"Ladylike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she said, "he's a mean, old brute, but don't you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel my contract in a perfectly refined an' ladylike manner. Right now I start in bantin' and dietin' in the scientific-est manner an' the way I can lose three or four hundred pounds when I set out to do it is something grand. It won't be no time at all until I'm thin and wisp-like, an' Mr. Dorgan ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... was the Van Horne girl's "uncle." It hardly seemed possible that she, who appeared so refined and ladylike when he met her at the parsonage, should be a member of that curious company. When he rose to speak he had seen her in the front row, beside the thin, middle-aged female who had entered the chapel with Captain Hammond and with her. She was looking at ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... impatiently away. He had seldom been more perturbed. He sat with folded arms and knitted brows, thinking intently. The girl had told him distinctly that her name was Anna. Her whole conduct and tone had been modest and ladylike. He went over his interview with her again, their conversation at dinner-time. She had behaved in every way perfectly. His spirits began to rise. Drummond had made an abominable mistake. It was not possible for him to have been deceived. He drew ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been flung into a filthy cell with a lot of other poor wretches as if I were a sack of coals being emptied into a cellar. And the only difference between me and the others was that I hit back. Yes I did. And I did worse. I wasnt ladylike. I cursed. I called names. I heard words that I didnt even know that I knew, coming out of my mouth just as if somebody else had spoken them. The policeman repeated them in court. The magistrate said he could hardly believe it. The policeman held out his hand with ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... Worth's most fashionable dresses—trailing silk and rich velvet, so skillfully intermixed with the most exquisite taste; a lace bonnet that seemed to crown the rippling hair; pearl-gray gloves that might have grown on the white hands. Her dress was simply perfect; it was at once elegant and ladylike, rich and costly. ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... causing me to be on the alert for quarters, I espied a rather pretentious homestead, cosily placed in a natural shelter half-way up the hillside. This proved to be Mr. Edward Henty's. He was not at home, but Mrs. Henty happily was. Young, ladylike, beautiful, she received me with that high courtesy which sets one at once at ease by the flattering impression that in these squatting solitudes it is rather the visited than the visitors who are the obliged parties. Ten years later I, with ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... failing in some ladylike requirements, as the storekeeper's wife had indicated, and also came to visit her new neighbour in a homespun suit, the very antipodes of Mrs. Zack's attire of many colours, yet her loud cheery voice and sensible face—with a possible friendship in it—were ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... a look of obvious scorn, although her costume was as ladylike as their own. For my part, I could not take my eyes off these two creatures; they captivated me like incomprehensible things that one never had seen before. Their fragile bodies, outlandishly graceful in posture, are lost in stiff materials and redundant ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... this very attentively, and then continued: "Your brother wants you to go back to your Family. His last words to me about it were that if you could manage to be ladylike for three years or the duration of War, at the end of that time he and you would go and live by your two selves in New Zealand, and if you liked you need wear no skirts at all there, but riding breeches all ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... Weller was called, and in ladylike tones She described all the injury suffered from Jones, How he called her at first "Angelina," and this Soon cooled to "Miss Weller," and lastly ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... her, that her soul was still asleep and untouched, and that much of her reliance and independence came from that. Uncle Ivan was in his smart clothes, his round face very red and he wore his air of rather ladylike but inoffensive superiority. He stood near the table with the "Zakuska," and his eyes rested there. I do not now remember many of the Markovitch and Semyonov relations. There was a tall thin young man, rather bald, with a short black moustache; he was nervous and self-assertive, and he had a high, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... ease with her. She seldom read anything but the Bible, sermons, and the newspaper. She was very sincere and devout in her religion, and was remarkable for good sense and great strength of expression in writing and conversation. Though by no means pretty, she was exceedingly distinguished and ladylike both in ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of their sort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though she had not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good training from the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, and has a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she not so dislike the ways of an inn, and have such fear of the men that gaze on ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of Halifax are