady supports her child by mean drudgery until by chance she meets Emilius and his wife, who do all they can to comfort her. But worn out by her ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... added, 'your rival has not been a dangerous one, but Mrs Lupin here has played duenna for some weeks; not so much to watch your love as to watch her lover. For that Ghoul'—his fertility in finding names for Mr Pecksniff was astonishing—'would have crawled into her daily walks otherwise, and polluted the fresh air. What's this? Her hand is trembling ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... took a great interest in the young man, for to get a girl married to the "Young Savage of Champdoce" would be a feat to be proud of; but unluckily his father watched him with all the vigilance of a Spanish duenna. But there was a young girl who had long since secretly formed a design of her own, and this bold-hearted beauty was Diana de Laurebourg. It was with perfect justice that she had received the name of the "Belle of Poitiers." She was tall and very fair, with a dazzling complexion and masses ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... in a manner befitting the occasion and the supposed wealth of the bridegroom, Then none of us saw Luisa for a week at the bathing-place, and her non-appearance was discussed with interest at the nightly kava-drinking at half-caste Johnny Hall's public-house. Old Toi'foi, duenna of the kava-chewing girls, used to say solemnly that the old man had Luisa locked up in her room as she was vale (obstinate), and sat on a chair outside and looked at her through ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... his partner, and then went to a little counter at the end of the room and bought his dulcinea a plate of the candies and sweetmeats provided. Sometimes she accepted them, but most generally pointed to her duenna or chaperon behind, who held up her apron and caught the refreshments as they were slid into it from the plate. The greatest decorum was maintained at these dances, primitively as they were conducted; and in a region so completely cut ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Moorish maid Showed melting eyes, as limpid as a lake; A brow untouched by care; a band of jetty hair, And nothing more. The all-concealing haik Fell to her high arched instep. At her side An old duenna walked; her withered face Half covered only, since no lingering grace Bespoke the beauty once ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered sentinel, duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts, Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), With braided tresses bounding o'er ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... father must respect himself. Thank you, yes; just a leetle, leetle tiny—thanks, thanks; you spoil me. But, as I was saying, Richard, or was about to say, my daughter has been allowed to rust; her aunt was a mere duenna; hence, in parenthesis, Richard, her distrust of me; my nature and that of the duenna are poles asunder—poles! But, now that I am here, now that I have given up the fight, and live henceforth for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no guardians or aunts were haled forth o' nights to [v]duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... exchanged between the confidante and her mistress, cast down her eyes, like a discreet woman, and, pretending to be observant of nothing that was passing, listened with the utmost attention instead. She heard nothing, however, but a very significant "hum" on the part of the Spanish duenna, who was the perfect representation of extreme caution—and a profound sigh on that of the queen. She looked ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... not know what you mean by duenna, Mr. Brudenell, but I know what is due to your mother," replied ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... jestest with me, and this slave hoodwinketh me, the better to please thee; but I will send and see which of them be dead." And he answered, saying, "Send one who shall see which of them is dead." So the Lady Zubaydah cried out to an old duenna, and said to her, "Hie thee to the house of Nuzhat al-Fuad in haste and see who is dead and loiter not." And she used hard words to her."[FN73] So the old woman went out running, whilst the Prince of True Believers and Masrur laughed, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... rigid as marble thereby assuring the audience that she is in a "dead faint"—I say, that when we see all this performed by a travelling "star," and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions, even in the slightest degree, forgetting that perhaps the most placid, most commonplace ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... into the saddle and gallop away over the plains. She would sing her glowing Spanish songs to the accompaniment of the mandolin; or else she would dance like a fairy, her foot scarce seeming to touch the floor as she floated along, to the sound of the tambourine played by her old negro duenna. She was too beautiful for him to restrain, in dancing, riding, or anything. Too beautiful!" he repeated, becoming more and more enthusiastic. "I have seen her often, when summoned to the plantation on professional duty as a physician; and there was ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... you, child? What a silly idea!" exclaimed Zenobia, laughing. "No, indeed! But, my dear Priscilla, you are getting to be so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna; and, as I am older than you, and have had my own little experience of life, and think myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place of a maiden aunt. Every day, I shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in length, on the morals, manners, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... conscientious duenna you are!" she told him, "but rest easy; I'm thoroughly homesick, and ready to flunk it all at the first good excuse. I'll make you a promise, Johnnie. If I decide to fall in love with any of these ragged heroes I'll choose you. Most of ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the coach and marched out. Alison was coming downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you need a duenna to watch you ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them. . . . We shall not leave Florence till November—Robert must see Mr. Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartments with Wilson for a duenna. It's an excellent plan for him and not a bad one for Wilson. . . . Forgive me if Robert has told you this already. Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his "gentleness and sweetness". A most courteous and refined gentleman he is, of course, and very ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... which lost nothing of its fierce impatience when she came a little later to address me. All my ideas of Fanchette were upset by the appearance of this woman, who, rustic in her speech and ways, seemed more like a duenna, than the waiting-maid of a court beauty, and better fitted to guard a wayward damsel than to aid her in such an escapade ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... gold in Russia, and especially at Nizhni,—together with bottles of champagne, out to the veranda. When we were satisfied, we went to bed, but not to sleep. The peaches kept that party on the veranda and in the rooms below exhilarated until nearly daylight. I suppose the duenna did her duty and sat out the revel in the distant security of the dining-room. Several of her charges added a number of points to our store of information the next day, at the noon breakfast hour, when the duenna was ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... aside and commenting on the main action is a familiar situation and often productive of good fun. An excellent example is Most. 166 ff., where Philematium is performing her conventionally out-door toilet with the aid of her duenna Scapha. Philolaches stands on the other side of the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... and knelt at the sound of the angelus, a young girl, carefully surrounded by her discreet mantle, sought to pass through the praying multitude; she was followed by a mestizo woman, a sort of duenna, who watched every glance and step. The duenna, as if she had not understood the warning bell, continued her way through the devout populace: to the general surprise succeeded harsh epithets. The young girl would have stopped, ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... was not quite what it would have been to a younger inquirer, but it did not tend to console him. 'Mr. Finch! O no! We left him to the society of his port wine. I mean to test the clairvoyante by asking what he is dreaming about. But there is no fear of our coming to harm. Here's sister Jane for a duenna, and I always find squires ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her up," said he; no doubt this was some trembling debutante, accompanied by an ancient duenna and a roll of music. And then he went to the window, to try to get the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... word, the same extravagant comparison of the effects of music to the process of Egyptian embalmment—"extracting the brain through the ears"—which was afterwards transplanted into the dialogue of the Duenna: "Mortuum quondam ante aegypti medici quam pollincirent cerebella de auribus unco quodam hamo solebant extrahere; sic de meis auribus non cerebrum, sed cor ipsum exhausit lusciniola, &c., &c." He mentions, as the rivals most dreaded by her admirers, Norris, the singer, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... littleness of the happy. The happy should conceal themselves like malefactors. Oh, only shine out like the wretched glowworms that you are, and you'll be trodden on; and quite right too! What do you mean by all that love-making nonsense? I'm no duenna, whose business it is to watch lovers billing and cooing. I'm tired of it all, I tell you; and you may both ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... was patent that Dorothea had been too much her own mistress. Without admitting that he had been wrong in his methods hitherto, he confessed that the time had come when the duenna system must be introduced, as a matter not only of propriety, but of prudence. He assured himself of his regret that no American lady who could take the position chanced to be on the spot, but allayed his sorrow on the ground that any fairly well-mannered, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... summers, who had determined to be carried off after the form of young damsels in the times of chivalry; at another, that she was the parent of some lord, who could only be brought to concede something to the Warden by the force of the impledgment of his mother; and, again, that she was the duenna of an heiress, who could only be got through the confinement of the old hag. Be who she might, however, Christie's Will declared, upon the faith of the long shablas of Johnny Armstrong, that he would carry ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... allegory of Truth upon her brother's tomb might well pass for a grim satire. The Prudence opposite is said to be a portrait of the Pope's mother, Giovanna Gaetani. She resembles nothing more than a duenna of the type of Martha in Goethe's Faust. Here, again, the allegory would point a scathing sarcasm, if we did not remember the naivete ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... the girl, herself a figure out of a picture by Velasquez, had said of her sadly; for she saw in Fleda's rare qualities, in her strange beauty, happenings which had nothing to do with the life she was living. So this duenna of Gabriel Druse's household, this aristocratic, silent woman was ever on the watch for some sudden revelation of a being which had not found itself, and which must find itself through ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Stanhope found to life at Cadiz at that date was the prevalence of a condition of society which entailed that each Spanish lady should have her cortejo, or devoted attendant. "Behind each lady who smiles at you," he explains, "there stands—not a duenna, such a one as is represented on our stage—but a grim, black, ugly