ill-darned

Updated: June 22, 2025

Her hair had fallen and blew across her streaming face in brown witch-wisps; one of the ill-darned stockings had come down and hung about her shoe in folds full of snow; the arm which had lost its sleeve was bare and wet; thin as the arm of a growing boy, it shook convulsively, and was red from shoulder to clinched fist. She was covered with snow.

Booth Tarkington - The Conquest of Canaan

You observe things very much out of place frills and ruffles and ill-darned stockings fine bonnets and clouted shoes silk gowns and dirty petticoats; while the husband goes about ragged and torn, with scarcely a clean thing about him. Industry is of course essential. This is the soul of business; but, without method, industry will be less productive. Industry may sometimes look like confusion.

Samuel Smiles - Thrift