pretty, generally speaking, and certainly rather ladylike in their manners, but not very accomplished, but there is one thing very formidable in their structure, which is tremendous hoofs, so that a kick from one of them would make you keep your bed for a ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... died of decline at nineteen; while I, though not able to compare shapes with a wasp or an hour-glass, yet passed muster very fairly among mere human forms of God's moulding; and I have enjoyed to this hour a rare exemption from headaches, and other ladylike maladies, that appear the almost exclusive privilege of women in the ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... there a Mrs Green, whose husband was first-lieutenant on board a man-of-war on the West Indian Station. Mrs Green was a quiet, ladylike little woman, rather pretty, very silent, and, as one would have thought, hardly adapted for the special intimacy of Mrs Greenow. But Mrs Greenow had found out that she was alone, not very rich, and in want of the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... because the Pea would not come to Perfection, he could hardly have had such an ideal as yours. Your intended niece is much like the 'not impossible she' of a youth under twenty. One comfort is that such is the blindness of your kind that you will imagine all these charms in whatever good, ladylike, simple-hearted girl I pitch upon, and such I am sure I shall find all my nieces. The only difficulty will be in deciding, and that will be fixed by details of style, and the parents' willingness ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great things, they say-ladylike, but frightened. Her voice is lovely, and as to her looks-people rave about them. Tell me, she is not Lady Travis ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... answered I, rather slily; for I was thinking all the while how "Somebody" was a thousand times more beautiful, simple, and ladylike. ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out of the yard in his sleigh, she hopped in beside him and led the heaving mustang back into the woods. Of course she did not look ladylike at all, and not another girl at Briarwood would have done it. But even the English teacher—who was a prude—never ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... Miss Philura's manner, that any one should question any act of hers. "As I stated before," she said, coldly, "I had the best of reasons. Surely, if I with my conservative ideas can endorse them, that ought to be enough. There are not two more ladylike girls in the South than Travis Dent and Mary Lee Marker. I hope you will find one another agreeable during the little ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Brassington? Rosy Webb she was, daughter of Webb the squatter. Rosy was the brightest, best, good-heartedest, an' most ladylike little girl in the district, an' the heriditry business come on her in Sydney, about a week after she was married to young Brassington. She was only twenty. Here—" He ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... out of the case. When tucked away inside the case a little flirt of the hand, a turn of the wrist, will throw them out and they can be lifted to a piquant little nose in the most approved and fine-ladylike fashion. ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... his father shortly, "I have no doubt it is pleasant to look on; but is it not rather too ladylike a pursuit ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... ewe, cow; lioness, tigress; vixen. gynecaeum^. estrogen, oestrogen. consanguinity &c 166 [Female relatives], paternity &c 11. lesbian, dyke [Slang]. V. feminize. Adj. female, she-; feminine, womanly, ladylike, matronly, maidenly, wifely; womanish, effeminate, unmanly; gynecic^, gynaecic^. Pron. she, her, hers.' Phr. a perfect woman nobly planned [Wordsworth]; a lovely lady garmented in white [Shelley]; das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... or something and saved a little money. Well, I never worked for my livin'. It wasn't considered ladylike ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... a chestnut mare, a broken down racer, thorough-bred as Beeswing, but less fortunate in her life, and I fear not so happy occasione mortis: unlike the Duchess, her body was greater and finer than her soul; still she was a ladylike creature, sleek, slim, nervous, meek, willing, and fleet. She had been thrown down by some brutal half-drunk Forfarshire laird, when he put her wildly and with her wind gone, at the last hurdle on the North Inch at the Perth races. She was done for and bought for ten pounds by the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... "perhaps you may be able to some day. Don't forget her name, Celeste Archimbault; she is slight in figure, graceful in her carriage, ladylike in her manners. She has dark hair, large, dreamy black eyes, with a hidden sorrow in them; in fact, a very handsome brunette. Here is my card, Mr. Sawyer. I will write my London address on it, and if you ever hear of her, cable me ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... whether he is referring to an animate or inanimate thing, has landed me in many a dilemma, and his foolishness in not having a male and female gender in his languages amounts to a nuisance. For example, I am a most ladylike old person and yet get constantly called "Sir." The other day, circumstances having got beyond my control during the afternoon, I arrived in the evening in a saturated condition at a white settlement, and wishing to get ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... a