grandee, ready to avenge with the stiletto every glance you may chance to give to the lady of ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... He creaked into his great leather-upholstered desk chair, himself. "If you had left without seeing me I'd have excommunicated Casey. Between you and me the man's mad. His job ought to be duenna to a Spanish maiden, not assistant to a priest with a leaning ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... its tramways, and its great sea wall; its Botanical Gardens in which once more I had the delight of losing myself with Dolores, to the evident anxiety of her aunt and duenna, Mrs. Darbyshire; it seemed so strange to find such a foreign little person with such a distinctly English name. She, however, refused to be beguiled away by St. Nivel to look at the giraffes. I think she began to smell more than a rat when we reached the monkey house, and to ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... they were, old maids now!) house-warming together. If Florry could by this time do without a chaperon—she had two latchkeys and went alone on the top of omnibuses, and her name was in the Red Book—she was enough of a duenna for another girl. Biddy referred with sweet cynical eyes to the fine happy stride she had thus taken in the direction of enlightened spinsterhood; and Nick hung his head, immensely abashed and humiliated, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Then the damsels brought meat and drink and they ate and drank and washed their hands, after which they set her a royal chair and she sat down; and all played on instruments of music and with ravishing voices incomparably sang. Presently, out ran an old woman, a duenna, and clapped hands and danced, whilst the girls pulled her about, till the curtain was lifted and forth came Jamilah laughing. Ibrahim gazed at her and saw that she was clad in costly robes and ornaments, and on her head was a crown set with pearls and gems. About ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... may be angry with Esther for not telling. Even if I have the right to get into trouble myself, I haven't the right to drag in other people. But, oh dear! what fun it will be! And with Esther for my duenna, things are sure to turn ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... on a day of festival In the capital of Valladolid That their eyes met at a crossing And their two souls rushed together. By the greed of a bought duenna And the interchange of love-notes And the help of a hempen ladder They arranged ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... with which a bachelor chaperones himself would inspire even the duenna of a fashionable boarding ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... Gerard was ill at ease before, but this battery of eyes discountenanced him, and down went his eyes on the ground. Then the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten, giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely, "Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had half a mind to turn and run ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... court, in the middle of a modern skyscraper. The contrast was sharp as the impress of an old seal in new wax, and Angela loved it. She liked her hotel, too, and said but half-heartedly each morning, "To-morrow I'll go on." With Kate for duenna, she wandered through streets which, though they had historic French names, reminded her more of Spain than of France, with their rows of balconies and glimpses of flowery patios paved with mossy stones, or cracked but still beautiful tiles. She made ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... guards. The commissary is my purveyor, and," she added, glancing at his rotund figure, "I have no fear of starving in his company. Mrs. Shortridge, though she does not look sour enough for the office, is my duenna, punctilious and watchful—" Here she suddenly broke off her discourse, and fixed her eyes on old Moodie, who now entered the court, leading in a powerful horse of her father's, with a pair of huge holsters at the saddle-bow. ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... she had had a fair chance to get them. As I have already told you, she was as sweet and as pretty as a pink full of dewdrops, and might have picked out a sweetheart from as many beaux as she had fingers and thumbs, but that her vigilant duenna, Mrs. Jaynes, kept the young fellows beyond courting distance. It was impossible, even for this shrewd and discreet lady, so to manage, without danger of giving offence, as to prevent Laura from associating with the other young folks of the parish; and indeed, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... and truth. The original is said to be masterly in its drawing and execution. Sofonisba is represented in a simple black dress, and wears no jewels. She touches the keys of a harpsichord with her beautiful hands; a duenna-like figure of an old woman stands behind the instrument, apparently listening to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... nephews, Don Cinthio and Don Charmante, as being men of men of mere terrestial mould. The girls are, however, secretly assisted in their amours by Scaramouch, the doctor's man, who is himself a rival of Harlequin, Cinthio's valet, for the hand of Mopsophil, duenna to the young ladies. Harlequin, hoping to find his way to his mistress, gets to Bellemante's chamber but when she appears conceals himself. The doctor, however, who has been hastily summoned to the bedside of his brother, reported ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... be to see how she and our little deformed gentleman get along together; for, as I have told you, they sit side by side. The next thing will be to keep an eye on the duenna,—the "Model" and so forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The intention of that estimable lady is, I understand, to launch her and leave her. I suppose there is no help for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how to take care of herself, but I do not like to see young girls turned ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
