"Matron" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perhaps asking, How came she to be there? How was it that this tiny, dark-eyed child of the south, whose face was immediately suggestive of olive-covered hills and taper-lit shrines, came to have her home in that stately English manor-house, by the side of the blonde matron, Lady Cheverel—almost as if a humming-bird were found perched on one of the elm-trees in the park, by the side of her ladyship's handsomest pouter-pigeon? Speaking good English, too, and joining in Protestant prayers! Surely she must have been ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... But what does that matter? one does not talk of such things," said the decorous little matron, startled and alarmed. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... her apartment Frau Karoline greeted me with formal gravity. She was a young woman of twenty years, with a high forehead and piercing eyes. Her face was mobile but her manner possessed the dignity of the matron assured of her importance in the world. Her only child was at the nursery at the time, in accordance with the rules of the level that forbids a man to see his step-children. But a large photograph, aided ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... air he had previously jotted down, when a curious scene arrested his attention in the courtyard of the manse. His man "Jock," who had lately been a weaver in the neighbouring village, had rudely declined to wipe the minister's shoes, as requested by Mrs Gardner, when the enraged matron, snatching a culinary utensil, administered a hearty drubbing to the shoulders of the impudent boor, and compelled him to execute her orders. The minister witnessing the proceeding from the window, was highly diverted, and gave the air he had just completed the title of "Jenny ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... lo! another came, An English matron, in whose simple faith Nor priestly rule nor ritual had ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... on to ruin. In the very degradation of love we see its sacredness. In his fidelity we find some palliation. Nor does it seem that Octavia, the slighted wife of Antony, gave way to vengeance. Her sense of injury was overshadowed by her pity. This lofty and dignified matron even took his six surviving children, three of whom were Cleopatra's, and brought them up in her own house as her own. Can ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Swan.—An old constellation in the milky-way, between Equus and the Dragon. This is fabled to be the swan into which Jupiter transformed himself in order to deceive the virtuous Leda, wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. The Grecian matron, like the Jewish virgin, thus became the ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... swelling breast Naked met his, under the flowing gold Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight Both of her beauty, and submissive charms, Smiled with superiour love, as Jupiter On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds That shed Mayflowers; and pressed her matron lip With kisses pure: Aside the Devil turned For envy; yet with jealous leer malign Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plained. Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two, Imparadised in one another's arms, The happier Eden, shall enjoy their ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... were finished, several of the women came up to me and introduced themselves. One handsome gray-haired woman said: "I am Rosa Clinton," and it shocked me to be unable to find in her the girl I once knew. Another matron whom I recognized at once, retained something inescapably girlish in both face and voice. It hurt me to detect in her withered lips the quaint twist which had once been so charming to me—but then she undoubtedly discovered in me equally ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... that he wished to discover a lady, well-bred, accomplished, well connected, well accustomed to good society, who was qualified at once to complete the education of his daughters, and to be their matron or chaperon. Mr Dorrit's bankers, as bankers of the county-widower, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... a hospitable cup of tea with the Duchess in the Matron's room. She was clothed in fine linen but without her purple; she wore the ordinary and serviceable slate-coloured dress of a nurse. It was here I had the honour of being introduced to Barbara. She was nursing a doll with great tenderness, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... basement served as kitchen and dungeon keep. Generally the lockup was empty and the building quite as decorous as any other on the street, although at certain times it resounded with life. On this day it was quiet, and Throop and his wife, who served as matron, were sitting under a tree as the rancher's ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... trees on benches two by two, some with bandaged stumps, some with crutches, some with no legs at all. They hobbled over willingly enough to have their pictures taken, although one of them muttered that he had had his taken seventy times and no one had sent him a. copy yet. The matron gathered them about her, arranging them rather proudly so that their wounds "would show. One looked to be quite all right—because he had artificial legs, boots and all, below ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... memory of St. Nicholas, and Monte Gargano of the archangel Michael, and in Rome the legends of Aracoeli and of Santa Maria in Trastevere are mentioned. Still, the pagan splendor of ancient Rome unmistakably exercises a greater charm upon them. A venerable matron in torn garments—Rome herself is meant—tells them of the glorious past, and gives them a minute description of the old triumphs; she then leads the strangers through the city, and points out to them the seven hills and many of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... crowd? Like the voice of waters loud, Through the open city gate, Urged by wonder, fear, or hate, Onward rolls the mighty tide— Spreads the tumult far and wide. Heedless of the noontide glare, Infancy and age are there,— Joyous youth and matron staid, Blooming bride and blushing maid,— Manhood with his fiery glance, War-chief with his lifted lance,— Beauty with her jewelled brow, Hoary age with locks of snow: Prince, and peer, and statesman grave, White-stoled priest, and dark-browed slave,— Plumed helm, and crowned head, By ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... whether she was showy or distinguished. Perhaps she was a little of both, with an air of command bred of supremacy in frontier garrisons; her