Pencil Sketches; or, Outlines of Character and Manners

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"No, indeed--why should I--I always go when I am asked--to be sure I can't make much figure at parties now, being in my seventy-fifth year. But Mrs. Howks and Mrs. Himes, and se...

"What you say, miss, is very true," said Aunt Quimby, leaning in her turn across Mr. Montague, "and, considering how young you are, you talk very sensibly. Men certainly have a...

"Oh!" soliloquized Mrs. Marsden, "what a pity this unaccountable note was not dropped and lost in the street. But then, of course some one would have found and read it, and that...

We will pass over the intervening days by saying, that the preparations for the picnic party were duly and successfully made: the arrangement of the ground being undertaken by C...

"Richard--he must have been one of the second wife's children. Oh! I remember seeing him about when he was a little boy. He had a curly head, and on week days generally wore a g...

"Oh! Billy Blake was a painter and glazier both," resumed Mrs. Quimby; "I remember him as well as if he was my own brother. We always sent for him to mend our broken windows. I...

Like most seamen when on shore, he was singularly neat in his dress. He wore, all the year round, a huge blue coat, immense blue trowsers, and a white waistcoat of ample dimensi...

"I for one," replied Uncle Philip, "_I_ know that you will not; at least, you shall never go to France with my consent. No American woman goes to France, without coming home the...

"I will show you a finer," replied Madame Franchimeau; "see, I have brought with me my interesting _Bijou_"--and she called in an ugly little pug that had been scrambling about...

In the centre of the supper-table was a salad decorated with roses, and surrounded by four candles. The chief dish contained _blanquettes_ of veal; and the other viands were a _...

"Blinded them, rather," said Mrs. Clavering. "But for your own sake, let me advise you to give up this girl. No marriage, where there is so great a disparity of years, ever did...

"Exactly," responded Sunderland. "Parnassus looked like Butter Hill. Well, then--to be brief (as every man says when he suspects himself to be tedious), I sat up till one o'cloc...

The following day was the Fourth of July, and the next was the one fixed on by Mr. and Mrs. Ledbury for returning to New York. That morning, at the breakfast-table, the number o...

At length the wreath was finished--Mr. Gummage having only sketched it, and washed it, and given it the last touches. It was put into a splendid frame, and shown as Miss Mariann...

It is true that the present case was in reality no exigency at all; but Mrs. Brantley and her daughter seemed to consider it as such, from the one watching the clouds all day as...

A waiter with refreshments was now brought in, and handed round to the company. When it came to Pyam Dodge, he rose on his feet, and thanked the man for handing it to him; then,...

When she awoke from her dream, she saw the morning-star sparkling high in the east, and casting on the dark surface of the sea a line of light which seemed to mimic that of the...

"There is one way," said Aubrey Maitland, smiling and colouring, "by which we might have Miss Lovel to spend next winter in Boston, without any danger of offending her delicacy,...

"It will be time enough after tea," said Selina, who, like most young housekeepers, was somewhat in awe of her servants. When tea was over both in parlour and kitchen (and by th...

"On your part I only stipulate for a dish of rice always at dinner, black tea, 6 cigars per day, to be smoked by me without remark from you--newspapers, chess, and sundries. You...

"I have never seen a princess," replied Fitzsimmons, "but from what I have heard, few of them look in reality as a princess should. Neither, I think, does the word _chiselled_ a...

"Her delicacy," remarked the colonel, "may be more deeply offended by your delaying the disclosure. But we must separate for the present. If Miss Mandeville sees us talking toge...

"This is my daughter, Fanny," said Colonel Brigham, and Mr. Culpepper stopped short in his narrative, and his nephews all turned their eyes to look at her. When she handed the m...

Colonel Brigham left the room, and shortly after returned, conducting his wife, who was much flurried, and carried an enormously large pocket-book, worked in queen-stitch with c...

"Do come and look, aunt," said Caroline; "it is not the same party that passed a little while ago. I know it by the sergeant, who has darker hair and eyes than the other. This i...

"Very true, madam," persisted the major, "your sentiments are quite correct. All gentlemen should be polite to the fair sex, but officers particularly. Not that I would presume...

"For my part," said Caroline, "I have a presentiment that everything will go on well. We will all do _notre possible_ to look our very best; mamma will take care that the rooms...

Peter Jones, who proportioned all his expenses so as to keep an even balance, allowed himself and his wife to go once in the season to the theatre, and that was on the anniversa...

Previous to the last act of the melo-drama, a man belonging to the theatre came and called Mr. Dodcomb out of the box to ask him if he would be so obliging as to go on the stage...

There were indications of the last fire that had ever gladdened the hearth, the charred remains of an immense backlog, now half hidden beneath a luxuriant growth of the dusky an...

"_They_ have certainly changed for the worse," remarked Lindsay. "I remember the Newmans very well--a happy, homely family living in a long, low, red frame house, and having eve...

Now, when I heard Captain Santlow propose taking wine with him, I concluded that, of course, that gentleman must be visible in _propriâ personâ_, and, casting my eyes towards th...

Another of the steerage passengers was a lieutenant in the British army, a man about forty years old, of excellent education, polished manners, and a fine military deportment. H...

"We went to two other places," replied Cavender; "where nothing particular happened, except that at one of them the ladies threw flowers down to us. Afterwards, Dick Doubletongu...

Foremost came "The Baron of Mowbray" mounted on his "Arab Steed," and accompanied by a "Captive Knight" whom he had rescued from a Saracen prison, and I soon discovered that it...

Harriet's next sociable visit was to the two Miss Brandons, who had always appeared to her as very charming girls, and remarkable for their affectionate manner towards each othe...

"I determined," said she, "from the hour I first thought of housekeeping, that it should be my plan to have none but white servants. They are less wasteful than the blacks; less...

Presently our heroine met three sailors reeling along, evidently intoxicated, and singing loudly. She kept as close as possible to the curbstone, expecting nothing else than to...

With great difficulty I succeeded in expelling my fiendish visiters, and to prevent their return, there was nothing to be done but to close the sash. There were no shutters, and...

"As to that," answered Mrs. Bladen, "crape is crape, and bombazine is bombazine; and as everybody likes to have these articles of good quality, nothing otherwise is now imported...

Most of their friends dropped off, and the few that seemed disposed to continue their acquaintance with people whose extreme indigence was no secret, were so thoughtless as to m...