plain blouse and skirt, exhibited no trace of nervousness in the presence of her aristocratic and fashionable caller. Indeed, Mollie afterwards declared that "she was quite a ladylike person. But rather ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... to be babies to be ladylike," added Bert. "Nan always plays ball with me, and can skate and all that. She's not afraid of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... sweet-faced and of graceful form, who has just come out of the cabin and joined the youth, to all appearance asking some question about Chester himself, as her eyes are turned shoreward after him. At the same time a middle-aged ladylike woman shows herself at the head of the companion-ladder, and seems interested ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... father and I never failed to take our morning constitutional together when all was well. Father always gave me the dubious compliment of saying I walked as straight and took as long strides as a boy. Being a great lover of the exercise, I was sorry my pas was not ladylike." ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... permitted a gentleman, but if I had had the very lovely lorgnette that has descended to me from my Great Grandmamma, the wife of the old Flanders grandsire, I would have settled the matter with very little trouble in an entirely ladylike manner. As it was, I did not know what to do but stand and then stand longer. Just at the moment when I began to feel that I would either be forced to forget that I was a gentleman or to faint as a lady, a very nice man touched me ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... it the Rayleighs of Borley Castle, we know them very well; or the Manbys of Flixley Abbey, delightful people, we are quite intimate with them; or the Sundridges of Fairley Manor, there are no pleasanter people in the world—so good, so ladylike, and yet they say Mrs Sundridge's father was something very low, a Calcutta merchant, or India director, or something of that sort. Is it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... to the enjoyment of our friends, and stimulated them to increased vigor in their aquatic flirtations. Alone, unintroduced, melancholy, and a little sheepish, we hired towels at two cents each from the ladylike and obliging colored person who superintended the bath-house, and, withdrawing to the friendly shelter of distance, dropped our clothes upon the sand, and hid our envy and insignificance in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... into the library and conversed, with every conventional flourish, until Amelia set the pace of retirement by a ladylike yawn. But she had a word to say before parting, reserved perhaps to the last because she found herself doubtful of Raven's response. If she had to be snubbed she could simply keep on her way out ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... who brings this with herself back has given every possible satisfaction in doing her work, etc., but the fact is the poor girl is oppressed with a ladylike melancholy, and cannot bear to be so much alone, as she necessarily must be in our kitchen, which to say the truth is damn'd solitary, where she can see nothing and converse with nothing and not even look out of window. The consequence is she has been caught shedding ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... enormous hoop. The corsage was cut somewhat low, revealing plump shoulders and bust. She wore golden bracelets. Her hair was combed low about the ears. She evidently was much gratified over the nomination, but was perfectly ladylike in ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... years of age, the management also offers one hundred dollars to every maiden, "without regard to color of skin," who will dare to compete and wrest the palm of beauty from this "Aerial Angel." The maidens of Anaheim, both great and small, make grimaces on reading this, and say that it would not be ladylike to enter such a contest. Nevertheless they gladly surrender the comfort of their rocking chairs rather than miss the show and the chance of seeing their childish rival, in whose beauty, in comparison with the sisters Bimpa, for instance, none of ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... McCausland wrote that she was 'thoroughly conscientious, tidy, companionable, and ladylike. I am very sorry to part with her, and shall always be ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Ruth won't let me 'hoo-hoo' from the window to Neale for him to come and take my books. Says it isn't ladylike, and that I am too old for such tomboy tricks. So," and the roguish beauty whispered this, "I am under the necessity of climbing the back fence into Mr. Con Murphy's yard to get at Neale," and she ran off to put this threat ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have perceived in New York or London) a thick streak of Main Street. The cautious dullness of a Gopher Prairie appeared in boarding-houses where ladylike bureau-clerks gossiped to polite young army officers about the movies; a thousand Sam Clarks and a few Widow Bogarts were to be identified in the Sunday motor procession, in theater parties, and at the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... that. I don't like any of them—as far as I've gone. Except you. Out where I come from—at Rose Ranch—there are plenty of Mexican girls and Indian girls who are much more ladylike than this crowd. Why! these girls ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... if Nedda were here it would be a distraction. She was a very good child, and quite useful in