sister was like her in the way that a young girl may be like a young matron. They blossomed alike in the genial atmosphere of Mrs. Brinkley and of Mr. Corey. He began at once to make bantering speeches with them both. The friendliness of an old man and a stout elderly woman might not have been their ideal of success ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cognisant that for some moments past an insistent rapping against the outer door of my rooms had been in progress, and then as I came to a pause I heard through the keyhole the voice of Miss Tupper, our matron, inquiring whether anything ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... in Derbyshire, England, a venerable matron, named Frances Burton, aged 107. She had practised midwifery upwards of 80 years. The husband of the above old lady was sexton of the parish church 70 years; and this ancient pair frequently boasted, that she had brought ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... that tore her other self away had left a wide avenue open into her heart. Perhaps,—for small instruments do great execution when they are wielded by an almighty arm,—an adverse turn of trade had left the hitherto affluent matron dependent on a neighbour's bounty for daily bread. Were other dealers, less scrupulously honourable than herself, underselling her in the market? Was her foreman unsteady? for, being a woman, she must needs depend ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... much cooler out." They were up in Margaret's old room, Mrs. Paget tying a big apron about Julie's ruffled frock, preparatory to an attack upon the demoralized kitchen. "We think he's lovely," the little matron went on approvingly. "Don't fall in love with ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... she said to the matron of the Home, "to ask if you will allow me to examine, or, better yet, to take with me, the little clothes that a boy you called Freckles, discharged last fall, wore the ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... hair, And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air. Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down, And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoun: Her shriek made with another shriek ascend The frighted matron that on her did tend; And as with her own cry her sense was slain, So with the other it was called again. 320 She rose, and to her bed made forced way, And laid her down even where Leander lay; And all this while the red sea of her blood Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... dark the matron of the family lights the lamps, spreads the table-cloth, places in its midst three flat loaves of unleavened bread, covers them with a napkin, and places on them six little dishes containing symbolical food, that is, an egg, lettuce, horse-radish, the bone of a lamb, and a brown ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... that the little Red Cross canteen was put to a severe test. Eighteen hundred Americans arrived at the aviation camp after a thirty-hour trip punctuated by no saving hot meal. The manager-matron and her girl helpers, however, stayed up nearly all night, minting hot coffee and sandwiches so that the hardships of sleeping on the cold bare ground of the hangars was somewhat ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... their loftiest towers, And injury and outrage; and, when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night In Gibeah, when the hospitable door Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape. These were the prime in order and in might: The rest were long to tell; though far renowned Th' Ionian gods—of Javan's issue held Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, Their boasted ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... decked in placid smiles, and her frame evinces the soft flutterings of an anxious heart. The bolt of the entrance gently creeks, and the harsh sound thrills like the strain of heavenly music to the lover's throbbing breast—the door opens at length, and a comely matron far stricken in years welcomes the cavalier. Don Lope is not backward in his advances; a smile of grateful recognition plays upon his lip. He then seizes the good duenna's hand, and presses it ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... days had not been passed in singleness. His Helpmate was a comely matron, old— Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 She was a woman of a stirring life, Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool; That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest, ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... north corridor is all charity old ladies, paid for out o' the fund; an' the president o' the home has just died, an' the secretary's in the old country on a pleasure trip, an' the board's in a row over the policy o' the home, an' the navy-blue matron dassent act, an' altogether it looked like the north corridor was goin' to get a regular mid-week Wednesday instead of a Christmas. An' I up an' ast' her to take me ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... for he lunched or sipped an aperti not often with the same person twice in a blue moon. And whether his companion were a curate or some ragged wastrel of the quarter; painted young person from the chorus of the newest revue or proper matron from Bayswater; keen adventurer from Fleet Street or solid merchant from the City, his attitude was much the same: easy, impersonal, unaffected, courteous, detached. He was as apt as not (going on his facial expression) to be ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... oil. Yet even this mockery of a weighing-machine is preferable to the emotional type of scales which simultaneously gives you a false weight, tells your fortune in utter disregard of age and sex, and plays a tune that cannot be recognised. When such a machine has registered a German matron's weight at 115 pounds and informed her that she will some day be President of the United States, it is ludicrous to have it break into a tinkle of self-appreciation, like a spaniel barking his own approval after walking across the room on his ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... in the ceiling rafters, caused by fragments of shell, had up to date escaped serious injury. The Dutch Church, on the other hand, curiously enough, was almost demolished by shell-fire at the beginning of the siege. We then drove up to the hospital, where Miss Hill, the plucky and youthful-looking matron, received us and showed us round. This girl—for she was little more—had been the life and prop of the place for the past two months, during which time the resources of the little hospital had been taxed almost past belief. Where twenty was the usual number ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... proceeded to explain. Dolly, the dairymaid at Verner's Pride, was ill-conducted enough (as Mrs. Tynn would tell her, for the fact did not give that ruling matron pleasure) to have a sweetheart. Worse still, Dolly was in the habit of stealing out to meet him when he left work, which was at eight o'clock. On the evening of the accident, Dolly, abandoning her dairy, and braving the wrath of Mrs. Tynn, should she be discovered, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... that feature which changes least, it might have been taken out of Ida's own face. As may be supposed, he was thoroughly disgusted to be reminded of that sweet girlish vision by this broadly moulded, comfortable-looking matron. His romantic mood was scattered for that evening at least, and he knew he shouldn't get the prosaic suggestions of the unfortunate resemblance out of his mind for a week at least. It would torment him as a humorous association spoils ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... had been detached the same morning at the head of a strong corps, on a foraging party on the west side of the Schuylkill. He had fallen in with a brigade of Pennsylvania militia commanded by General Potter, which he soon dispersed; and, pursuing the fugitives, had gained the heights opposite Matron's ford, over which the Americans had thrown a bridge for the purpose of crossing the river, and had posted troops to command the defile called the Gulph, just as the front division of the American army reached the bank of the river. This movement had been made without any knowledge of the intention ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... mothers at the time, she sent off her son, with a blessing, "to fight for his country, his Fatherland"; for, noble and peasant alike, every wife and mother throughout the length and breadth of the land seemed to be infected with the patriotism of a Roman matron. Madame Dort ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men— The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man— Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side By those who in their turn shall ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... and form. Though no more than seventeen years of age, she was a superb woman, her chest thrown forward, her back like the torso of a Venus de Milo, her head placed on the throat of a Minerva, and the nature of a child molded in the form of a matron. Joyce Basil had black hair and eyes—very long, excessive hair, that in the mornings she tied up with haste so imperfectly that once Reybold had seen it drop like a cloud around her and nearly touch her feet. At that moment, seeing him, she blushed. He pleaded, for once, a Congressman's impudence, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... vivacity, wit, good nature, or other pleasing qualities may be attractive without beauty. Comely denotes an aspect that is smooth, genial, and wholesome, with a certain fulness of contour and pleasing symmetry, tho falling short of the beautiful; as, a comely matron. That is picturesque which ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the table when the alarm-bell rang, and, being officer of the day I ran over to inquire the cause, and found the powerful young virago, our prisoner, enjoying herself hugely. When the matron had been handing her some food through a hole in the cell, the girl shot out her arm, grabbed her by the hair and with the other hand was now pulling out the hairs by the roots, sometimes a few at a time, sometimes by the handful, then she would bang the official's nose against ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... hospitaller or visitor, whose stipend was fixed at L10. The accommodation of the hospital at that time was for one hundred poor men and women, lodging within it, under the superintendence of a single matron, with twelve women assistants. It is interesting to compare these figures with those of the present day, when the hospital contains as many as six hundred and seventy beds, with three hundred and fifty nurses on the staff, and every year relieves over one hundred and fifty thousand poor ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... was soon on a level with the merchant princes. His judgment was considered sound, and he had the full confidence of his business associates for safety and caution. Fortune heaped up riches around him with a lavish hand. He was unmarried and the halo of his wealth caught the keen eye of the matron with marriageable daughters. He was invited out, caught by the whirl of society, and tossed into its maelstrom. In a measure he reciprocated. He kept horses and a yacht. His dinners at Delmonico's and the club were above reproach. But with all he was a silent man with a shadow deep in his eyes, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... and still the truants did not return. At ten o'clock Yorke reported their absence to Mr Wakefield, and Mr Wakefield reported it to the head-master. A similar report reached him from the matron of Mr Forders house with regard to the missing ones there; and presently, further report was made that Rollitt was ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... not want to be unkind to the Hare, but requests like this vexed him sorely. "Don't you see, Harey, there are some people who will kiss me, and I can't stop them—like Miss Turner, f'r instance." Miss Turner was the matron. "And then there are some I've got to kiss, like aunts and people. But one doesn't put in any extra, if one can help it. When I'm grown-up I sha'n't have to kiss anybody, and that'll be jolly. I shall never, never kiss at all, only shake hands ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... are fed and kept warm and given all the care the matron and attendants can give them; but how can two or three women attend to twenty-five children? They do all they can, but it's a sad place just the same. I always cry when I see the mother-hungry look on their faces. They want to be owned and loved—they need some ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... up!" said the matron of the household, who still held Morgan's arm up to drain off the congested blood. "Look at your face, look at your feet! ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the summit of the hill we found a rustic table, also a rustic seat on which was seated a comely matron engaged in the very commonplace work of darning socks. She cast on us a sharp and remarkably penetrating glance as we approached. Doubtless our appearance was peculiar, for a pretty maiden in savage costume, a somewhat ragged white ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... had expected the young man's proposal every day for the last few weeks: every day she had been doomed to disappointment. And yet she was perfectly convinced that Philip Jocelyn loved her young mistress. The sharp eyes of the matron had fathomed the young man's sentiments long before Laura Dunbar dared to whisper to herself that she was beloved. Why, then, did he not propose? Who could be a more fitting bride for the lord of Jocelyn's ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... after the good gentleman had called twice or thrice upon his sister-in-law in Bryanstone Square—bringing, as was his wont, a present for this little niece, or a book for that—Mrs. Newcome, with her usual virtue, gave him to understand that the occupation of an English matron, who, besides her multifarious family duties, had her own intellectual culture to mind, would not allow her to pass the mornings in idle gossips: and of course took great credit to herself for having ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... floor. Her politeness is very charming, and her smile would no doubt be more or less winsome were it not for the hideous blackening of the teeth. Blackened teeth is the distinguishing mark between maid and matron in the flowery kingdom of the Mikados. The teeth are stained black at marriage, and henceforth a smile that heretofore displayed rows of small white ivories, and perchance was fairly bewitching, becomes positively ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and makes them in every one's eyes irreproachable and infallible. A nautcha cannot sin, in spite of the crowd of the "celestial musicians" who swarm in every pagoda, in the form of baby-vestals and their little brothers. No virtuous Roman matron was ever so respected as the pretty little nautcha. This great reverence for the happy "brides of the gods" is especially striking in the purely native towns of Central India, where the population has preserved intact their blind faith ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... 'This matron, whitened with good works and age, Approached the Sabbath of her pilgrimage; Her spirit to himself the Almighty drew, Breathed on the alembic, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one's life? What if I felt now an old woman of fifty? But yes, it is quite true. I have the feelings and the disregard of convention of a woman of fifty. If there had been no war, do you think I could have gone among an English army—sans gene—like an old matron? Do you think a jeune fille francaise bien elevee could have talked to you alone as I have done the past two days? Absurd. The explanation ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... an unfailing blessing To his pious, widowed mother, To the beautiful, lone matron Who forswore the world to ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... he not add that of husband? But for the latter relation she was in no haste. Time enough for that in the indefinite future. She loved the liberty and year-long frolic of her maiden life, though in truth she had no idea of settling down on becoming a matron. In the mean time, while she laughed at De Forrest's love-making, she did not discourage it, and the young man felt that his clear understanding with the mother was almost equal to an engagement to the daughter. He welcomed this country visit ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... cried Evelyn, as Lucile wrenched open the door and ran straight into the arms of the rather stout, middle-aged matron who ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... I went I found that Bessie had gane, and none knew where. I traced her to Keswick poor-house, where she had a little lad; the matron said she went away in a very weak condition when the child was three weeks old, declaring that she was going to her friends. Puir, bonnie, loving Bessie; that was the last I ever heard o' ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and placed writing materials on the table. And while the matron employed herself in closing up the rooms, packing up what was needful to take with them to the doctor's and putting out the fire, Clara wrote and sealed her letter. They then put on their bonnets, locked up the house, and set out. They called at the post-office just in time to mail their ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... parson," commented one sharp-tongued matron. "Hoo's goin' to teach some one summat, I warrant What th' owd lad dunnot know is na worth knowin'. Eh! hoo's a graidely foo', that hoo is. Our Tommy, if tha dost na let Jane Ann be, tha'lt be gettin' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in visions of the night, Sent to impart a sad relief, The matron saw another sight That stayed the torrent of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... picture of neatness and order. I dropped in quite unexpectedly; and any visitor who may be induced to follow my example, will not fail to be struck with the happy, "homely" look of everything, the clean, cheerful appearance of the female Arabs, and the courtesy and kindness of the matron. These girls are considered to belong to St. Giles's parish, as the boys to Bloomsbury Chapel. So far the good work has been done by the Dissenters and Evangelical party in the Established Church. The sphere of the High Church—as I ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... and trust in Him for safety from the fury of their enemies. She first went to the principal church, where TE DEUM was chaunted; and then she took up her abode in the house of Jacques Bourgier, one of the principal citizens, and whose wife was a matron of good repute. She refused to attend a splendid banquet which had been provided for her, and passed nearly all her time ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Lances of Dawn. That wonderful book! Those wonderful poems! "How CAN you write them, Mr. Speranza?" "When do your best inspirations come, Mr. Speranza?" "Oh, if I could write as you do I should walk on air." The matron who breathed the last-quoted ecstasy was distinctly weighty; the mental picture of her pedestrian trip through the atmosphere was interesting. Albert's hand was patted by the elderly spinsters, young women's eyes lifted soulful ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... there be no begging, swearing, gaming, card-playing, quarrelling, or universal conversation. That all novels, plays, and other improper books be excluded; that all bad words be avoided, and any default in these particulars be reported to the matron. ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... talked, talked in that inexhaustible interest which youth takes in itself the world over. They were in the standard proportion of two girls to one young man, or, if here and there a girl had an undivided young man to herself, she went before some older maiden or matron whom she left altogether out of the conversation. They mostly wore the skirts and hats of Paris, and if the scene of the fountain was Arabically oriental the promenade was almost Americanly occidental. The promenaders were there by hundreds; ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... nose and shrivelled cheeks, whereon the paths of the blood-vessels were scrawled in red. The same bones were visible beneath the plumper padding of Hannah's face. Mrs. Jacobs had escaped the temptation to fatness, which is the besetting peril of the Jewish matron. If Hannah could escape her mother's inclination to angularity she would be a pretty woman. She dressed with taste, which is half the battle, and for the present ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... anything was wrong, Aleck Pop entered the kitchen attached to the academy, where Mrs. Green, the matron, had a nice supper ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... surpassed all their former triumphs, for their object was to obtain the suffrage of Rosabella. The singular union of all kinds of pleasure intoxicated the imagination of every guest; and the genius of delight extended his influence over the whole assembly, over the old man and the youth, over the matron ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need. For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the sufferer's sight The Quaker matron's inward light, The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed? All hearts confess the saints elect Who, twain, in faith, in love agree, And melt not in an acid sect The Christian pearl of charity! So days went on: a week had passed Since the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... preparing for an innocent and unsuspecting victim a life of misery and shame, you might redeem her from impending destruction. You might obtain for her an honest and industrious partner, and enable her to acquire the character of a virtuous matron, and a ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... myself with relating one incident only of this period. In the January of my last year I went with a party of young men and girls to stay over Sunday at Beverly Farms, where Mrs. Fremantle—a young Boston matron had opened her cottage for the occasion. This "cottage," a roomy, gabled structure, stood on a cliff, at the foot of which roared the wintry Atlantic, while we danced and popped corn before the open fires. During the daylight hours we drove about ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... says, 'My son Betson and his wife recommend them to you'[27] The poor child was to learn soon enough some of the sorrows of a wife, for a year later Thomas Betson fell dangerously ill, and she was nursing him and looking after his business for all the world as though she were a grave matron and not a bride of sixteen. Moreover, she must already have been expecting the birth of her eldest son. William Stonor's attitude towards his partner's illness is not without humour. He was torn between anxiety for the life of a friend and an even greater ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... During the meal I had an uneasy consciousness that curious glances were bent upon me from all sides. The evening, however, was spent agreeably. After I had gone to my room, a kind old lady came to me to beg that I would reconsider my determination to accept the position of matron, but, finding me firm and somewhat dignified, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... She observed him with interest as he made himself entertaining to Neil and Dorothy, and blessed him for his tact when he presently went off with Mrs. Chase, to do her special honour as the only young matron present. She observed that Dorothy seemed very ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... The Matron in Search of a Subject. Ah, now, this really is more my idea of a picture. Quite a pretty cretonne those curtains, and there's a little girl reading a book, and a looking-glass with reflections and all, and a young lady in a riding-habit—just going ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... great dais overshadowing a group of the Nativity, and water spouting from the mouths of oxen in the manger; the Lacrosse with the Virgin and her Child; the Lisieux, whereon was carved the Mount Parnassus with Apollo and the Muses, Pegasus too, and a great triple-headed matron for Philosophy, and two bronze salamanders vomiting streams of water; all the fountains that Jacques Lelieur has traced for us are perfect and are playing in the town whose streets ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... The matron carried Kit to the sick-room and put him to bed. After quieting the child a bit she left him, taking away the candle. Now the sick-room was on the ground floor, and Kit lay still a very short while. Then he got out of bed, groped ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... luck," said a stout matron. "I've 'ad thirteen and buried seven, and never 'ad so much as a chiney tea-pot left me. One thing is, I never could make up to people for the sake of what I could get out of them. I couldn't not if I tried. I must speak my ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... AR'RIA, a Roman matron, who, to encourage her husband in meeting death, to which he had been sentenced, thrust a poniard into her own breast, and then handed it to him, saying, "It is not painful," whereupon he followed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man— Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... to see the woman who was thrown from the automobile yesterday afternoon," said Grace to the matron. "Is ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Merlin, or the grave Matron his (Satan's) most trusty and well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor, Mother Shipton, were commissioned by him to give out their prophetic Oracles, and what degree of Possession he may have arrived to in them upon their Midnight Excursions, I ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... they pronounced impure, by far the greater number united their praise to the all but general voice; nay, some scrupled not to call him, from his perfect ease and nature and variety, the Scottish Shakspeare. No one rejoiced more in his success and his fame, than the matron of Mossgiel. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... accepted by everyone, even by the stoics, very calmly, with a grain of Attic salt at that. Men were regarded as virtuous when they were brave, when they were honest; the idea of using the expression in its later sense occurred, if at all, in jest merely, as a synonym for the eunuch. It was the matron and the vestal who were supposed to be straight, and their straightness was wholly supposititious. The ceremonies connected with the phallus, and those observed in the worship of the Bona Dea, were of a ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... The Roman matron of the legend struck the knife into her bosom, and handed it to her husband with the words, 'It is not painful!' Christ has gone before us in all the dreary solitude, and in all the agony and pains of life. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... leant a little forward and a swift flush is dyeing her cheek. She is of all women the youngest looking, for her years; as a matron indeed she seems absurd. The delicate bloom of girlhood seems never to have left her, but—as though in love of her beauty—has clung to her day by day. So that now, when she has known eight years of married life (and some of them deeply tinctured with ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... excellent matron, "do help this young man to bring this affair out straight, and give an old woman, who has had a world of troubles, a little peace in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... His plastic ideal of the woman is masculine. He builds a colossal frame of muscle, bone, and flesh, studied with supreme anatomical science. He gives to Eve the full pelvis and enormous haunches of an adult matron. It might here be urged that he chose to symbolise the fecundity of her who was destined to be the mother of the human race. But if this was his meaning, why did he not make Adam a corresponding symbol of fatherhood? Adam is an adolescent man, colossal in proportions, but ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... he married the valiant matron's daughter, as he promised?" asked Angel Clare absently, as he turned over the newspaper he was reading at the little table to which he was always banished by Mrs Crick, in ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... regiment, and his brother Thomas was its surgeon. Seth Pomeroy, gunsmith at Northampton, who, like Titcomb, had seen service at Louisbourg, was its lieutenant-colonel. He had left a wife at home, an excellent matron, to whom he was continually writing affectionate letters, mingling household cares with news of the camp, and charging her to see that their eldest boy, Seth, then in college at New Haven, did not run off to the army. Pomeroy ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Sam, Sister Anne passed hurriedly through the hospital to the matron's room and, wrapping herself in a raccoon coat, made her way to a waiting motor car and said, "Home!" to the chauffeur. He drove her to the Flagg family vault, as Flagg's envious millionaire neighbors called the pile of white marble that topped the highest hill above Greenwich, and which for years ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... in Athens the father had charge of the education of the boy in his early years, in Rome that duty devolved almost entirely upon the mother. In early Roman history the matron was celebrated for her virtues—fidelity to her husband, love for her children, and queenly guardianship of the sacred precincts of the home. The name of the Roman matron became a synonym of all that is noble, wifely, and motherly in ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... Whether she would not be a very vile matron, and justly thought either mad or foolish, that should give away the necessaries of life from her naked and famished children, in exchange for pearls to stick in her hair, and sweetmeats to ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... boards of guardians the mass of the poor might expect that a majority of guardians would be prompted by national and religious feeling to sympathise with them, so that they would find in the master and matron, the doctor and the relieving officer, something like the natural tenderness which a common kindred and creed inspire. But half the guardians are ex-officio members, as magistrates; nearly all landlords and Protestants. They have in addition 'property votes,' and 'residence votes;' ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... were to be fetched out of a furnace! I am their crude and their sublimate, their precipitate and their unctions; their male and their female, sometimes their hermaphrodite—what they list to style me! They will calcine you a grave matron, as it might be a mother of the maids, and spring up a young virgin out of her ashes, as fresh as a phoenix; lay you an old courtier on the coals, like a sausage or a bloat-herring, and, after they have broiled ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... when he placed first among the causes of our prosperity the noble character of American women. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving to outdo the demi-monde of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young girl, must forthwith, and without inquiry, rush as far after them as they possibly can. Because Mrs. Shoddy opens a ball in a two-thousand-dollar lace dress, every girl ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Hence it was observ'd, The subtile matter, when in throat retir'd, Kept still its roulant quality, and oft Would mount in circling spires to pericranium Of she-philosopher, when in elbow chair, Deep and profound, would the grave matron reve, And learnedly pronounce (like great RENATUS[2]) With equal verity ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... upon Jove. But what could Typhoeus, and the strong Mimas, or what Porphyrion with his menacing statue; what Rhoetus, and Enceladus, a fierce darter with trees uptorn, avail, though rushing violently against the sounding shield of Pallas? At one part stood the eager Vulcan, at another the matron Juno, and he, who is never desirous to lay aside his bow from his shoulders, Apollo, the god of Delos and Patara, who bathes his flowing hair in the pure dew of Castalia, and possesses the groves of Lycia and his native wood. Force, void of conduct, falls by its own weight; ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... needed them worse than Minnie Morrison. Well, in the afternoon, after we'd visited a while, Jake hired a livery rig an' we drove out to the orphant home. We talked quite a while to the lady that's head over all—the matron they call her; an' then she took us into a room near as big as our mill, an' there was about two dozen or more children playin' 'round. And the very minit we got inside that door Jake he hollers out, 'Oh, geewhittaker!' An' I seen his eyes ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... glad that she was not a German; he said that it would make