United States or Kiribati ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I have heard that they always dress for dinner on the big Cunard and White Star boats, when it's good weather," she went on, placidly. "I shouldn't want those people to think you were not up in the convenances." They both knew that she meant the reticent father and daughter, and March flung out, "I shouldn't want them to think you weren't. There's such a thing as overdoing."
Having a full purse, she could humor every occasion with a change of gown; being possessed of good taste, her toilets never offended; desiring to look pleasing, as every woman should, she studied what was becoming; having a mother to whom a good toilet was one of the most pressing convenances, and who delighted in planning beautiful gowns for her beautiful daughter, there was nothing lacking to prevent Ruth from being well-dressed.
"Yet being the correct thing to do, and knowing what a stickler you are for les convenances, Edith, you will still permit me humbly to offer them. It is a most suitable match; I congratulate Sir Victor on his excellent taste and judgment. He is the best fellow alive, and you I will say it, though you are my cousin will be a bride even a baronet may be proud of.
You may imagine my amusement, but presently I was destined to shock something much more serious than poor Israel's sense of les convénances et bienséances, and it was not without something of an effort that I made up my mind to do so.
That girl with a peasant-nun’s face had never seen the inside of a house other than some half-ruined caserio in her native hills. I pointed out to her that this was not a matter of splendour or comfort but of “convenances.” She pricked up her ears at that word which probably she had never heard before; but with woman’s uncanny intuition I believe she understood perfectly what I meant.
For Stanley on the frontier of Darkest Africa, Scott on the ice rim of the Beardmore Glacier, had before them positions and districts simple in comparison to those that now fronted Jones, who had before him the Western and South Western London Districts, with all they contained in the way of natives in top hats, natives painted and powdered, tribes with tribal laws of which he knew little, tricks of which he knew less, convenances, ju-pu's and fetishes.
He pictured the love-light in her eyes; for surely she was dreaming of him, as he of her. He took out his watch the time was twenty to nine. After all, would it be so outrageous to call? He went away twice. The third time, defying the convenances, he knocked at the door, his heart beating almost as loudly.
She "did not feel like dancing," and told her hostess "she would rather sit still." My young friend had a severe headache, but, although suffering, his appreciation of les convenances would not allow him to sit down in a secluded niche for fifteen minutes, during the entire evening.
I lost my self-possession; I should have checked his folly; he knows nothing of les convenances. He has hurt my hand, he is so rough; I feel his clutch now; there, I thought so, it is all red poor fellow! Nonsense! he is a sailor; he knows nothing of the world and its customs. Parting with a pleasant acquaintance forever made him a little sad.
One of the most remarkable sights of the Siege was, not the gravity of doctors, lawyers, directors, etc., presenting tickets for soup that was piquant enough but the number of young ladies, votaries of fashion, who emerged from the melee bedraggled and flushed with their pails of nectar, to all appearances not only forgetful of the convenances, but beaming with smiles of triumph.
Word Of The Day