"Tortoise-shell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a sonorous hail from the house; a hail in keeping with the generous bulk of its owner, who had come through the door. He was well past middle-age, with a thatch of gray hair half covering his high forehead. In one hand he held the book that he had been reading, and in the other a pair of big tortoise-shell glasses. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... wearing her Sunday dress of brown cloth and a jaunty jacket trimmed with sable (the best bits of an old pelisse of Mrs. Oliver's). The sun shone on the loose-dropping coil of the waving hair that was only caught in place by a tortoise-shell arrow; the wind blew some of the dazzling tendrils across her forehead; the eyes that glanced up from under her smart little sailor-hat were as blue as sapphires; and Edgar, as he looked, suddenly feared that there might be vicious bulls in the meadows, and did n't dare ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... and do it under my supervision. It only needs this, now." She thrust two heavy tortoise-shell pins into the coils on either ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... four front windows. The room was big enough to accommodate besides, even with an air of space and simplicity, the little grand piano that Christopher played for her almost every night. A great Persian tortoise-shell cat was at home here, and sometimes Alice had her magnificent parrot besides, hanging himself upside down on his gaily-painted stand, and veiling the beady, sharp eye with which he watched her. The indulgent extravagance ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... hears the name of tortoise, he begins to think of tortoise-shell. This ought really to be called turtle-shell, as it is made from the shell of the hawk's-bill turtle. Tortoise-shell is made by soaking the plates of the shell in warm water until they are soft; then they are pressed into the shapes wanted in warm ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... not shut at this house, although each of the blinds was drawn exactly a quarter of the way down. Jimmy saw a large tortoise-shell cat lying on one of the window sills, whilst a black cat watched ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb
... lady put up her long-handled tortoise-shell eyeglasses and inspected me all over again. 'Well, I declare,' she murmured. 'What are girls coming to, I wonder? Girton, you say; Girton! That place at Cambridge! You speak Greek, of course; but how ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... in big tortoise-shell spectacles examines my passport, reading it slowly and deliberately aloud in peculiar sing-song tones to the crowd, who listen with all-absorbing attention. He then orders the people to direct me to a certain ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... charming passions; which absence serves only to heighten and improve. Your kind present of the garnet bracelets, I shall keep as carefully as I preserve my own life; and I beg you will accept, in return, my heart-housewife, with the tortoise-shell memorandum-book, as a trifling pledge of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... venturesome, and they all sat down on the floor to make a selection. Reba chose a quaint, silver buckle, Reliance selected a mother-of-pearl card-case, Edna decided upon a tortoise-shell comb. ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... inducing Tommy Dobson and his pack to come over from Eskdale, but that came to nothing. The Master of the Border Hunt lent a couple of foxhounds, who effected nothing; and there were a hundred other attempts and as many failures. Jim Mason set a cunning trap or two and caught his own bob-tailed tortoise-shell and a terrible wigging from his missus; Ned Hoppin sat up with a gun two nights over a new slain victim and Londesley of the Home Farm poisoned a carcase. But the Killer never returned to the kill, and went about in the ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... had a favourite tortoise-shell cat, named Monkey, who always sat on his shoulder when he was shaving, and evinced every sign of deep attachment. He left her under the care of some friends when he went abroad; and, two years after, these ladies were surprised the evening he was expected home, at the extreme restlessness ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... be at home to a hair," squeaked a little finicking personification of a modern Peruquier, sidling up to him, picking his teeth with a tortoise-shell comb. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... sure that you are very kind," Donald replied. Miss Bascom had adjusted her tortoise-shell lorgnette, and was surveying Donald ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... went there myself. You go through a swing door into a big place that, for cheerfulness, is no better than a monster coal cellar, and there you behold, laid out on a little black table, Mrs. Williams' woollen shawl, your Senorita's tortoise-shell comb, that had got entangled in it somehow, and my old cap that I lent you—you remember. I assure you, it gave me the horrors to see the confounded things spread out there in that dim religious light. Dash me, if I didn't go queer all over. And all the time swell carriages ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... ill-concealed contempt and aversion. He was a fat little man, with long straight hair coming down over his coat collar, and a round, full-moon sort of face, whose effect of beaming complacency was enhanced by a pair of large-rimmed tortoise-shell spectacles out of which his owl-like eyes shone with an air of ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... lulling them to sleep. She would sustain the loud parts, then linger over the melody; there were movements that she would play with tenderness and others with little bursts of passion. She bent over the piano, then rose again, the light playing on the top of her tortoise-shell comb one moment, while the next moment it could scarcely be seen in her black hair. The two candles on the piano flickered to the noise, throwing a light over her profile or sending their flame over her forehead, her cheeks, and her chin. The shadow from her ear-rings—two coral balls—trembled ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... place at Passy, had made his way to the Duc de Grandlieu's, in the costume of a retainer of a superior class. He wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his button-hole. He had made up a withered old face with powdered hair, deep wrinkles, and a colorless skin. His eyes were hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles. He looked like a retired office-clerk. On giving his name as Monsieur de Saint-Denis, he was led to the Duke's private room, where he found Derville reading a letter, which he himself had dictated to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... beaks like woodcocks; some of these were garnished with rows of ridiculously big teeth. I failed to procure live specimens of small turtle, and yet the huts were full of carapaces, all broken and eight-ribbed. One species, the Sakar, supplies tortoise-shell sold at Suez for 150 piastres per Ratl or pound; the Bisa'h, another large kind without carapace, is used only for eating: both are caught off the reefs and islets. An eel-like water-snake (Marrina Murona Ophis) showed fight when attacked. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... counsel, after citation of cases, after the applause of Market Street at some incidental obiter dicta of Judge Van Dorn's about the rights of property, after the court had put on its tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, which the court had brought home from its recent trip to Chicago to witness the renomination of President Taft, after the court, peering through its brown-framed spectacles, was fumbling over its typewritten opinion from the typewriter of the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... motionless with wings invisible in their rapid beat, now disturbed by the buzz of some great humble-bee, and then round and round and up and down in pursuit of one of their own tribe, till the gauzy wings beat together and rustled as they came in contact. Butterflies, white, yellow, blue, orange-spotted, tortoise-shell, peacock-eyed, and laced, came there to flit over the glassy water, and look within it at their beauty; and here, too, came the mayflies to dance up and down all the day, and die when even came. There never was such ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... garden backing on Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's, his elbows resting on the pitch-pine frame, was a middle-aged man. A cigarette was in his mouth and from his hands dangled a newspaper. He had a smooth-shaven, heavily-jowled face and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Pope, while Zimandy was stammering some sort of gibberish,—Hebrew or Greek, for aught she knew,—had taken his snuff-box from a pocket behind, and smilingly helped himself to a pinch of snuff. Further, the snuff-box had looked like a common tortoise-shell affair with an enamelled cover; and after he had taken his pinch, he had put his hand into the pocket of his gold-embroidered silk gown and drawn out a coarse cotton handkerchief such as ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... Submit. She looked across, and there beside Sarah's face in the window was another beautiful smiling one. It had pink cheeks and sweet black eyes and black curls, among which stood a high tortoise-shell comb. ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... (15), a group of 80 coralline islands, belonging to Holland, W. of New Guinea; export mother-of-pearl, pearls, tortoise-shell, &c. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the toilet and adornment which Doggie had left behind at home. There were pots of [v]pomade and face cream, and nail polish; bottles of hair-wash and tooth-wash; half a dozen gleaming razors; the array of brushes and combs and [v]manicure set in [v]tortoise-shell with his crest in silver; bottles of scent; the purple silk dressing-gown; a soft-fronted shirt fitted with ruby and diamond sleeve-links; the dinner jacket and suit laid out on the glass-topped table, with tie and handkerchief; the silk ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... that he had been quite right in supposing that the air would be windless here, and full of great content he sat down with his back to the house wall. A tortoise-shell butterfly, encouraged by the warmth, was flitting about among the Michaelmas daisies that bordered the path and settling on them, opening its wings to the genial sun. Two or three bees buzzed there also; the summer-like tranquillity inserted into the middle of November squalls and rain, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... projecting through the snow. My optical delusions as to colour were perhaps the most remarkable; the protruding rocks invariably appeared of a strange orange yellow, with black lines along them, producing a short of tortoise-shell effect. I took these mysterious appearances at first for dead animals, ponies or sheep, and touched them to try to ascertain the fact. My hands, however, were so utterly devoid of sensation, that they were of no more use than my eyes in identifying objects. I was therefore quite in the dark as ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... strings Hermes had on his tortoise-shell instrument is a much disputed question. Some say there were but three and that they represented the three seasons—spring, summer, and winter—into which it was the custom of the Greeks to divide their year. Some authorities claim that the strings numbered ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... ENGLISHMAN,—I had heard his voice before. I NEVER forget a voice. If his eyes ever meet these lines he will remember me, I know. I can describe him from memory. He was medium height, wore a drooping moustache slightly sprinkled with gray and used two pairs of tortoise-shell glasses. When I met him at The Pines in the Isle of Wight we had both been through the Battle of the Somme and were recuperating from our siege amid the shell holes and the mud. I CLAIMED to be an American, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... After aught in the church, They caught nothing but weeds, and perhaps a few perch. The Humane Society Tried a variety Of methods, and brought down, to drag for the wreck, tackles But they only fished up the clerk's tortoise-shell spectacles. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... and into very general favor, by Mr. WEISER, at No. 43 Centre-street, near Pearl. They are composed externally of glass-veneerings, beautifully painted and shaded, so as to resemble different-tinted woods, tortoise-shell, or indeed any other colors that may be desired. These are painted on the inner side of the glass, which is so firmly cemented to the wood-frames as to be little liable to injury from jarring or even falling. With a gilt beading, they have a ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... doorstep. He was a tall stout man with a hooked nose and lace ruffles. His nostrils were stained with snuff and he took a pinch from a tortoise-shell box set with the miniature of a lady; then he looked down at Odo and ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a case of suppurative disease of the temporal bone, in which the hair changed from a mouse-color to a reddish-brown; and Squire records a congenital case in a deaf mute, in whom the hair on the left side was in light patches of true auburn and dark patches of dark brown like a tortoise-shell cap; on the other side the hair was a dark brown. Crocker mentions the changes which have occurred in rare instances after death from dark ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... empty tortoise-shell He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men's bosoms swell Fearless, or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... When plain tortoise-shell combs are defaced, the polish may be renewed by rubbing them with pulverized rotten-stone and oil. The rotten-stone should be sifted through muslin. It looks better to be rubbed on by the hand. The ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... enamelled pencil cases, extraordinary fine French boots with soles no thicker than a sheet of scented note-paper, embroidered vests, incense-burning sealing-wax, alabaster statuettes of Venus and Adonis, tortoise-shell snuff-boxes, inlaid toilet-cases, ivory-handled hair-brushes and mother-of-pearl combs, and a hundred other luxurious appendages scattered about ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... cavalcade. The Usher of the Black Rod carried, on a cushion placed on a seat of the carriage, a black portfolio stamped with the royal crown. At Brentford, the last relay before London, the carriages and escort halted. A four-horse carriage of tortoise-shell, with two postilions, a coachman in a wig, and four footmen, was in waiting. The wheels, steps, springs, pole, and all the fittings of this carriage were gilt. The horses' harness was of silver. This state coach ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... so they were, poor things. A little mosaic brooch set in silver, a mother-of-pearl with steel border, and a tortoise-shell one in the shape of a crescent; ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... they had bound narrow ribbons of braided fibres, dyed in red patterns, the ends of the ribbons falling down in large tassels. Under this belt is stuck the end of the enormous nambas, also consisting of red grass fibres. Added to this scanty dress are small ornaments, tortoise-shell ear-rings, bamboo combs, bracelets embroidered with rings of shell and cocoa-nut, necklaces, and thin bands bound under the knees and ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... occasion, as she brushed her hair and inserted the tortoise-shell curling-pins which should secure to-morrow's decorative effects, she felt almost daring and dangerous. She wondered whether she had really enjoyed the evening or not; whether she had held her own ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... see, from our old friend Moreno, at Havana," said Captain Brand, as he sat down on the settee, and with a pretty tortoise-shell knife cut round the seals. "Ah! what says he? 'Happy to inform you,' is he? 'Packages of French silks seized by custom-house on account of informal invoice and clearance.' Why didn't the fool forge others, then? Well, what next? 'Schooner "Reel," from ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... was drawn to a lady in black who was examining the pictures through a tortoise-shell eye-glass adorned with diamonds and hanging from a long pearl chain. Undine was instantly struck by the opportunities which this toy presented for graceful wrist movements and supercilious turns of the head. It ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... was certainly unique. It was wonderful the amount of decoration she could carry without being the worse for it. Her head alone, over and above its bronze hair, coil on coil and curl on curl, sustained several large tortoise-shell pins, a gold lace fillet, and a rose over each ear. It was no more to her than a bit of black ribbon to a young girl. Old rose and young rose mingled delicately in the silks and gauzes of her gown; here and there a topaz flashed rose from her bodice and ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... intimate visitor of the family. He talked little, but he sat long. He filled the father's pipe when it was empty, gathered up the mother's knitting needle, or ball of worsted, when it fell to the ground, stroked the sleek coat of the tortoise-shell cat, and replenished the teapot for the daughter from the bright copper kettle that sang before the fire. All these quiet little offices may seem of trifling import, but when true love is translated into Low Dutch it is in this way that it eloquently expresses itself. They were ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... deserved the treatment it received at the hands of the Mexicans to whom we are indebted for it. At the royal banquets frothing chocolate was served in golden goblets with finely wrought golden or tortoise-shell spoons. The froth in this case was of the consistency of honey, so that when eaten cold it would gradually dissolve in the mouth. Here is a luscious suggestion for twentieth century housewives, handed to them from ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... not too much bewildered to dress with care, and neither too old nor too wicked nor too ugly to find pleasure in it. She might have been a born lady just restored to the habits of her youth, to judge by her delight over the ivory brushes and tortoise-shell comb, and great mirror. In an hour or so she made her appearance—I can hardly say reappeared, she was so altered. She entered the room neither blushing nor smiling, but wiping the tears from her eyes ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... impart solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival travelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of making acquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose of buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to her store of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood, in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a collection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked over exhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversation bore mainly upon the manner in which ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... the old masters. Amongst them is a drawing in sepia for Tintoretto's masterpiece, the Miracle of St. Mark at Venice. In a room kept locked, but which the custode will open on application, are some interesting cabinets (one designed, it is said, by B.Cellini, another of amber, athird of tortoise-shell); also bronzes, carving in wood and ivory, majolica, enamels, etc. Amongst other curiosities is a "Presepio," with numerous figures in coral, the metal ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... I was still a boy, under twenty. My pockets bulged with the bank notes into which I had converted Mrs. Rushworth's cheque, and I found myself master of infinite delight. I presented Blanquette with a tortoise-shell comb and Narcisse with a collar, and I electrified my intimate and less fortunate friends by giving them a dinner in the dismal entresol at Didier's which was superbly styled the "Salle des Banquets." Fanchette and one or two of her colleagues ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the amandine is filled into the jars, the top or face of it is marked or ornamented with a tool made to the size of half the diameter of the interior of the jar, in a similar way to a saw; a piece of lead or tortoise-shell, being serrated with an angular file, or piece of an "old saw," will do very well; place the marker on the amandine, and turn the ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... best tortoise-shell shop in all Naples to buy one dozen shell hair-pins, but such was the misery we experienced at leaving any of the treasures we encountered that we bought three hundred dollars' worth before we left, and of course did not have enough money to pay for them. So we ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... hands and drew the burning brazier close to his feet; then, suddenly, from a sleeve of his robe he took a little box of the sacred tortoise-shell, pressed his lips to it, opened it, poured its contents upon the flame, leaned over with his face close to the brazier and inhaled the little puff of smoke that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... She took out a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head an absent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself and fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce covetousness, but one couldn't be envious of Egeria. She charmed one ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... student never ceases to be impressed by the extraordinary variety of the work of the 16th and 17th centuries, and very often of the 18th also. The basis of the cabinet has always been wood, carved, polished or inlaid; but lavish use has been made of ivory, tortoise-shell, and those cut and polished precious stones which the Italians call pietra dura. In the great Flemish period of the 17th century the doors and drawers of cabinets were often painted with classical or mythological scenes. Many French ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... passed under arches, thrown from hedge to hedge, festooned with only those rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, more precious than gold, is distilled, and illuminated in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the triple-colored tortoise-shell of Pegu.[346] Sometimes, from a dark wood by the side of the road, a display of fireworks would break out, so sudden and so brilliant, that a Brahmin might fancy he beheld that grove, in whose purple shade the God of Battles was born, bursting into a flame at the moment of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Walking, or rather rolling, across the moor singing the burden of the last catch he had trolled with his fellows at the ale-house, all on a sudden he stumbled into a circle of sorcerer-cats squatting around a cross of stone. They were of immense size and of all colours, black, grey, white, tortoise-shell, and when he beheld them seated round the crucifix, their eyes darting fire and the hair bristling on their backs, his song died upon his lips and all his bellicose feelings, like those of Bob Acres, leaked out at his finger-tips. On catching sight of him the animals ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... of Henry IV. The mountaineers, descending from their heights, banner in hand, with their Basque costumes, came to meet her. The next day she visited the castle where was born the Bearnais, whose cradle, formed of a great tortoise-shell, she saw: it was shaded by draperies and white plumes. The following day she visited the environs. To descend into the valley of Ossun, she donned the felt hat and the red sash worn by the peasants of Bearn. ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... carrying for her. There was plenty of room on the quarter-deck. I could not imagine why she gazed about her with such obtrusive caution. She inspected the occupants of the various chairs around with deliberate scrutiny through a long-handled tortoise-shell optical abomination. None of them seemed to satisfy her. After a minute's effort, during which she also muttered a few words very low to her husband, she selected an empty spot midway between our group and the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... embroidery was designed for a fire-screen. It represented a parroquet intensely crimson, on a background uniformly emerald; and the eyes of the melancholy lover dwelt wistfully upon the snowy hands selecting the different colors from a tortoise-shell work-box filled with ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... boards at which Mr. Parr had glanced at Langmaid, who had never failed to respond. He was that sine qua non of modern affairs, a corporation lawyer,—although he resembled a big and genial professor of Scandinavian extraction. He wore round, tortoise-shell spectacles, he had a high, dome-like forehead, and an ample light brown beard which he stroked from time to time. It is probable that he did not believe in the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... anecdote. Who has not some faithful black Topsy, Tortoise-shell, or Tabby, or rather succession of them, whose biographies would afford many a curious story? Professor Bell[122] has well defended the general character of poor pussy from the oft-repeated calumnies spread ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... friction of a tortoise-shell comb will electrify the hair and make it cling to the teeth. Sometimes persons emit sparks in pulling off their flannels or silk stockings. The fur of a cat, or even of a garment, stroked in the dark with a warm dry hand will be seen to glow, and perhaps heard to crackle. During winter ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... the artist's fancy or the dyer's art can furnish, and often wrought in rich and elegant patterns. They are passionately fond of flowers, the dark and abundant tresses of their hair being always decorated with them, either real or artificial. Their only other adornments are a tortoise-shell comb of delicate workmanship, and a long steel pin with a ball of red coral in the end, passing through their rich raven hair. They use powder about their necks and shoulders pretty freely, and ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... back and consulted St. George through her tortoise-shell glasses, tilting her head high to keep them on her nose and perpetually putting their gold chain over her ear, which perpetually ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... tortoise-shell, yellow and black, With a lot of white about him: If you tease him, at once he sets up his back: He's a quarrelsome Tom, ne'er doubt him! I think we shall call him this— I think we shall call him that; Now, don't you fancy "Scratchaway" A nice ...
— The Nursery, April 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... in the visitor's refectory—soup, good bread and country wine, ham, a roast chicken with potatoes, a nice white cheese made of sheep's milk, and grapes for dessert. The kind Abbate sat by, and watched his four guests eat, tapping his tortoise-shell snuff-box, and telling us many interesting things about the past and present state of the convent. Our company was completed with Lupo, the pet cat, and Pirro, a woolly Corsican dog, very good friends, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Major Campbell, turning to look at Aunt Mary, who was beginning to show signs of embarrassment under so much scrutiny. He took off his eye-glasses, but immediately replaced them by a pair of large round tortoise-shell spectacles through which he ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... lady in the kitchen had been put in command of colours, as well as of dough, and if the paste would have taken the colours, we may be sure her mice would have been painted brown, and her cats tortoise-shell; and this, partly indeed for the added delight and prettiness of colour itself, but more for the sake of absolute realization to her eyes and mind. Now all the early sculpture of the most accomplished nations has been thus ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Sanders[45] were made with 600 pupae of Vanessa urticae, the "tortoise-shell butterfly." The pupae were artificially attached to nettles, tree-trunks, fences, walls, and to the ground, some at Oxford, some at St. Helens in the Isle of Wight. In the course of a month 93% of the pupae at Oxford were killed, chiefly ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... they all seemed to make a point of absolutely ignoring Pritchard's presence. Elizabeth was the one exception. She was carrying a tiny Chinese spaniel under one arm; with the fingers of her other hand she held a tortoise-shell mounted monocle to her eye, and stared directly at the two men. Presently she came languidly ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and taking off her spectacles harangued the tortoise-shell cat, who was sitting on the rug and looking ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... tower dimly lighted, hung with cobwebs, and filled with old red velvet furniture. I sat down on a sofa, and before long became conscious that I was being gazed upon by a haughty young woman, with an aristocratic nose, large dark eyes, hair caught back by tortoise-shell combs under a peculiar head-dress, having a gleam of gold directly on the top. Her gown was of dark green, with white puffs let into the sleeves below the elbows; around her tapering waist was a narrow belt of jewels; the ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... had to provide myself with certain necessaries for the way. These were not numerous. The silver-mounted dressing-case is here supplied by a rag containing a miswak, a bit of soap, and a comb—wooden, for bone and tortoise-shell are not, religiously speaking, correct. Equally simple was my wardrobe: a change or two of clothing. The only article of canteen description was a zemzemiyah, a goatskin water-bag, which communicates to its contents, especially when new, a ferruginous aspect and a wholesome ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... was clearly an old one, and, as clearly of considerable value, being inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl in delicate arabesques that must have cost its unknown maker many months, if not whole years, of patient labour. Its varnish, smooth and transparent as finest glass, belonged to the same date, and had been laid on, if not by the same hand, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... wide ocean, He soon took a notion 'T would be nicer to stay with his friends. So he traded his hat For a tortoise-shell cat— And ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... come back to the grape arbor, and Thea picked out a sunny place on the bench, where a tortoise-shell cat was stretched at full length. She sat down, bending over the cat and teasing his whiskers. "Because he had been awake all night, thinking about her, wasn't it? Maybe that was why he was ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... floor is shown a great tortoise-shell, which was the cradle of Henry IV. Carved chests, dressing-tables, tapestries, clocks of that day, the bed and arm-chair of Jeanne d'Albret, a complete set of furniture in the taste of the Renaissance, striking and somber, painfully labored yet magnificent ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... snow-white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means of warmth, except as her husband held her hands and her mother her feet. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an odor of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved or quitted the room, leaning on her tortoise-shell stick, little Fury barking at ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Duchess; 'you don't mean to say he is here?' and she began looking about for a small tortoise-shell fan and a very tattered lace shawl, so as to be ready to ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... and began to shake out the masses of her black hair, that was as the thickness of night spun fine. And as she drew out the thick tortoise-shell pins that bore it up, it rolled down heavily in a soft dark flood and covered her as with a garment. Then she leaned back and sighed again, and her eyes fell on a book that lay at the corner of her dressing-table, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... had drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and was priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is grey, or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other colour of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tall, learned-looking man, about fifty, slightly stooped, with a bulging midriff, tortoise-shell glasses, graying hair, and a strange look in his eyes. I'd noticed him standing outside Shannon's Bar for about ten minutes, pacing back and forth. Then he came in and sat down next to me. It was late afternoon, before the rush hour, and we were the ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... forcibly remarked that certain malconformations frequently, and that others rarely, coexist without our being able to assign any reason. What can be more singular than the relation in cats between complete whiteness and blue eyes with deafness, or between the tortoise-shell colour and the female sex; or in pigeons, between their feathered feet and skin betwixt the outer toes, or between the presence of more or less down on the young pigeon when first hatched, with the future colour of its plumage; or, again, the relation between the hair and the teeth in the naked Turkish ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... with the caterpillars of the small tortoise-shell butterfly showed that in black surroundings the pupae tend to be darker, in white surroundings lighter, in gilded boxes golden; and the same is true in other cases. It appears that the surrounding colour affects the caterpillars through the skin during a sensitive period—the twenty hours ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... the unwonted addition of pound cake and sweet pickles, the dress-maker's sharp swarthy person stood out vividly between the neutral-tinted sisters. Miss Mellins was a small woman with a glossy yellow face and a frizz of black hair bristling with imitation tortoise-shell pins. Her sleeves had a fashionable cut, and half a dozen metal bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voice rattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdote and ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobatic velocity ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... at the tops of their voices whenever he stooped to whisper certain details in their ears. Old Bosc had never budged an inch—he was totally indifferent. That sort of thing no longer interested him now. He was stroking a great tortoise-shell cat which was lying curled up on the bench. He did so quite beautifully and ended by taking her in his arms with the tender good nature becoming a worn-out monarch. The cat arched its back and then, after a prolonged sniff at the big white beard, the gluey odor of which doubtless ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... strip of summer-light and warmth that shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... compelling himself to regain his consciousness of outward things. There was very little furniture in the room. The shabby chest of drawers was spread with a lace cover, and set out with a few gold-topped boxes and bottles, a rose-coloured pin-cushion, a glass tray strewn with tortoise-shell hair-pins—he shrank from the poignant intimacy of these trifles, and from the blank surface ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... a savour, and gilded surrounding objects seemed inevitably to need to be when Miss Barrace—which was the lady's name—looked at them with convex Parisian eyes and through a glass with a remarkably long tortoise-shell handle. Why Miss Barrace, mature meagre erect and eminently gay, highly adorned, perfectly familiar, freely contradictions and reminding him of some last-century portrait of a clever head without powder—why Miss Barrace should have been in particular the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... adjoining room: the door of which was open. It was a large room, with a great window. Behind a desk, sat two old gentleman with powdered heads: one of whom was reading the newspaper; while the other was perusing, with the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... fan. Then, when I had put the finishing touch, in the shape of dear Ida's present—a vinaigrette of oxidized silver formed like a half-furled fan—I was quite satisfied with my toilette; before the day was over, however, my ceinture was adorned with a tortoise-shell chatelaine, whistle, and tablets, as well as a dainty riding-whip—papa's present—and I deeply mourned the impossibility of wearing two beautiful pictures, a new novel, and a large box of ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... instructions to open the tortoise-shell box, and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On his doing so, his wife said ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... institution and can go on dropping in as usual all summer if he likes. Ann-stasia adores him, for did he not bring her a beautiful sandalwood rosary of carved beads from somewhere and a pair of real tortoise-shell combs not two months ago? And of course Maria Maxwell will not object; why should she? he will come and go as usual, and she will hardly know that he ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... sagacity of a cat came under my own notice. I was living, a few years ago, in a country place in Dorsetshire, when one day a small tortoise-shell cat met my children on the road, and followed them home. They, of course, petted and stroked her, and showed their wish to make her their friend. She was one of the smallest, and yet the most active ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... wore her coral-rose breast-pin, and a tortoise-shell comb thrust through her knob of ginger-colored hair added to her dignity and height; while Miss Vi and Miss Rosie Snow were buttoned into their stylish princess gowns, with large red bows sprouting back of each ear. In truth, the dress of each member of the family bore some little touch ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... little thing, laid down the pen he had snatched up as I entered the room, and began gazing at me quizzically through enormous tortoise-shell-rimmed goggles, after the fashion of a precocious infant who tries to look like daddy. What might he ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the Old Bahama Channel, and also opposite the Isle of Pines, which Columbus named Evangelista,—on this south shore, large numbers of turtles are taken annually, which produce the best quality of tortoise-shell. It is strange that the habits of these creatures down here in the Caribbean Sea should so closely resemble those of the tiny tortoises described by Thoreau as frequenting Walden Pond. The female turtle digs the hole in which to deposit her eggs on the sandy beach, just above the ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... half sitting on the edge of one of the bunks, nursing the big stray tortoise-shell tom-cat which had shared his lodgings in the forepeak, and he had mistaken it for a rat as it crept up and down the chain-pipe to see what it could pick up in the cook's galley at meal-times, which it seemed to know by some peculiar instinct ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... make friends with the second mate, I took out an old tortoise-shell snuff-box of my father's, in which I had put a piece of Cavendish tobacco, to look sailor-like, and offered the box to him very politely. He stared at me a moment, and then exclaimed, "Do you think we take snuff aboard here, youngster? no, no, no time ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the inside, which likewise had belonged to her said former husband, as also wore silver knee-buckles, and had two dozen silver buttons upon a double-breasted vest, made of stript lutstring: That he frequently had about him a folding penknife, that had a brown tortoise-shell handle, and a plate upon the end of it, on which was cut a naked boy, or some such device, with which he often sealed his letters: That one day when he was dressing some hooks while the deponent was ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... lived happily together, in a fine house, a tortoise-shell Cat and a pretty white Dog: the Cat's name was Tittums; the Dog's, Fido. In course of time the pretty Dog fell in love with the Cat, and only waited for a good chance to disclose his affections. This came one day, when Tittums had ...
— The Faithless Parrot • Charles H. Bennett
... use at a moment's notice; the bed itself was beautifully dressed; the dressing-table was decked with all manner of scent-bottles, mirrors, and trays, together with every conceivable toilet implement in tortoise-shell with a silver-inlay monogram—apparently A-M-S; the rugs were silken, princely, priceless; elusive wraiths of seductive perfumes haunted the air like memories of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... women. Tricked out in his stolen finery, he drank and swaggered in Clare Market. He was dressed in a superb suit of black; a diamond fawney flashed upon his finger; his light tie-periwig was worth no less than seven pounds; pistols, tortoise-shell snuff-boxes, and golden guineas jostled one another in ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... elfin girl Of mother-of-pearl And moonshine made, With tortoise-shell hair Both dusky and fair In its light ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... Priscilla again,' he observed, as Audrey seated herself on the little horsehair sofa beside the open window, and Buff, a great tortoise-shell cat, jumped uninvited on her lap ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... loins, and to it was attached a piece of stuff in front, which was thrown over the shoulders and hung loose at the back. The women were dressed the same as the men, except that their loin vestment reached to their knees. The King's daughter wore, moreover, tortoise-shell ornaments. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... seemed very small to Miss Mary, whose last purchase in that line had been a tortoise-shell lorgnette for ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... tortoise-shell (which is in many cases turtle-shell) it is necessary to scrape the shell very carefully with a broad knife, taking care not to cut through to the under shell or "bone." When properly smoothed rub it over with pumice-stone and water, then with bath-brick and water, finally polishing off, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... wing-chair, one leg over the chair-arm; a young young man, with broken brown teeth, always seen in his perpetual grin, but a godlike Grecian nose, a high forehead, and bristly yellow hair. The being wore large round tortoise-shell spectacles, a soft shirt with a gold-plated collar-pin, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Yard detectives were bewildered by some of these people whose passports were thoroughly sound, but whose costumes aroused deep suspicion. What could they do, for instance, with a young Hindu, dressed as a boy-scout, wearing tortoise-shell spectacles, and a field kit of dangling bags, water-bottles, maps, cooking utensils, and other material suitable for life on a desert isle? Or what could they say to a lady in breeches and top-boots, with a revolver stuck through her belt, and a sou'wester on her head, who was going ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... fashion, called me thou in her very first compliment of welcome. Her daughter, then only ten or twelve years old, was very handsome, and a few years later became Duchess de Matalona. The duchess presented me with a snuff-box in pale tortoise-shell with arabesque incrustations in gold, and she invited us to dine with her on the morrow, promising to take us after dinner to the Convent of St. Claire to pay a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay); while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a mushroom peer. Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of spectacles that are jockeying ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of butter," "two dozen pearls at so much a dozen" (or would they be entered by ounces?) and "fifty pounds of sandalwood," or should I reckon that by cords? I could find out later. I would wear my large tortoise-shell spectacles (possibly blinders in addition), and I should attend strictly to business for a while, but when a full moon rose over a South Sea lagoon, and the palm trees rustled and the phosphorescence broke in silver on the bow of the pearl schooner, where she rode ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... Besancon, Dijon, Rouen, Bourdeaux, are not what they should be! At Pau in Bearn, where the old Commandant had failed, the new one (a Grammont, native to them) is met by a Procession of townsmen with the Cradle of Henri Quatre, the Palladium of their Town; is conjured as he venerates this old Tortoise-shell, in which the great Henri was rocked, not to trample on Bearnese liberty; is informed, withal, that his Majesty's cannon are all safe—in the keeping of his Majesty's faithful Burghers of Pau, and do now ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... ribbons running round the neck of that undershirt. He unrolled the socks and found them much longer in the leg than the kind habitually worn by men. Mr. Dawson agitatedly dived his hand once more into the saddle-pocket. And this time he pulled out a tortoise-shell shuttle round which was wrapped several inches of lingerie edging. But Mr. Dawson did not call it lingerie edging. He called it tatting and ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... 119. Moulding tortoise-shell. The same principle is applied to things formed out of the shell of the turtle, or the land tortoise. From the greatly superior price of the raw material, this principle of copying is, however, more rarely employed upon it; and the few carvings which ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... you that you look an utter fool with that extra-intelligent edition of tortoise-shell glasses that you wear?" Trudy retorted. Gay was her husband and her property as long as she saw fit to stay his wife, and she did not approve of his constant attendance on the Gorgeous Girl. Even her deliberate retaliation by flirting with the gouty-toe brigade ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... others have a smooth appearance, are of amber color, and almost transparent. The former are pressed between cold irons and placed in cold water, while the others are hot-pressed, it being 'cooked' in a few minutes. These plates of horn may be colored; and there are a great many 'tortoise-shell' combs and other goods sold which are only horn with a bit of ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... bust with an elaborate head of hair in his window and leave it at that—he did, indeed, place there a smiling lady with a wonderful jewelled comb and a radiant row of teeth, but around this he built up a magnificent world of silver brushes, tortoise-shell combs, essences and perfumes and powders, jars and bottles and boxes. Manning was the finest artist in the town. Ponting, at the top of the street just at the corner of the Close, was an artist too, but in quite another fashion. ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... her handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake a minute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho! Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to her eyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote on ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... breath, and Katherine smiled at his discomfiture and her own untutored grace, and she made bold and took a step or two on her own dependence. Then there chimed eight from the old French clock of black boule that sat upon a cabinet of tortoise-shell, and it stirred the swains to think of donning 'broidered waist-coats and high-heeled shoon preparatory to the prandial hour, when fresh game and old wine would strengthen stomach and head; and they bowed low over tapering ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... different from that of the Philippines, and resembles that of the Marianas Islands. Their manner of pronouncing words is something like that of the Arabs. The woman who appears to be of highest station has many rings and necklaces of tortoise-shell, that are called here carey; and others of a material that is unknown to us. This material, which somewhat resembles ambergris, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... arrangements of the room. The dining-room was behind the bedroom of Cesar and his wife, and was entered from the staircase; it was treated in the style called Louis XIV., with a clock in buhl, buffets of the same, inlaid with brass and tortoise-shell; the walls were hung with purple stuff, fastened down by gilt nails. The happiness of these three persons is not to be described, more especially when, re-entering her room, Madame Birotteau found upon her bed (where Virginie had just ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Roman society. The princely banquet-rooms of the Romans had revolving ceilings representing the firmament; fictitious clouds rained perfumed essences upon the guests, who were seated on gold benches, at tables made of ivory and tortoise-shell. Each course of food, as it was brought into the banquet room, was preceded by flutes and trumpets. There was no wise man or woman to stand up from the elaborate banquet tables of American society at this time and cry "Halt!" It might have been done in Washington, or in ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... shells that can be strung into such pretty necklaces. Then we found a great, bright, curly ribbon of seaweed, as wide as two hands, so long that when the little girl held it by the middle she could scarcely lift the ends off the sand, and rich and beautiful in color like dark-red tortoise-shell. The little girl looped one end of it around her head and wound the rest about her body, so that she looked a true ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... paper on the wide porch—a young man then, with a big frame and a habit of looking out very solemn from under his eyebrows and over big tortoise-shell glasses. But he had boyish, joking ways of speech, as you know. He came down the walk between the plats of grass that looked like two peaceful, green rugs spread in the midst of all the noise and bustle of the town, and his long hands pulled up the latch and he smiled at the woman as ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the manufacture of which the Samoans show some ingenuity. They cut a strip off the shell, from two to three inches long, and rub it smooth on a stone, so as to resemble a small fish. On the under side, or what may be called the belly, of this little mock fish, they fasten a hook made of tortoise-shell, or, it may be, nowadays, an English steel one. Alongside of the hook, concealing its point, and in imitation of the fins of a little fish, they fasten two small white feathers. Without any bait, this pearl-shell contrivance is cast adrift at the stern of a canoe, with a line of twenty ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... went the pen over the lines with inconceivable rapidity, the writer occasionally glancing over his left arm at the document he was copying. The tortoise-shell cat sat at her master's feet with an air of self-importance and a look which seemed to say, "woe be to him who ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... feathers, for 50 dressing the hair 1 box artificial flowers l5 1 lot new ribbon, for sashes; 35 velvet, silk, and satin 1 small miniature model piano, 50 played by mechanism, from Vienna 1 lady's writing-desk, inlaid 200 with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl, lined with silk velvet, with compartments and secretary; carved mother-of-pearl paper-knife, gold seal, gold pencil, case full of fancy writing paper; made in Paris 1 bula work-box, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... countries near home, and sends out many junks to the East Indies, the Malay Islands, and the South Sea Islands, to collect edible birds' nests, trepang, ornamental woods, pearls, pearl-shells, tortoise-shell, and the skins of birds of paradise. At Singapore, there are hundreds of Chinese shopkeepers, who sell all kinds of miscellaneous articles, such as penknives, cotton thread, writing-paper, gunpowder, and corkscrews, often at a price which would be ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... noon-tide was past and the land lay in the very centre of the gaze of the sun, Baroudi offered to Mrs. Armine an Egyptian dinner, or El-Ghada, served on a round tray of shining gold, which was set upon a low stool cased with tortoise-shell and ornamented with many small squares of mother-of-pearl. When she and Baroudi came into the room where they were to eat, the tray was already in its place, set out with white silk napkins, with rounds of yellow bread, and with limes cut into slices. The walls were hung ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... last farewell tour of the shops in San Juan, and buy a few gifts for the friends at home: a green parrot to please sister; a tortoise-shell comb for mother; a cane for father, a native hat for brother, and a calabash drinking bowl for ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... same length made of twisted banana fibre as fine as silk, and equally as strong. My hook was an ordinary flatted Kirby, about half the size of an English whiting hook; Nalik preferred one of his own manufacture, made from a strip of tortoise-shell, barbless and ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... up between them merely a Fellowship of the Super-Mind, or what a Wimp wearing Tortoise-Shell Spectacles would ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... makes the simplest dress seem all that can be desired. There was a knowing look to each little detail, from the slender silver bangles which appeared beneath the loose wrinkled wrists of their very long gloves to the tortoise-shell pins with which their hats were fastened to the tightly braided hair coiled low down on the nape of the neck. Candace's hair fell in curls to her waist. She had always worn it so, and no one had ever thought anything about it; but now, all ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... most ladies, carried a box—nay, two boxes—tabatiere and bonbonniere. What lady carries snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you a prise? I can remember a lady with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world!— ah! that was a time, that was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... atmosphere, the subtle fragrance and flavour of other days. We read that James Anderson of Broadway has just arrived from London "in the brig Betsy" with a load of "the best finished boot legs." Another gentleman urges people to inspect his "crooked tortoise-shell combs for ladies and gentlemen's hair, his vegetable face powder—his nervous essence for the toothache, his bergamot, lemon, lavendar ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... 'Tis but a polished tortoise-shell, of which the living inhabitant has long since crumbled to dust; but it still gleams in the sun with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various |