the house. And while she was speaking she watched Kirsteen, and thought: 'She is very handsome, and altogether ladylike; only it is such a pity she wears that blue thing in her hair—it makes her so conspicuous.' And rather ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "That's sayin' it ladylike," grinned the outlaw, "I told him Cinnabar was a friend of mine an' he was to keep off him, but Purdy, he's plumb disregardful of advice. Anyways, the woman's safe. Purdy's figurin' on leavin' her there while he dickers ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... beginning to find out that a young lady ought to be ladylike,' said Lady Maulevrier; 'and now, my dear, you may go. I was only joking with you. Mr. Hammond would be no match for any granddaughter of mine. He is nobody, and has neither friends nor interest. If he had gone into the church Maulevrier could have helped ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... word first. "Pretty," she said, "but not in a ministerial way, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't call her ladylike." ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... when I tell you," said the first speaker, "that the lark, who was so timid and ladylike, has become an insolent ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... has been said of the outward appearance of Ruth Patton. Notwithstanding her anxious face she was unusually pretty, and her manners were refined and ladylike. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... general thoroughfare. Here, in due time, she was brought to bed of a daughter, whom she christened by the name of Virginia; not so much out of respect to her last mistress, who bore that name, as because she considered it peculiarly ladylike and genteel. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... firm; they said, as one fared all should fare; and the Town Clerk, going up and down with smooth words, received no better answer than this from the Judge's wife, who, it must be confessed, was less ladylike in language than ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of cards malignantly ordained that Miss Mapp was ejected, it was only reasonable to expect that after her magnanimity to the United Services, either Major Benjy or Captain Puffin would be so obdurate in his insistence that she must play instead of him, that it would be only ladylike to yield. ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... to go! Her mother had fallen under the influence of Presbury—her mother, woman-like, or rather, ladylike, was of kin to the helpless, flabby things that float in the sea and attach themselves to whatever they happen to lodge against. Her mother wished ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... the elderly society ladies wore immense headgears like turbans, with sometimes one or two marabou feathers, which were considered extremely elegant. But Miss Recompense kept to her small rather plain cap, and looked very ladylike, quite fit to do the honors of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... their history matters to us," observed Patsy. "I like to take folks as I find them, without regard to their antecedents or finances. Certainly those Stanton girls are wonderfully attractive and ladylike." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... scrubwoman. Well?" she demanded fiercely, stung by something in his look, "what did you think I'd been? When a girl is left alone with a baby brother to care for, she can't wait and pick and choose work that is nice and ladylike; she must take what comes along or starve—so I worked. I used to scrub floors and stairs in an office building. I was very young then, and Arthur hardly more than a baby, and it was either that or starvation or—" she flushed painfully, but her blue eyes ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... the vigilant eyes of prejudice, not to say hatred. That a young lady so well brought up as Miss Granger—so thoroughly grounded in Kings and Chronicles—should entertain the vulgar passion of hate, seemed quite out of the question; but so far as a ladylike aversion may go, Miss Granger certainly went in relation to her step-mother. In this she was sustained by that model damsel Hannah Warman, who, not having made much progress in Mrs. Granger's liking, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... gentle and ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted; and it became impossible to utter the speech, so easy of arrangement with no one to address it to. Margaret's low rich voice was softer than usual; her manner more gracious, because in her heart she was feeling very grateful to Mrs. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... up a fancy name and make a repertation. They ain't goin' to call me 'Dusty Gudgeon' no more. Miss Louder tells me I can 'bant'—whatever that is—to take down my flesh, and mebbe you'll see me some day, Miss Lou, in a re'l ladylike part. An' I can always cry. Even Mr. Bane says I'm wuth my wages when it ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... then, just as the bell from St. Mark's gave forth its last note, and her husband's impatience was oozing out in sundry little oaths, sworn under his breath, she produced and fitted on her fat, white hands a new pair of Alexander's, keeping herself as cool, and quiet, and ladylike as if outside upon the graveled walk there was no wrathful husband threatening to drive off and leave her, if she did not "quit her cussed vanity, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... however, still possess one thing which they cannot yet destroy—the good constitution and the rosy look derived from ancestors whose days were spent in the field under the glorious sunshine and the dews of heaven. They worry themselves about it in secret and wish they could appear more ladylike—i.e. thin and white. Nor can they feel quite so languid and indifferent, and blase as they desire. Thank Heaven they cannot! But they have succeeded in obliterating the faintest trace of character, and ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... already made up. I'm going to jump at your offer, but I think it more ladylike to pretend a mild reluctance. What are you going ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... was signed 'Billy.' They took her for a boy, naturally, and after something of a struggle they agreed to let 'him' come. For his particular delectation they fixed up a room next to Bertram with guns and fishing rods, and such ladylike specialties; and William went to the station to ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... that fall. At the second meeting, in the Barry parlor, Oliver Sloane moved that they start a subscription to re-shingle and paint the hall; Julia Bell seconded it, with an uneasy feeling that she was doing something not exactly ladylike. Gilbert put the motion, it was carried unanimously, and Anne gravely recorded it in her minutes. The next thing was to appoint a committee, and Gertie Pye, determined not to let Julia Bell carry off all the laurels, boldly moved that Miss ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tyste," Miss Walbrook continued, sipping with a soft siffling noise in the way he considered to be ladylike. "Them that 'as drunk tea with their mother's milk, as you might sye, 'll tyke cream and sugar, one or both; but them that 'as picked up the 'abit in lyter life 'll ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... admiration, but a very weak one of criticism.... I am pleased that you cannot quite decide whether I am an attorney's clerk or a novel-reading dressmaker. I will not help you at all in the discovery; and as to my handwriting, or the ladylike touches in my style and imagery, you must not draw any conclusion from that—I may employ an amanuensis. Seriously, sir, I am very much obliged to you for your kind and candid letter. I almost wonder you took the trouble to read and notice the novelette ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... an hour almost as motionless as before a photographer's lens. I could see she had been photographed often, but somehow the very habit that made her good for that purpose unfitted her for mine. At first I was extremely pleased with her ladylike air, and it was a satisfaction, on coming to follow her lines, to see how good they were and how far they could lead the pencil. But after a little skirmishing I began to find her too insurmountably stiff; do what I would with it my drawing looked like a photograph or a ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... right,' with an approving nod; 'you look ever so much nicer and younger when you smile. Well, what did the prime minister say? Was she very gushing and sympathetic? Did she patronise you in a ladylike way, and pat you on the head metaphorically, until you felt ready to box her ears? Ah! I know ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the colour element of vice is so oddly lacking in our life of to-day. We appear, one and all, to have been born at an advanced age and with ladylike manners, and we reach our years of indiscretion very slowly; and meanwhile we learn, too late, that prolonged adherence to morality trivialises the mind as hopelessly as a prolonged vice trivialises the countenance. I fear this has been said by someone else, my too impetuous ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... idea or two," and Jet uttered aloud a dozen or so crackling syllables that sounded as though they could have been ladylike profanity. Whatever they were, Byuk jumped, too, and tuned in ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... for a good while and I still possess her letters somewhere; I see in memory that large and bold handwriting, often only two words to a line, on the high-class slate-coloured paper. The sums she spent on writing materials! It was one of her many ladylike traits. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Rueda.' I saddled, therefore, my mule; loaded her with a very few books and still fewer sticks of furniture; more frugal even than Juvenal's friend Umbricius, cui tota domus redo, componitur una. On my road, and almost under the shadow of this rock, my mule shied in the most ladylike fashion at sight of a redcoat prostrate in the dust. The rest you can guess: but assuredly I did not guess at the time that I had happened on one whose story will—if ever God restores me to my University—so illustrate my lectures ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... captain of her then and I know it. Well, your father bought her, and your mother threw a bottle of fine old port over her bow, and called her the Martha Hatton, and she has been a different ship ever since—ladylike and respectable, no more butting of the waves, as if she was a ram; she lifts herself on and over them and goes curtseying into harbor ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... eyes that are blue as the seas; And you hear an occasional "Harry, don't tease" From the sweetest of lips in the softest of keys, And other remarks, which to me are Chinese. And fast the time flees; till a ladylike sneeze, Or a portly papa's more elaborate wheeze, Makes Miss Tabitha seize on her brown muffatees, And announce