him famous for ever, and she said it was much more likely to make him ill to have a lot of tadpoles in a flat like theirs; he said he was master in his own house, and she said that rather than wait on a lot of tadpoles she'd go as matron to a school; and then he asked her to be reasonable, and she asked him to be reasonable then and give up all this about tadpoles; and he said she might respect his ideas, and she said not if they were smelly she ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... father's house, to which the clay image was sent for the stepmother to beat in Elsie's stead. It is well known that a wicked woman does not improve with age. It sometimes happens that a wild youth becomes a quiet lamb in his old age; but if a girl whose heart is bad assumes the matron's cap, she becomes like a raging wolf in her old days. The stepmother tortured the clay image like a firebrand from hell both day and night, but she could not hurt the impassive creature, whose body was impervious to pain. If the husband endeavoured ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... poverty that wore a cheerful face, and took things pleasantly. A very humble English farmer would have despised the income which supported M. Lenoble's household; and it was only the economy and skill of the matron and her daughter which sustained the dignity ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... convenient and spacious rooms on the ground floor, a refectory, which might be cleared and used for meetings—"dances," said Lady Harman. "Hardly the sort of thing we want 'em to get up to," said Sir Isaac—various offices, the matron's apartments—"We ought to begin thinking about matrons," said Sir Isaac;—a bureau, a reading-room and a library—"We can pick good, serious stuff for them," said Sir Isaac, "instead of their filling their heads with trash"—one or two workrooms with tables for cutting out and sewing; this last ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me a handful of letters and things to distribute. There was a fat parcel for Martha, the ward-maid. I found her in the closet where she keeps her brooms, and gave it her. Her eyes simply danced as she took ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... a matron suddenly made her appearance in the barn, with a hospitable entreaty that "the woman and child" would come up to the house and warm themselves; and Caleb strongly advocating the Idea, Mysie ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... said, flipping through pages of his own scrawl, "a society matron and her social secretary, a whole flock of office workers—business, not government—and new parents and newly engaged girls ...
— The Plague • Teddy Keller
... were over ruled and the farmer presented Paul with a miserable little glass full to the brim. This Paul insisted that the matron should drink first and on its being replenished he more emphatically insisted that the farmer should drink before him. While the farmer was drinking, Paul generally secured the bottle as if to relieve him from its charge while drinking. The moment ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... who are acquainted with the manner in which persons are received into Congregational churches, by relating a verbal account of their experience, will recognize in this narrative a resemblance to that practice. Christiana, a grave matron, appears to have felt no difficulty in complying with the requisition; but Mercy, young and inexperienced, blushed and trembled, and for awhile continued silent. Their profession being approved, the readiness of the church to receive ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... seriousness in Tom's air which might argue that he felt the weight of his responsibility. When the women began to come in, as they did later in the day, he received them with much cordiality, rising from his chair to shake hands with each matron as she appeared. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this painful contrast comes out? Such moments of deep humiliation cause sleepless nights, and the next day result in bills that become as crushing as criminal indictments to poor overworked men. Under the impulse of such trying scenes as these, many a matron has gone forth on Broadway with firm lips and eyes in which glowed inexorable purpose, and placed the gems that would be mill-stones about her husband's neck on the fat arms or fingers that might have helped him forward. There are many phases of heroism, but ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... at Seaville lay the body of the beautiful young matron about whom so much anxiety had been felt. I could not help thinking what an end was this for the incomparable beauty. At the very height of her brief career the poor little woman's life had been suddenly snuffed out. But by what? ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... decorative treatment of caps must have been a trying question. The dignity of the married woman depended somewhat upon the size of the cap she wore, and it was as necessary to convention that the crow-black locks of the matron of twenty-five should be hidden, as that the scant locks of sixty should ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... bottom stair Martha Macauley, distressed young matron and hostess, gazed up at her sister, who, with arms leaning on the vine-wreathed rail at the landing, ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... generation. She has fulfilled her mission on earth, and all those who have known her—and they are very many—will all their lives be sustained by the memory of her courage, dignity, and truth. She had so much of the character of the Roman matron—a type we know so little nowadays—who, being perfect in all the beauty of domestic life, yet even more conspicuously raised the public life of her time. I shall never, while I have life, forget the occasions this last summer and autumn ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... at once; but Melissa urgently entreated to be allowed to remain by her lover's side, and glanced anxiously at the keys in the matron's hand. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... looking-glass again, adjusted her mind to her duty, and descended to the octagon parlor. The rose was no worse for the shower. Mr. Fairfax was there, standing with his back to the fireplace, and lending his ears to an argument that was being slowly enunciated by the noble matron who filled his chair. A younger lady, yet not very young, who was seated languidly with her back to the light, acknowledged Bessie's entrance with a smile that invited her approach. "I think," she said, "you know my brother Cecil?" and so they ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... now issued from the supper room, and Mr. Vavasour, bowing himself free from a "comfortable" looking matron, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... bribery for the officer in question. The interest of his supposed father was sufficient to put him on the quarter-deck; and the profits of his mother, who, having duly served her apprenticeship, had arrived to the dignity of bumboat woman herself, and was a fat, comely matron of about forty years of age, were more than sufficient to support him in his inferior rank. His education and natural abilities were not, however, of that class to procure him either friends or advancement; and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in my heart, what a dream is there! Think what it would be to bear about a young heart in an aged body, to see only cold, dumb faces around me, where even strangers used to smile; to be a worthy matron! Can Hell ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... custom, a matron is known by prefixing her maiden name with de (possessive of) to ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Auffray family, were soon charmed by the beauty of Pierrette's nature and the character of her old grandmother, whose feelings, ideas, and ways bore the stamp of Roman antiquity,—this matron of the Marais was ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... had him before the lady. In front of her sits another, who has a glittering confusion of beads swinging hither and thither from a jaunty little structure of black and red velvet. An anxious-looking matron appears under the high eaves of a bonnet with a gigantic crimson rose crushed down into a mass of tangled hair. She is ornamented! she has no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... gentleman to whom she had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare a young girl's man-as-she-thinks-him with a forty-summered matron's man-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as to whether the second would be a fac-simile of the first." And yet, young men and women of respectable standing "over the way," are allowed far greater latitude for intercommunication than our own; so much ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the same material. From jars thermetically closed with India-rubber he receives the fresh fruit that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered mouth. The instrument case of his surgeon and the storeroom of his matron contain many articles whose utility is increased by the use of it, and some that could be made of nothing else. His shirts and sheets pass through an India-rubber clothes-wringer, which saves the strength of the washerwoman and the fibre of the fabric. When the government ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... treasure hides beneath That lid so much the worse for wear? A ring perhaps—a rosy wreath - A photograph by Vernon Heath - Some matron's temporary teeth ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... she had woven for herself a rod of scorpions. The high ground she had taken; the perfect trust in one; the scorn of any judgement, save her own; these had vanished from her. Rose, the tameless heroine who had once put her mother's philosophy in action, was the easiest filly that turbaned matron ever yet drove into the straight road of the world. It even surprised Lady Jocelyn to see how wonderfully she had been broken in by her grandmother. Her ladyship wrote to Drummond to tell him of it, and Drummond congratulated her, saying, however: 'Changes of this sort don't come of conviction. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heads below. Rose Packer, just come to town, was next them, with the friends she was visiting in New York, two pretty, elaborately dressed girls, frothing with youthful high spirits, and their mother, an abundant, skilfully-girthed matron. The Langleys were very fashionable and very wealthy; their houses in America, England, Italy, their yachts and motorcars, their dances and dinners, furnished matter for constant and uplifted discourse in the ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... will be found a breakfast and dinner bill of fare for every day in the year, beginning with January 1. We would particularly recommend a trial of their use by the young and inexperienced matron just entering upon housekeeping, whose desire should be to begin right—provide simple and healthful as well as palatable food for her family. To many such we trust that our "year's breakfasts and dinners" may come like the grateful suggestions of ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... flights of stairs: the matron knocked at a door in the passage, and we went in. Father Payne was sitting up in bed, in a sort of blue wrapper which gave him, I thought, a curiously monastic air—he was reading quietly. The room was large and airy, and looked out on the backs of tall houses: it was quiet enough: there was just ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim, Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee; The rowan berries cluster o'er her low head, gray and dim, In ruddy kisses sweet ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... it is absurd for a staid old matron like myself to be jealous, really jealous, at seeing a child like you being consumed alive by a lot of simpering misses in pink and blue chiffon pinafores, who ought to be in their nursery cots asleep, but I have been and am, boy. Did you forget that I was your oldest friend while Sue Tomlinson ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... before, and after this long interval and all the trouble things were not likely to go easier with her. I know the old doctor, who was kind and fatherly, and had been full of sorrow about Katie, seemed vexed at the new turn of affairs. I heard him telling a matron much in his confidence that he wouldn't answer for ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... We have only been a short time together on each occasion, yet have continued our acquaintance on four continents, many months intervening between each meeting. There was a great hullabaloo in my ward when the matron came in and found my bed empty. When she discovered where I was, she said: "Who gave you permission to come in here?" I replied: "No one said I was not to!" And anyway the pleasure was worth the commission of the crime! That morning I was again picked ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... aged matron, seeing the discontent of some of the citizens, while a stately convent was burnt by the multitude,— "why mourn ye for its destruction? If you knew half the flagitious wickedness which has been perpetrated within that house, you ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott |
