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Chambermaid

noun
1.
A maid who is employed to clean and care for bedrooms (now primarily in hotels).  Synonym: fille de chambre.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Chambermaid" Quotes from Famous Books



... unsettled the stability of trade and orderly business and proved a demoralizing influence. Speculation became a habit. It was gambling adjusted to all conditions, with equal opportunity for millionaire or chambermaid, and few resisted altogether. Few felt shame, ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... habit, when coming to Leghorn, of letting him know that he was bringing a party of friends, and commanding of him a banquet such as he alone knew how to furnish a millionaire of that princely quality. After that we were not so much surprised as grieved to find that our elderly chambermaid had profited by our absence to gather all the coals out of our one stove into two scaldini, which were bristling before her where she knelt when we opened the door upon her. She apologized, but still she carried away the coals, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... very curious pair; one of them blowing a French-horn, and the other endeavouring, but without effect, to smoke away a little sickness, which he feels from the fumes of his last night's punch. Beneath them is a traveller taking a tender farewell of the chambermaid, who is not to be moved by the clangour of the great bar bell, or the more thundering sound of ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... hastily and made for the recreation room. For the first time the piano was in use. A chambermaid, surrounded by four admiring fellow-workers, was playing "Oh, they're killin' men and women for a wearin' of the green." That is, I made out she meant it for that tune. With the right hand she picked out what every now and then approached that melody. With the left she did a tum-te-dum ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... broad, threw themselves back with the piercing laughter of a person who is being tickled, letting their embroidered skirts drag under the table, which was piled with broken victuals, and covered with grease. M. Louis had prudently withdrawn. The glasses were filled before they were emptied; a chambermaid dipped a handkerchief in hers, which was full of water, and bathed her forehead with it because her head was going round, she said. It was time that it should end; in fact, an electric bell, ringing loudly in the hall, warned ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... mild game of cards. They had all breakfasted together by lamplight at the hotel, and Selincourt had seen his sister into the Chilmark train. Nothing could have been more circumspect— comically circumspect! between Selincourt and Isabel and the chambermaid, malice itself was put to silence. But Lawrence was fever-fretted by ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... was the chambermaid, a woman of about twenty-five, with a cocked nose, a large laughing mouth, and a sparkling black eye, and a bare arm very ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... ready for them, and the fire burning clear, and the chimney no smoking?" said the hostess to a chambermaid. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... the dismal character of a sick chamber. Its light was darkened; its talk was in whispers; and its to-ings and fro-ings on tip-toe. An obsolete chambermaid had been already installed as nurse. Little Mrs. Esterbroke, the housekeeper, was fussing hither and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... exclaimed one little fellow, half-laughing with pleasure. The next thing was to provide something that sick people could eat, for coffee and bread was poor food for most of them. We had two little stoves, one in the cabin and one in the chambermaid's room, and here, the whole time we were on board, we had to do the cooking for a hundred men. Twenty times that day I fully made up my mind to cry with vexation, and twenty times that day I laughed instead; and surely, a kettle of tea was never made under so many difficulties ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... we met Mr. Moriway there. She'd telephoned him. The chambermaid was called, the housekeeper, the electrical engineer who'd been fixing bells that morning, and, as I said, a bell-boy named Nat, who told how he'd just come on duty when Mrs. Kingdon's bell rang, found her key and returned ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... where Stephen had hired the Napier car. Felix said he would lunch hurriedly in order to transact certain business at the garage before taking them on to Bursley. After lunch, however, Vera caught him transacting business with a chambermaid in a corridor. Shocking though the revelation is, it needs to be said that Felix was kissing the chambermaid. The blow to Mrs Cheswardine was severe. She had imagined that Felix spent all his time in gazing up to her ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... oddities I afterwards learnt had been picked up at various times by the occupant in his ramblings about Chelsea and elsewhere, and never yet taken away by him, but left there apparently to scare the chambermaid: such as old carved heads and gargoyles of the most grinning and ghastly expression, Burmese and Chinese Buddhas in soapstone of every degree of placid ugliness, together, I am bound by force of truth ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... she has a habit of hiding my shirts so that I am unable to find them when we go away, and the chambermaid comes rushing after us ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... too true that the actual world is 'with pathos delicately edged.' For Malvolio living we should have had living sympathies: so much aspiration, so ill-educated a love of refinement; so unarmed a credulity, noblest of weaknesses, betrayed for the laughter of a chambermaid. By an actual Bottom the Weaver our pity might be reached for the sake of his single self-reliance, his fancy and resource condemned to burlesque and ignominy by the niggard doom of circumstance. But is not life one thing and is not art another? Is it not the privilege of literature to ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... them—they got no further. They had come back across the brown uplands of Castile to Madrid and Goya and Velasquez, till it was time for Paris, before the law-term began. There, in a queer little French hotel—all bedrooms, and a lift, coffee and carved beds, wood fires, and a chambermaid who seemed all France, and down below a restaurant, to which such as knew about eating came, with waiters who looked like monks, both fat and lean—they had spent a week. Three special memories of that week started ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... was "Abbas, King of Persia," but he could not get it acted. The reference to Fenelon is to Godwin's Political Justice (first edition, Vol. I., page 84) where he argues on the comparative worth of the persons of Fenelon, a chambermaid, and Godwin's mother, supposing them to have been present at the famous fire at Cambrai and only one of them to be saved. (As a matter of fact Fenelon was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... either," muttered the chambermaid; but the traveller, turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that she smiled, coloured, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... an elderly man called, and she went out with him, being absent about a couple of hours. On her return she went straight to her room and nothing was seen of her further until the next day at noon the chambermaid failed to arouse her by knocking. The police were informed, the door was forced, and Mademoiselle Thomas was found dead. She was lying ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... home in Orange street about three o'clock, noiselessly opened the door and strode up to his apartments, thinking he would get to bed without disturbing his young wife; but she was not there. The bed remained as it was when the chambermaid left it that morning, after giving it its finishing touches. Ben Hartright looked about the room in wild amazement. He drew out his watch, scanned its face eagerly. "By ginger!" he exclaimed, "it's past three o'clock. Wonder where is Emily? This is indeed something ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... caterpillar by placing another leaf in its way. I had observed before that the girls had a way of shrugging their shoulders whenever they were trying to put a loose garment straight on their bare necks, as well as that Mimi always grew angry on witnessing this manoeuvre and declared it to be a chambermaid's trick. As Katenka bent over the caterpillar she made that very movement, while at the same instant the breeze lifted the fichu on her white neck. Her shoulder was close to my lips, I looked at it and kissed it, She did not ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... still, was the similitude of their knowledge; for Corporal Trim by four years occasional attention to his master's discourse upon fortified towns had become no mean proficient in the science, and was thought by the cook and chambermaid to know as much of the nature of strongholds ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... like the common amateur; and in short there is no end to the number of the things that he does, and does badly. His one manly taste is for the chase. In sum, he is but a plexus of weaknesses; the singing chambermaid of the stage, tricked out in man's apparel, and mounted on a circus horse. I have seen this poor phantom of a prince riding out alone or with a few huntsmen, disregarded by all, and I have been even grieved for the bearer of ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... poor Karl done that he should be bidden so fiercely to hold his tongue? Then she thought that Bower must have recalled Stampa's history, and feared that perhaps the outspoken peasant might enter into a piquant account of some village scandal. A chambermaid in the hotel, questioned about Stampa, had told her that the daughter he loved so greatly had committed suicide. Really, she ought to be grateful to her companion for saving her from a passing embarrassment. But she had the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... McGoldrick, but John always stuck it out that she was never the right sort in the beginning, and that Mr. O'Hara got tangled up with her somewhere in a mining town out West, and couldn't get out. I've heard she was a chambermaid or a barmaid or something in a miners' hotel, but I don't know, and nobody else knows, for Mr. O'Hara never opened his mouth about her. All we know positive is that she must have been a drug fiend long before he ever married her, and that he stuck ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... not have a chambermaid That ties her shoes, or any meaner office, But such, whose fathers were right worshipful. 'Tis a rich man's pride! there having ever been More than a feud, a strange antipathy, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... the officials in the ferry boat. If you want company, you go into a shop. A sport there will tell you about life in the barracks and explain the meaning of every star in the sky, so that you see them all as if you held them in your hand. Then an old officer's wife will gossip, or a pretty chambermaid will dart a look at you—ta, ta, ta! [Smirks and wags his head.] And what deucedly civil manners they have, too. You never hear no impolite language. They always say "Mister" to you. If you are tired of walking, why you take a cab and sit in it like a lord. And ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol

... the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's passage. Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I inhabit the annexe, sleeping ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... than I saw I should ever hear at that hotel. The lady that kept the books seemed to want so much to talk to me in English (for the sake of practice, too, I suppose), that I couldn't bear to let her know I didn't like it. The chambermaid was Irish, and all the waiters were German, so that I never heard a word of French spoken. I suppose you might hear a great deal in the shops; only, as I don't buy anything—I prefer to spend my money for purposes of culture—I don't ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James

... The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned: it was a ponderous folio volume bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of magic, and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and demanding money for some necessary expense, that the loss might be known before the finder could have leisure to make any fresh conveyance of the prize; and, in the meantime, Ferdinand kept a strict eye upon the motions of the chambermaid. The young lady, having rummaged her pockets in vain, expressed some surprise at the loss of her purse; upon which her attendant gave indications of extreme amazement and concern. She said, it could not possibly be lost; entreated ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... clerk. "A chambermaid called my attention to the clicking sound when she was making up the room. I investigated, and when I heard it, and saw the queer box, and remembered that we had had dynamiting here, I sent for ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton

... answered the busy chambermaid, in a scolding tone, while she cleaned the runnels of a chair, upon which the feet of the young man had left a good portion of the soil of the garden; "I should like to see the day when you are as well behaved as Mademoiselle ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen

... St. Ursula's punishments was to make the culprit miss desserts. Irene suffered keenly under this form of chastisement; and she carefully refrained from misdemeanors which might bring it upon her. But Conny produced a convincing argument. She threatened to tell that the chambermaid was in the habit of smuggling in chocolates—and poor harassed Irene, threatened with the two-fold loss of chocolates and dessert, ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... with you! Professor Hodgson, the Chinese language professor, is an expert shot with a revolver, and I've wheedled him into giving me lessons. That's for self-protection. Then the Japanese woman who is general chambermaid in my ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... note to Horace Jewdwine. "For God's sake, wire me what you mean to do," an effort which sent his temperature up considerably. He passed these days of convalescence in an anxious watching for the post. To the chambermaid, to the head waiter, to the landlord and landlady of the Marine Hotel, to the friendly commercial gentleman, who put his head twice a day round the door to inquire "'ow he was gettin' on," Mr. Rickman had during his seven days' illness put ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... roused the house. Mr. X pranced in, in his long night-garment, with a candle, young Z after him with another candle; a procession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns—landlord and two German guests in their nightgowns and a chambermaid ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... must have a square one: it would kill you to wear a long cashmere in hot weather; and then you could not refuse a third to go to the bath or to mass in—well, that makes three, don't you see? I would not be married with fewer. No, thank you, I wouldn't go about looking like a chambermaid. No, indeed I wouldn't." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... were otherwise, I cannot account for our being alive. Five hundred bodies, in a state of coacervation, without even a preference for cleanliness, "think of that Master Brook." All the forenoon the court is a receptacle for cabbage leaves, fish scales, leeks, &c. &c.—and as a French chambermaid usually prefers the direct road to circumambulation, the refuse of the kitchen is then washed away by plentiful inundations from the dressing-room—the passages are blockaded by foul plates, fragments, and bones; to which if you add the smell ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... connection with the direct inoculability of tubercular consumption, both in the later works on phthisis and in the medical press, are not without interest or without a lesson. The case recorded within the past year of a healthy chambermaid, who was immediately inoculated with tubercular matter with rapidly-following constitutional effects through a scratch on the hand, received from the sharp edge of a broken china cuspidor that a consumptive was using, is one of these ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... stench of freight, lumber, live stock and sleeping roustabouts. Then they went through the heat and steam of the engine-room up a small companionway that led through the toilet, on to the rear guard of the main deck, and thence back to a little cuddy behind the main saloon called the chambermaid's cabin. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, and the chambermaid taken into consideration,—in a word, the whole house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse much lightened,—we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls of which ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume, bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... savoury minced collops, which rivalled in their way even the veal cutlets of our old friend Mrs. Hall, at Ferrybridge. Meg's table-linen, bed-linen, and so forth, were always home-made, of the best quality, and in the best order; and a weary day was that to the chambermaid in which her lynx eye discovered any neglect of the strict cleanliness which she constantly enforced. Indeed, considering Meg's country and calling, we were never able to account for her extreme and scrupulous nicety, unless by supposing that it afforded her the most apt and frequent pretext ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... room and there was not much furniture in it. And it was a neat room, for the room of an old bachelor who was his own chambermaid. Most things seemed to have places where they belonged and most of them appeared to be in those places. What impressed Albert even more was the number of books. There were books everywhere, in the cheap bookcase, on the pine shelf between the windows, piled in the ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... close day, the next day, as the steamer drew near to New Orleans. A general bustle of expectation and preparation was spread through the boat; in the cabin, one and another were gathering their things together, and arranging them, preparatory to going ashore. The steward and chambermaid, and all, were busily engaged in cleaning, furbishing, and arranging the splendid boat, preparatory to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... I ask how it place itself there?" demanded the still puzzled chambermaid in her halting English, then mother-wit overmastering native superstition, she burst into laughter. "Oh! Oh! Oh! It is no magic but you, Signorina. Who hid my towels? I go to tell Mees Rodgers. Yes! You shall get ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... there, don't he? or no, perhaps I don't see plain this morning.' 'Oh, please sir, it's just there I think he's gaining so, please.' Polite scamp! I soon found he never gave that wretched nag his oats of nights; didn't bed him either. Was above that sort of chambermaid work. No end to his willful neglects. But the more he abused my service, the more ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... is no attempt at ornamentation, and the quarters are almost rigid in their simplicity and lack of home comfort. Not only are the embryo warriors taught the rudiments of drill and warfare, but they are also given stern lessons in camp life. Each young man acts as his own chambermaid, and has to keep his little room absolutely neat and free from litter and dirt ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... the chambermaid, of whom I have already spoken, as dexterous in sweeping the mosquitos from the nets,—her afternoon service. She brings, too, the morning cup of coffee, and always says, "Good morning, Sir; you want ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house (as it befel Euphormio), after some seven years' service he may perchance have a living to {27} the halves, or some small rectory, with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a crackt chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life."—Burton, Anat. of Mel. part i. sect. 2. mem. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various

... emotion under a feigned carelessness, "do not talk of such things, and suffer love pains? VANITAS VANITATUM! According to your idea, then, my brain is turned. And for whom-for some GRISETTE, some chambermaid with whom I have trifled in ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... peasant girls who wore very short full skirts and a great many petticoats. Their dress was a modification of the wonderful Hessen peasant costume. These girls were ready to do anything for the children. Gustel, who was chief waitress and chambermaid at the same time, said that she had never seen such pretty "kindersche" (little children) ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... The chambermaid who had charge of the floor on which their rooms were located, came, as usual, to put them in order, but with a badly swollen face, around which she had bound ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... attempt at playfulness; "and against we meet again, reform me, Janet, that precise ruff of thine for an open rabatine of lace and cut work, that will let men see thou hast a fair neck; and that kirtle of Philippine chency, with that bugle lace which befits only a chambermaid, into three-piled velvet and cloth of gold—thou wilt find plenty of stuffs in my chamber, and I freely bestow them on you. Thou must be brave, Janet; for though thou art now but the attendant of a distressed and errant lady, who is both nameless and fameless, yet, when we meet ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... had remarked, her wits were by no means of the first quality, but her conceit and love of admiration far outstripped them. The little jeweller had seen this, and had guessed that she would best answer his purpose of the younger members of the household. Quiet, sensible Joan, the upper chambermaid, would not have suited him at all; neither would sturdy, straightforward Meg, the cook-maid; but Kate's vanity and indiscretion were both so patent that he fixed on her at once as his chosen accomplice. His only doubt was whether she had sense enough to understand his hint ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... if the chambermaid Had swept the dust away, And if the scrumptious Jabberwock Had mopped ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... the hotel, he was surprised to find it only eleven o'clock. No one had returned, the building was deserted by all but the bar-keeper and a flirting chambermaid, who regarded him with aggrieved astonishment. He began to feel very foolish, and half regretted that he had not stayed to dance with Mrs. Tripp; or, at least, remained as a quiet onlooker apart ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... landing, real water, real smoke coming out of a real chimney on the steamboat. Real captain and real passengers. (It is understood that there is to be no make-believe about the fares.) A real chambermaid in the back cabin would add to the effectiveness of the scene, but is ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... to the Cheap Jack, she was a chambermaid in a small hotel in London, and "under notice to leave." Why—she did not deem it necessary to tell George. In this hotel Jan was born, and Jan's mother died. She was a foreigner, it was supposed, and her husband also, for they talked a foreign language to each other. He was ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... sum, an elderly spinster, a Swede, with frightened, hare-like eyes, who spoke French and German indifferently, played the piano after a fashion, and, in addition, knew how to salt cucumbers in first-class style. In the society of this instructress, of his aunt, and of an old chambermaid, Vasilievna, Fedya passed four whole years. He used to sit in the corner with his "Emblems"—and sit ... and sit ... while the low-ceiled room smelled of geraniums, a solitary tallow candle burned dimly, a cricket chirped monotonously, as though it were bored, the little clock ticked ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... chambermaid came. Lady Helena kissed the girl's pale cheek affectionately, and Edith was led away to the room she was to occupy for ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... demanded to be shown the best spare room in the house. On the bed in this room he laid the body of the still insensible Platzoff. His next act was to despatch a mounted messenger for the nearest doctor. Then, having secured the services of a brisk, steady-nerved chambermaid, he proceeded to dress the wound as well as the means at his command would allow of—washing it, and cutting away the hair, and, by means of some ice, which he was fortunate enough to procure, succeeding in all but stopping the bleeding, which, to a man so frail of body, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... question the patients and their friends as to the cause of their insanity, they might, as in other cases of illness, know what remedy to apply. This dear child has been living at Dr. Wm. Bayards' three years—chambermaid—that is enough to assure me she is a good girl. I think she wears her dress too tight. I unloosened her laces and underskirts to make them easy; they are all neat and tidy, as if she had come from a ...
— Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum • Mary Huestis Pengilly

... an expensive thing in every phase. The event that robbed Rudd of his wife, his child, his hope, had taken also his companion, his cook, his chambermaid, his washerwoman, the mender of his things; and in their place had left an appalling monument of bills. The only people he had permitted himself to owe money to were the gruesome committee that brought him his grief; the doctor, the druggist, the casket-maker, the sexton, and the dealer in ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... necessary to add that the speech proved a decided hit, and was received with shouts and acclamations. Not a little done over, the old statesman was now regaled on delicious krout and gin-slings, and put carefully to bed by a Dutch chambermaid. This was at three o'clock in the afternoon. At seven I marshalled all hands for a grand banquet, which had been prepared without any regard to expense, it being intimated that Uncle Sam would settle ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... a straw hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you "It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat." To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious pretense of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... appeared, in neglige, and showed us, after various mysterious confabulations with the host, the rooms selected for us. The odd part of the incident was that the immoderate laughter in which we all three indulged seemed to be noticed neither by the innkeeper nor by his chambermaid. The next day we went to see some of the sights of the town, last of all the Germanisches Museum, which was in such a wretched condition at that time as to earn the contempt of my French companion particularly. The large collection of instruments of torture, which included ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... inn, Bertram at once found that there had been an arrival of some importance during his absence. Waiters and boots were all busy—for there are waiters and boots at Jerusalem, much the same as at the "Saracen's Head," or "White Lion;" there is no chambermaid, however, only a chamberman. Colonel Sir ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... don't think so. Mademoiselle always had a nightlight on her table, and I lit it every evening before she went to bed. I was a sort of chambermaid, you must understand, when the evening came. The real chambermaid did not come here much before the morning. Mademoiselle ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... be difficult to distinguish the true from the artificial meekness. The former is universal and habitual, the latter, local and temporary. Every young female may keep this rule by her, to enable her to form a just judgment of her own temper: if she is not as gentle to her chambermaid as she is to her visitor, she may rest satisfied that the spirit of gentleness ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... taken for me?" said Caroline. "The gentleman wished to find out who I was, and I would not tell him. He inquired of the chambermaid of the lodging-house, and bribed her, I presume, for the next day she came up to my room and asked me for my card, that her mistress might write my name down correctly in the book. I knew that the mistress ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... damsel who had no sled conceived the idea of substituting a dust-pan. So she borrowed one of an obliging chambermaid and went out to the little slope which divides the front from the back campus to try her experiment. In twenty minutes the hill was alive with girls, all the available dust-pans had been pressed into service, and large tin pans were found to do nearly as well. Envious ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... the agitated chambermaid, whose eyes were round with terror, and who would certainly have alarmed the hotel with her screams had she come upon the occupant of the room in the ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... Court of St. Cloud is as singular as its composition is unique. It is, by the regulation of Napoleon, entirely military. From the Empress to her lowest chambermaid, from the Emperor's first aide-de-camp down to his youngest page, any slight offence or negligence is punished with confinement, either public or private. In the former case the culprits are shut up in their own apartments, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... left, Paul locked the door, drew out the five pound note which he carefully examined to convince himself that it was genuine. He then in his great joy took two or three handsprings and made such a noise that the chambermaid rapped on his door and desired to know if the gentleman was knocking for anything. During the day, the manager visited Paul frequently and gave him encouragement. By evening the report of the intended lecture had circulated pretty well and Paul ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... an hour, and then hesitated about going down-stairs. He peeped out of his room twice, but there was always some one on the stairs, chambermaid, waiter, or guest staying in ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... years. To-day Mrs. W. made tea out of dried blackberry leaves, but no one liked it. The beds, made out of equal parts of cotton and corn-shucks, are the most elastic I ever slept in. The servants are dressed in gray homespun. Hester, the chambermaid, has a gray gown so pretty that I covet one like it. Mrs. W. is now arranging dyes for the thread to be woven into dresses for herself and the girls. Sometimes her hands are ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... she comforts herself with the thought, 'I don't know how; I can't; I haven't the strength. I cant' sweep; it blisters my hands. If I should stand at the ironing-table an hour, I should be ill for a week. As to cooking, I don't know anything about it.' And so, when the cook, or the chambermaid, or nurse, or all together, vacate the premises, it is the mamma who is successively cook, and chambermaid, and nurse; and this is the reason why matrons ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... woman!" scolded Dukovski, going out of the house. "It is clear she knows something, and is concealing it! And the chambermaid has a queer expression too! Wait, you wretches! We'll ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... sight-seeing. Seated in their favorite chairs, they watched the throngs of happy people who came and went around them. Henry had added to the list of his acquaintances two more travelling men and the boy at the news-counter. His wife had heard in detail the sad story of her chambermaid's life, and a few facts and surmises about ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... whispered Oscar with satisfaction, and knew that if Descartes were on the examination paper he could start with this and go on for nearly twenty lines before he would have to use any words of his own. As he memorized, the chambermaid, who had come to do the bedrooms three times already and had gone away again, now returned and no longer restrained her indignation. "Get up Mr. Blake!" she vociferated to the sleeping John; "you ought to be ashamed!" ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister

... archangels, two Dantes, a nondescript lady with brocade garments and a delectable amorino whose counterpart, the sole survivor, was reserved for a better fate—being carried home and presented as a gift to my chambermaid. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... white master sold her. He sold his half-sister. She met my father at Vicksburg, Mississippi where he mustered out. She was chambermaid when the surrender came on, on the Gray Eagle boat from Vicksburg to Memphis. Mother died when I was nine years old. Papa had no boys, only three girls. I was his 'Tom Boy.' I did the milking and out-of-door turns. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... variety of the "Family Coach." In this game a player with a ready tongue is chosen as traveler, and the others are given such names as landlord, bell-boy, clerk, waiter, chambermaid, electric light, elevator, bed, supper, paper, sitting-room, bedroom, steam-radiator, slippers, and so on. The traveler is then supposed to arrive and give his orders. "Can I have a room to-night? Good. And how soon will supper be ready? Ask the bell-boy ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... travel all the ensuing day and night, I preferred washing to eating, and determined, if I could not do both, at least to accomplish the first. There was neither towel, nor glass for one's teeth, nor hostess or chambermaid to appeal to. I ran through all the rooms on the floor, of which the doors were open; but though in one I found a magnificent veneered chest of drawers, and large looking-glass, neither of the above articles were discoverable. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... about our chambermaid's feet—the new one? Her name is Asenath, and she is so perfectly spherical that if you were to start her rolling down a plank she could no more stop than can those humpty-dumpty weighted dolls. 'Senath's temper is exemplary, and her intentions of the best; in fact, she will ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... and protested in loud and profane language. I paid no attention to his protest and then he rang his bell long and violently. As I wanted to make a respectable appearance at breakfast, I kept on stropping diligently. This added to his indignation, and when the chambermaid entered his den in response to the bell, he ordered her to go into my room and stop the noise. She rushed toward me and intimated that the gentleman was at the point of death—that he might die ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... the bracken With the lark for a chambermaid; The lark would sing us awake in the mornings ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons

... and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh Review of Grimm's Correspondence, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... think so, my lady," she said. "No one but the waiter and the chambermaid who comes in to clean the apartment, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... you to understand distinctly that I'm not going to humor you in any of your old bachelor, sluggardly, slovenly ways, and whims and notions. And I want you to understand, too, that I'm not hired help in this house, nor a chambermaid, nor anything of the kind. I'm the landlady here; and I'll give you just ten minutes more to get down to your breakfast, or you'll not get any—that's all!" And as the reversed cuff John was in the act of buttoning slid ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... yourselves, and have been changed into the shape of a cat by witchcraft, though it was a just return for my wickedness. I was the housekeeper in the palace of a great king a long way from here, and the old woman was the queen's first chambermaid. We were led by avarice to plot together secretly to steal the king's three daughters and a great treasure, and then to make our escape. After we had contrived to make away with all the golden vessels, which the old woman changed into golden flax, we took ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... the stone, and seeing the shilling, put it into his pocket, not at the time conceiving it to be the object of the dog's search. The dog followed their horses for twenty miles, remained undisturbed in the room where they supped, followed the chambermaid into the bedchamber, and secreted himself under one of the beds. The possessor of the shilling hung his trousers upon a nail by the bed-side; but when the travellers were both asleep, the dog took them in his mouth, and leaping out of the window, which ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... I ate, waited on by the rosy-cheeked chambermaid, in came Master Amos Baggett, mine host, to pass the time of day, and likewise to assure me that my baggage should catch the early train; who when I rose, my meal at an end, paused to wipe his honest hand quite needlessly upon his snowy apron ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... with the grave motherly firmness with which she would have gone to give a scolding to black Buff or a lazy chambermaid. The princess, crossing the grass, slender, dark, sparkling, had no doubt of her own smouldering passionate hate against her. It was the proper thing for Hagar to hate Sarah. Life was thin and insipid without great remorses, revenges, loves. The poor little creature ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. Who ever thought of writing to the Times then? "Biffin," I warrant, did not grudge his money, and "A Thirsty Soul" paid cheerfully ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... perform a single menial task! Yet, after marriage, Her Ladyship finds that she is expected to be a cook, nurse, housekeeper, seamstress, chambermaid, waitress, and practical plumber. This is an unconscious tribute to the versatility of woman, since a man thinks he does well if he is a specialist in ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... was gone there entered the chambermaid, and sad desecration was wrought. Chambermaids are another modern inconvenience. The Pilgrim Fathers got along without chambermaids; and even at a much later period chambermaids worked at least under the supervision of a mistress of the household. But nowadays they have their own way, even ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... altogether amiable; and, until the last afternoon, only the manager didn't like the Twinklers. He didn't like them because of the canary. His sympathies had been alienated from the Miss Twinklers the moment he heard through the chambermaid that they had tied the heavy canary cage on to the hanging electric light in their bedroom. He said nothing, of course. One doesn't say anything if one is an hotel manager, until the unique and final moment when one ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... to give to the poor what you wouldn't be found dead in yourself, because it is more blessed to give than to receive badly made things. On the same principle I immediately passed the gift on to a chambermaid of the hotel, who perhaps in her turn dropped it a grade lower in the social scale, and so it may go on forever, blouse without end; but all that is apart from the point. The important part of the transaction was the token that the dead past was to bury ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... ready, and I went to my bedroom to put on a clean shirt, but I was surprised to find that my trunk had been removed. I rung the bell several times before any one came; at length the Boots appeared, instead of the chambermaid, and I demanded the reason of my trunk being removed. He either knew or pretended to know nothing of the matter, but said he would inquire. After he had been absent for some time, I rung again, upon ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... Mr. Tudor?' asked the waiter, with an air of surprise. Now the landlord, waiter, boots, and chambermaid, the chambermaid especially, had all, in Mr. Neverbend's estimation, paid Tudor by far too much consideration; and he was determined to show that he himself was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... outside, and then the door was tried. Soon a key was inserted in the lock, the door was opened, and a chambermaid ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer

... entering any room downstairs, or even lifting her veil, she walked straight along the passage and up to her apartment, the chambermaid preceding her. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... nurse, and gentleman, made us a cup of tea and some saleratus biscuit, and though I detest saleratus biscuit, and was longing for some of the beef, yet, by killing the taste of the alkali with onions, we contrived to satisfy our hunger, and the tea warmed us a little. Our host, in his capacity of chambermaid, had prepared us a couch. I was ushered into the presence of the fair invalid, to whom I made a polite apology for my intrusion. My feet sank nearly to the ankles in the dirt and small stones as I walked across ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... keeping house, to work some of their flabbiness off and give us a chance to get somebody in besides a chocolate-eating, novel-reading crowd of useless women who think, mommy, you're a dumbwaiter, chambermaid, lady's maid, and French chef rolled in one! Honest, ma, if you carry that ice-water up to Katz to-night on the sly, with that big son of hers to come down and get it, I—I'll go right up and tell her what I think of her if she ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... said he wanted it to get into the moving picture place just down the street," the chambermaid said. "I thought you had let him go, and that he had forgotten the money. It's ten cents for children to get in afternoons, you know, and a penny for war tax. I gave it ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... down-stairs in two vaulted rooms with little windows designed for the farm-hands; the farmhouse was plain, and the place smelled of rye bread and vodka, and leather. He rarely used the reception-rooms, only when guests arrived. Ivan Ivanich and Bourkin were received by a chambermaid; such a pretty young woman that both of ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... was right; steps were heard in the passage. M. d'Avrigny opened the door, and took from the hands of the chambermaid a cup which contained two or three spoonfuls of the syrup, he then carefully closed the door. "Look," said he to the procureur, whose heart beat so loudly that it might almost be heard, "here is in this cup some syrup of violets, and this decanter contains the remainder of the lemonade of which ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... blankets and chairs piled up in the middle of the hotel office and was thoughtfully sweeping out cigar ashes, cigarette stubs, and burned matches. Wishful, besides being proprietor of the Antelope House, was chambermaid, baggage-wrangler, clerk, advertising manager, and, upon occasion, waiter in his own establishment. And he kept a ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... the only time at any length, during our long acquaintance,) upon the sensual intercourse between the sexes, the delight of which he ascribed chiefly to imagination. 'Were it not for imagination, Sir, (said he,) a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess. But such is the adventitious charm of fancy, that we find men who have violated the best principles of society, and ruined their fame and their fortune, that they might possess a woman of rank.' It would not be proper to record ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... married, when young, by her parents, to a man she did not love. He became dissipated, and did not maintain her. She left him, taking with her their child, for whom and herself she earns a subsistence by going as chambermaid in these boats. Now and then, she said, her husband called on her, and asked if he might live with her again; but she always answered, No. Here she was far freer than she would have been in civilized life. I was pleased by the nonchalance of this woman, and the perfectly national manner ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Toward evening a chambermaid in the Sea Spider House went up to the room which had been occupied by the James Boys and discovered Sheriff Timberlake ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"

... as a chambermaid, and her blue eyes radiated the pleasure she felt. As a young gamekeeper, Lieutenant Bleibtreu paid assiduous court to the aforementioned chambermaid. He had already proposed to her to visit the "marriage booth" in the adjoining room, and the justice of the peace was getting ready ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... that there was to be no noise in the halls while he slept, and then went into his room and stretched out. Anyone who has stopped at the Hotel Four Seasons will have no difficulty in recalling the electric hall-bells which serve to attract the chambermaids to given spots. If one needs the chambermaid, he presses the button in his room and a little bell in the hall tinkles furiously until she responds and shuts it off. In that way one is sure that she has heard and is coming, a most admirable bit of ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon



Words linked to "Chambermaid" :   maidservant, maid, housemaid, amah, fille de chambre



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