as a fact that it's going to freeze, And that young people ought to attend to their Ps And their Qs, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... little grooved lines into which they were put, and I hastened to take out the brass plate and set them in parallel lines. I gave up then for the day, but, as they looked well and were certainly in firmly, I did not consider that I had made an entire failure. I thought it nice ladylike work to manage such slight threads and turn such delicate screws; but fine as are the hairs of one's head, I shall seek something finer, for I can see how clumsy they will appear when I get on the eyepiece and magnify their imperfections. They look parallel ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... dignified manner had kept off a kiss, not knowing that Miss Hacket was far too ladylike to be over-familiar, and that there was no need to put on ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the garden and touched all the posies with her fingers, as if she was shaking hands, and all of a sudden it seemed, by her talk, as if her dead were back with her again; and on every other point she's been as clear and ladylike as possible ever since, and from that day she cast off her black clothes as if wearing 'em was all through ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... went on talking with a pretty ladylike childishness, till finding herself unable to make out the whole, and vexed at her own ingratitude in destroying such sweet and loving words, as she called them, she wrote a much kinder letter to Proteus than she had ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... had a basis of sensible practical education, surmounted and adorned by ladylike accomplishments which she had neither time nor inclination to indulge in her married life. Not only was she skilled in the languages and in such higher studies as astronomy, but in mathematics also; and this last qualification made her for thirty-four years an invaluable help to her ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... said precisely, "that you will not continue to call your daughter by such an absurd abbreviation. That sort of thing was all very well in the wilds of Ireland, but here we must have something rational, ladylike, and recognised." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... technical terms; she smiled a little uneasily over the dinner party at the rectory, feeling a bit guilty that she should find matter for mirth in the precise and dainty entertainment offered impartially by the gentle rector and his ladylike maiden sisters; and she was frankly disturbed by the careless fashion of treating the attack of measles which had disbanded the house party ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... delighted. Robots that would answer when she spoke to them were a lot more companionable. She didn't seem to think, however, that Sylvie's mechanical skills were ladylike accomplishments. Nice girls, Litchfield model, weren't quite so handy with a spot-welder. That was what Conn liked about Sylvie; she was like the girls he'd known ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... frightened, and he always did gobble, and turned purple with rage, and swelled out all his feathers, and shook a loose scarlet thing which hung down from his neck. They met him to-day, marching at the head of his ladylike wives, who followed him delicately, picking their way and lifting their feet high. Their small heads and quietly elegant toilets made them look rather like Aunt ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... is that they are sometimes almost alive. Stupidity, ignorance, and incompetence, craven submissiveness or insipid resignation, he did not commend in women: on the contrary, intellect, wit, gaiety, spirit, and even a first in the Classical Tripos seemed or would have seemed desirable and ladylike attributes to the creator of Anthelia Melincourt and Morgana Gryll. What was called "womanliness" in the forties displeased him; but he liked women to be feminine, and knew that distinguished women have ever ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... jes' scoopin' up meat and 'taters and grabbin' cornpone right and left. Miss Cornelia don't say a word, jes' smile sweet as honey-cake. I reckon dem sojers might a took de silver and sech only she charm 'em by bein' so quiet and ladylike. First thing you know dem sojers curtsy to Missy and take dereself right out de door and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... gentle and the lofty, of tenderness and independence, she had never ceased to be the Northwold standard of the 'real lady,' too mild and gracious to be regarded as proud and poor, and yet too dignified for any liberty to be attempted, her only fault, that touch of pride, so ladylike and refined that it was kept out of sight, and never offended, and everything else so sweet and winning that there was scarcely a being who did not love, as well as honour her, for the cheerfulness and resignation that had borne her through ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... morning about one of your Suffragettes standing on the roof of a town hall and behaving as a wild cat would think shame to, skirling at Mr. Asquith through a skylight and throwing slates at the polis that came to fetch her. Aw, verra nice, verra ladylike, I'm sure." ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... with a rein end and went on slowly. "Robbing a bank would be the quickest and easiest," she decided whimsically, as she neared the place where she always sheltered Pard. "But not so ladylike. I guess I'll write a book. It should be something real thrilly, so the people will rush madly to all the bookstores to buy it. It should have a beautiful girl, and at least two handsome men,—one with all the human virtues, and the other with ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... any longer. He seemed to think that a very unnecessary remark, and I realized he liked Elizabeth's kind better. She would never have dreamed of telling him his business needed attention. Elizabeth is the Admired and Honored type of Womanhood which does not think it is ladylike to have knowledge of ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... had married in Sydney, and from their past knowledge of his character expected to see a loudly-attired Melbourne or Sydney barmaid with peroxided hair, and person profusely adorned with obtrusive jewelry. Instead of this they beheld a tall, ladylike girl with a cold, refined face, and an equally cold ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... had a pretty shrewd idea what our cousin was going to do. You see, I was listening at the door. Not a very ladylike thing to do, but one must fight Henson with his own tools. When I heard him ask for the telephone directory I ran out and nipped one of the wires by the bathroom. Frank, it would have been far wiser if ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... following morning, and Jim had been roaming about the grounds when Aurora came in. At first he had seemed disinclined to be affable, for her actions on Dorothy's houseboat had been anything but ladylike, until, like many another young girl, she had been taught a lesson; but he decided to be civil for ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it can be extremely effective. David's head ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... children. In the meantime, our jolly pedlar, having caught a glimpse of Mrs. Temple at the parlor window, presented himself, and begged to know if she were inclined to make any purchases. She nodded him a gentle and ladylike refusal, upon which he changed his ground, and said, "Maybe, ma'am, if you're not disposed to buy, that you'd have something you'd like to part wid. If you have, ma'am, bad cess to the purtier purchaser you'd meet wid—shawls or trinkets, or anything that way—I mane, ma'am," ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think last winter was so really good," she went on; "I should be sorry to break up what that ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... afraid you do not suit me, as I am looking for an elderly person. You see, I want an experienced maid who knows all the usual duties of the office.' She was going to add, 'Though I like your appearance,' but the words seemed offensive to apply to the ladylike girl before her, and she modified them to, 'though I ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... stop that kind of talk if you are going to be a friend of mine," counseled Dorothy. "I cannot be considered your friend if you will not be—ladylike—" ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... yet, simple though it was. If the sight of her had brought back the past, what thronging memories crowded upon him at the sound of her voice—wooing, wilful, joyously insistent! But that she was so womanly and ladylike, and that he knew she was "only the sec'tary," he would have been ready to advance upon her with outstretched hands, and ask her if she had quite forgotten Tommy Dudgeon—her old friend, Tommy? As it was, he stood staring like ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... is too humiliating to write!—I felt my cheeks get crimson at the mention of Lord Robert's name. What could she have thought? Can anything be so young-ladylike ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... goddess, Damaris, the ladylike, almost finished product of Onslow House, sprang straight at the man, smote him with the flat of the hand upon the face, and pounced upon the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... now, nor angry, nor forward. She was quiet and ladylike, while in the house of one of the most gentlemanly men of his time. If her husband had looked at her, he would have seen her so much like the woman he wooed and once dearly loved, that he might have somewhat changed his feelings towards her. ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... wiped his face with a ladylike handkerchief in memory of his danger and gratitude, ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... ourselves over a glass of punch or a dish of tea. Nor are we destitute of friends, who visit us in these shades of distress. The major has a numerous acquaintance of both sexes; among others, a first cousin of good fortune, who, with her daughters, often cheer our solitude; she is a very sensible ladylike gentlewoman, and the young ladies have a certain degagee air, that plainly shows they have seen the best company. Besides, I will venture to recommend Mrs. Minikin as a woman of tolerable breeding and capacity, who, I hope, will not be found altogether deficient in the accomplishments ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... that in the old house these latter were nowhere parallel. But her chief occupation was to prevent the children crossing their legs when they sat down, or pulling their dresses lower, with a whispered, 'You must not cross your legs like that; it isn't ladylike, dear.' ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... of the lady's repartee to quote exact; for the rest wa'n't strictly ladylike. And the more Alvin tries to convince her how sorry he is, the livelier she cuts loose with her tongue, until a crowd collects to ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... commonly wrap themselves in their cloaks, and so rest. As soon as our horses were ready, we rode on to Mata Paciencia, the engenho of Dona Mariana, the eldest daughter of the Baroness de Campos, and to whom we had a letter of introduction. Here we met with a most polite reception from a handsome ladylike woman, whom we found attending to her engenho, which is indeed an interesting one. We were received at first by the chaplain, a polite and well-informed person; and with him was the chaplain of Santa Cruz, who having been formerly a professor in the college at Rio, is commonly known ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... were like her, and in the shelter of their opinions and ideals. She did not contemn or exclude the people who were unlike her, but she had never had any more contact with them than she now had with the weather of the streets, as she sat, filling her large arm-chair full of her ladylike correctness, in the library of the handsome house her father had left her. The irruption of her brother's son and daughter into its cloistered quiet had scarcely broken its invulnerable order. It was right and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lived in comfort and joy, and in the exercise of great intellectual power. So I left her to dream as she pleased about the treasures of Shakespeare's tombstone, and to form whatever designs might seem good to herself for obtaining possession of them. I was sensible of a ladylike feeling of propriety in Miss Bacon, and a New England orderliness in her character, and, in spite of her bewilderment, a sturdy common-sense, which I trusted would begin to operate at the right time, and keep her from any actual extravagance. And as regarded this matter ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shielded, no matter what his social position or how beautiful his daughter, who might possibly have caused the death of the pleasant-mannered and ladylike woman fated now to remain for ever a tragic ghost in the memory of one who had dwelt under the same roof with her ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... am talking nonsense with Little Handsome, I hear her amusing my good aunty, and I catch a few words, her utterance having a peculiar distinctness, and the lowest tones being fine and clear, like those of a good singer on a pianissimo strain. It is a peculiarly ladylike articulation; was she born and bred in Ratborough, I wonder? She never speaks while we are singing. Does she like music, then? I asked her once, but what sort of answer is "Yes!" to such a question? And ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... strange inconsistencies around us," returned the Count. "You have, however, mistaken the character of this particular mother, for she was the reverse of masculine, being delicate, and tender-hearted, and refined, and ladylike, while her boy was bold as a lion—yet obedient and gentle to her as a lamb. He afterwards became a soldier, and on the occasion of a wild storm on the east coast of England he swam off to a wreck with a rope, when no man in the place could be got to do it for love or money, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... ribbons, a small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin shoes, and open-worked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers, and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her hand—all quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss J'mima Ivins and Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and a dress-cane, with a gilt knob at the top, to the admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest Miss ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... first victim. She was too ladylike in her deportment, too quiet and silent in her ways. She was ousted from her low rocker and favorite window, deprived of her needle, which had in some sort become a life-companion, and made to do all sorts of drudgery; no settled ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... thinks 'twas a great thing for our family to have a family like theirs next place to. Well—so 'twas, for we've had no time for the things their family was brought up on. Old Mrs Fejevary (with her shrewd smile)—she weren't stuck up—but she did have an awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks—oh, my son has all kinds of notions—though a harder worker never found his ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... sentimental fool of a mother, had none, Oh! she had a vast fund of ordinary commonsense. Of that I can assure you. A bit of hard brain fibre from her father had counteracted any over-sentimental folly in the maternal heritage. And she came back from school a very ladylike little person. If pressed, she could reel off all kinds of artificial scraps of knowledge, like a dear little parrot. But she had never heard of Karl Marx and didn't want to hear. She had a vague notion that International Socialism was a movement in favour ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... fail in their attempts to launch their children successfully. Sometimes they attempt unwisely to thrust a child into an occupation merely because "it is ladylike," or the "vacation is long," or "the pay is good," regardless of the child's aptitude or limitations. Quite often they await inspiration in the form of some revelation of the child's desires, regardless of the demand of society for such service as the child ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson |
