Apron Dress Quotes

The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet… From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, I fade, she was beginning. I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.

Gilded sin is so much more interesting than ragged sin,” she reflected. “Scandal dressed in ermine and purple is much more salacious than scandal in overalls or a kitchen apron.

If people had true knowledge of the world perhaps they would not take up arms and so perhaps he could be an aggregator of information from distant places and then the world would be a more peaceful place. He had been perfectly serious. That illusion had lasted from age forty-nine to age sixty-five. And then he had come to think that what people needed, at bottom, was not only information but tales of the remote, the mysterious, dressed up as hard information. And he, like a runner, immobile in his smeared printing apron bringing it to them. Then the listeners would for a small space of time drift away into a healing place like curative waters.

Live or die, but don't poison everything... Well, death's been here for a long time -- it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when they were made obscene by my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredient is mutilation. And mud, day after day, mud like a ritual, and the baby on the platter, cooked but still human, cooked also with little maggots, sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother, the damn bitch! Even so, I kept right on going on, a sort of human statement, lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off body in the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked, still killed. It was caught in the first place at birth, like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up, dressed it up like somebody's doll. Is life something you play? And all the time wanting to get rid of it? And further, everyone yelling at you to shut up. And no wonder! People don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with the hammer. Today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain! There was the sun, her yolk moving feverishly, tumbling her prize -- and you realize she does this daily! I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid, hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream, lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better, a husband straight as a redwood, two daughters, two sea urchings, picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows. And if I'm ice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes. Here, all along, thinking I was a killer, anointing myself daily with my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnastics they trust my incalculable city, my corruptible bed. O dearest three, I make a soft reply. The witch comes on and you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hood and the sun, the smart one, rolling in my arms. So I say Live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come, the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown, despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy! Despite the pails of water that waited, to drown them, to pull them down like stones, they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue and fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians, 3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree. I promise to love more if they come, because in spite of cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens, I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift, repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.

Slowly he took out the clothes in which, ten years beforem Cosette had left Montfermeil; first the little dress, then the black scarf, then the great heavy child's shoes Cosette could still almost have worn, so small was her foot, then the vest of very thich fustian, then the knitted petticoat, the the apron with pockets, then the wool stockings.... Then his venerable white head fell on the bed, this old stoical heart broke, his face was swallowed up, so to speak, in Cosette's clothes, and anybody who had passed along the staircase at that moment would have heard irrepressible sobbing.

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, learning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing.

Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if you think me in forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, God bless you!

The morning road air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on,

She was slender and dressed like an Edwardian maid, complete with a starched white bib apron over a full black skirt and white cotton blouse. Her face didn’t fit her outfit, being too long and sharp-boned, with black almond-shaped eyes. Despite her mob cap she wore her hair loose, a black curtain that fell to her waist. She instantly gave me the creeps and not just because I’ve seen too many Japanese horror films.

I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--white undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, "The Herr Englishman?" "Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker." She smiled, and gave some message

The women we become after children, she typed, then stopped to adjust the angle of the paper....We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair, We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, persoective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us. We live, We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet. We learn to look less in the mirror. We put our dry-clean-only clothes to the back of the wardrobe. Eventually we throw them away. We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above.' We give up smoking, we color our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming-pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind. We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry. We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours. We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls. We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold. We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

Maybe I could get a job in Colonial Williamsburg,” I say, trying to get into the spirit. “I could churn butter. Wear period garb. Like, a calico dress with an apron or whatever they wore in Colonial times. I’ve heard they’re not allowed to speak to each other in modern-day language, and kids are always trying to trip them up. That could be fun. The only thing is, I’m not sure if they hire Asian people because of historical accuracy…” “Lara Jean, we live in the time of Hamilton! Phillipa Soo is half-Chinese, remember? If she can play Eliza Hamilton, you can churn butter.

I had not yet been down to the cellar where I was to sleep. I took a candle with me but was too tired to look around beyond finding a bed, pillow and blanket. Leaving the trap door of the cellar open so that cool, fresh air could reach me, I took off my shoes, cap, apron and dress, prayed briefly, and lay down. I was about to blow out the candle when I noticed the painting hanging at the foot of my bed. I sat up, wide awake now. It was another picture of Christ on the Cross, smaller than the one upstairs but even more disturbing. Christ had thrown his head back in pain, and Mary Magdalene’s eyes were rolling. I Iay back gingerly, unable to take my eyes off it. I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting. I wanted to take it down but did not dare. Finally I blew out the candle—I could not afford to waste candles on my first day in the new house. I lay back again, my eyes fixed to the place where I knew the painting hung. I slept badly that night, tired as I was. I woke often and looked for the painting. Though I could see nothing on the wall, every detail was fixed in my mind. Finally, when it was beginning to grow light, the painting appeared again and I was sure the Virgin Mary was looking down at me.

The kitchen is your natural setting as a woman and you should look beautiful, not bedraggled, in it. Whether you go to work or work at home- or both- take advantage of the opportunity the kitchen offers for expressing your wifely qualities in what you wear. Pinafores, organdies, and aprons look wonderful, as do gay cotton wrap-arounds that slip on over your dress while you make breakfast. Too much attention is paid to kitchen equipment and decor; too little to what is worn in this setting. Why look like Cinderella's crotchety stepmother when you can be a lyrical embodiment of all that a home and hearth means!

She walked over to the tomato bushes, the centerpiece of the spectacular garden plot. In her mind's eye she could see her mother in a house dress that somehow looked pretty on her, a green-sprigged apron, bleached Keds with no socks, a straw hat to keep the sun from her eyes. Mamma never hurried in the garden, and she used all her senses while tending it. She would hold a tomato in the palm of her hand, determining its ripeness by its softness and heft. Or she would inhale the fragrance of pepperoncini or bell peppers, test a pinch of flat leaf parsley or mint between her teeth. Everything had to be at its peak before Mamma brought it to the kitchen.

Now look: Droplets of oil were dotted across the front of her best dress, over the mound of her stomach. She was clumsy and fat-stomached and she didn't even have the sense to wear an apron while she was cooking. Also she had paid way too much for this dress, sixty-four dollars at Hecht's, which would scandalize Ira if he knew. How could she have been so greedy? She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Took a deep breath. Well. Anyhow.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung.

them up. Flowers blooming. A garden … As she neared the house, the front door opened. A woman came out, wearing a pretty floral-print dress beneath a frilly red apron, and holding a broom. Her bobbed hair was carefully curled and a pair of wireless glasses magnified her eyes.

The waiters wore striped waistcoats and green baize aprons. Bond ordered an Americano and examined the sprinkling of over-dressed customers, mostly from Paris he guessed, who sat talking with focus and vivacity, creating that theatrically clubbable atmosphere of ‘l’heure de l’apéritif’.

There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor’s Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the - to me - extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy’s father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy’s - I think his little sister - did Imps in the Pantomimes.

She's in her usual Martha's dress, which is dull green, like a surgeon's gown of the time before. The dress is much like mine in shape, long and concealing, but with a bib apron over it and without the white wings and the veil. She puts on the veil to go outside, but nobody much cares who sees the face of a Martha.

A tiny red flower under the apron bib of the woman from the flower stand; she gave me a purple iris before I left, the symbol of hope. There’s a red flower beneath the ruffle of Aunt Linny’s dress; I remember her telling me to stay in the woods where I belong, even dropping a sprig of holly, just like the bushes leading to the ridge. There’s a red flower pinned underneath June’s collar; June sewed every single seed into my cloak … in secret. And my mother, telling me that water was best when it came from high on the spring. They risked everything to try to help me and I didn’t even know it. All I can hear is my mother’s words. “Your eyes are wide open, but you see nothing,” I whisper.

As they reached the steps to the house, the door opened. A woman in a gray dress and white apron glared at them. Taken aback, Delia faltered. Mr. Livingston leaned over. "Don't mind Mrs. Graves, my housekeeper," he said in a low voice full of humor, obviously meant to reassure her. "That's her normal expression. She only smiles once a year on Christmas.

In the inky stillness of the next morning, Lisette woke up and dressed quietly in the silks her elderly mother still sent her from Paris- cool slippery things that made her feel like she was covering herself with fresh air. For a while, after she left Paris, Lisette threw away her mother's packages on principle. Lisette was not the same vain pretty girl her mother had once known. But then Lisette started making an exception for the lingerie. It was not vain if no one but herself saw her wear them. She then put on a blue dress and a freshly laundered apron that smelled like lemongrass soap Eby used for the camp's sheets and towels, the only soap that could take out the damp mustiness that wanted to cling to everything in this place.

He walked into the house, smelling baked cookies. Now if that didn't make a house a home, nothing would. "Mmm!" he said loudly to announce his presence. "Something smells good!" Cricket poked her head out of the kitchen. "Come poach a cookie or two." "Yes, ma'am." He strolled into the kitchen and was pleased to see Suzy dressed in a pretty pink apron with red hearts on it. "Hello, Priscilla," he said. "Hi, Suzy.

Step One: Dress your kid up in pink frilly bullshit. Tell her repeatedly that she needs to be rescued from a life of solitude by a rapey prince who will one day come along, plant a kiss on her lips and ensure that she never needs to lift a finger, read a book or expand her knowledge in any way. Check. Step Two: Grow up. Earn a very moderate education. Just enough to convince yourself that you’re properly liberated from the shackles of the Patriarchy. Check. Step Three: Meet a man who’s not quite Satan, but thinks he’s God. Check. Step Four: Marry him, thereby cementing his legal claim to your body and soul. Check. Step Five: Pop out a kid. Check. Step Six: Make banana bread at least once a week until bananas become contraband, while sporting a highly flammable apron that says, “Kiss the Cook” in big stupid red letters. Check.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations. The stretch of Hudson Street where I live is each day the scene of an intricate sidewalk ballet. I make my own first entrance into it a little after eight when I put out my garbage gcan, surely a prosaic occupation, but I enjoy my part, my little clang, as the junior droves of junior high school students walk by the center of the stage dropping candy wrapper. (How do they eat so much candy so early in the morning?) While I sweep up the wrappers I watch the other rituals of the morning: Mr Halpert unlocking the laundry's handcart from its mooring to a cellar door, Joe Cornacchia's son-in-law stacking out the empty crates from the delicatessen, the barber bringing out his sidewalk folding chair, Mr. Goldstein arranging the coils of wire which proclaim the hardware store is open, the wife of the tenement's super intendent depositing her chunky three-year-old with a toy mandolin on the stoop, the vantage point from which he is learning English his mother cannot speak. Now the primary childrren, heading for St. Luke's, dribble through the south; the children from St. Veronica\s cross, heading to the west, and the children from P.S 41, heading toward the east. Two new entrances are made from the wings: well-dressed and even elegant women and men with brief cases emerge from doorways and side streets. Most of these are heading for the bus and subways, but some hover on the curbs, stopping taxis which have miraculously appeared at the right moment, for the taxis are part of a wider morning ritual: having dropped passengers from midtown in the downtown financial district, they are now bringing downtowners up tow midtown. Simultaneously, numbers of women in housedresses have emerged and as they crisscross with one another they pause for quick conversations that sound with laughter or joint indignation, never, it seems, anything in between. It is time for me to hurry to work too, and I exchange my ritual farewell with Mr. Lofaro, the short, thick bodied, white-aproned fruit man who stands outside his doorway a little up the street, his arms folded, his feet planted, looking solid as the earth itself. We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street, then look back at eachother and smile. We have done this many a morning for more than ten years, and we both know what it means: all is well. The heart of the day ballet I seldom see, because part off the nature of it is that working people who live there, like me, are mostly gone, filling the roles of strangers on other sidewalks. But from days off, I know enough to know that it becomes more and more intricate. Longshoremen who are not working that day gather at the White Horse or the Ideal or the International for beer and conversation. The executives and business lunchers from the industries just to the west throng the Dorgene restaurant and the Lion's Head coffee house; meat market workers and communication scientists fill the bakery lunchroom.

Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been any fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th'meshes. You won't find half so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever with to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge winder and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work.

Someone put a tea-tray on the table beside us, and I looked up to see the very prettiest girl I had ever set eyes on. She seemed little more than a child, and before the war would probably have still ranked as a flapper. She wore the neat blue dress and apron of a VAD, and her white cap was set on hair like spun gold. She smiled demurely as she arranged the tea-things, and I thought I had never seen eyes at once so merry and so grave. I stared after her as she walked across the lawn, and I remember noticing that she moved with the free grace of an athletic boy.

Good morning! The sun is up! Wake up! Time to eat," said the birds. "Good morning," Ashlynn said back. There was a clink of glass slippers against the wood floor, and then her mother appeared in the doorway. She had the same strawberry-blond hair and green eyes as Ashlynn. Her mother was already dressed, but Ashlynn didn't notice the clothes she was wearing. As always, her eyes went right to the glass slippers. Oh, how she loved those shoes. "Chores, dear!" her mother said, leaning over to kiss the top of Ashlynn's head. "And then you should pack." "Yes, Mother!" Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep before her Happily Ever After.

My life in the kitchen began with my grandmother in the village of Champvert in the Tarn-et-Garonne department of southwestern France, the town so small you'd need a magnifying glass to find it on the map. I'd sit on a tall wooden stool, wide-eyed, watching Grand-mère Odette in her navy-blue dress and black ballerina flats, her apron adorned with les coquelicots (wild red poppies), mesmerized by the grace with which she danced around her kitchen, hypnotized by all the wonderful smells- the way the aromas were released from the herbs picked right from her garden as she chopped, becoming stronger as she set them in an olive oiled and buttered pan. She'd dip a spoon in a pot or slice up an onion in two seconds, making it look oh so easy, and for her it was. But my favorite part was when she'd let me taste whatever delight she was cooking up, sweet or savory. I'd close my eyes, lick my lips, and sigh with happiness. Sometimes Grand-mère Odette would blindfold me, and it wasn't long before I could pick out every ingredient by smell. All the other senses came to me, too- sight (glorious plating), taste (the delight of the unknown), touch (the way a cherry felt in my hand), and hearing (the way garlic sizzled in the pan).

They were interrupted as a young girl walked along the pavement in front of the sessions house, calling, "Flowers! Fresh-cut flowers!" She stopped in front of them. "Posy for the lady, sir?" Ransom turned to the girl, who wore a colorful scarf over her long dark hair and a patchwork apron over her black dress. She carried a flat basket filled with posyes, their stems wrapped with bits of colored ribbon. "There's no need-" Garrett began, but Ransom ignored her, browsing over the tiny bouquets of roses, narcissus, violets, forget-me-nots, and dianthus. "How much?" he asked the flower girl. "A farthing, sir." He glanced at Garrett over his shoulder. "Do you like violets?" "I do," she said hesitantly. Ransom gave the flower-girl a sixpence and picked out one of the posyes. "Thank you, sir!" The girl scurried away as if fearing he might change his mind. Ransom turned to Garrett with the cluster of purple blossoms. Reaching for the lapel of her walking jacket, he deftly tucked the ribbon-wrapped stem of the posy into a buttonhole. "Violets make an excellent blood-purifying tonic," Garrett said awkwardly, feeling the need to fill the silence. "And they're good for treating cough or fever." The elusive dimple appeared in his cheek. "They're also becoming to green-eyed women.

decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

Walking home's going to be...interesting half dressed." Alan mused as he dropped the shirt over the lip of the sink. Shelby shot a look over her shoulder, but the retort she had in mind slipped away from her.He was lean enough so she could have counted his ribs, but there was a sense of power and endurance in the breadth of his chest and shoulders, the streamlined waist. His body made her forget any other man she'd ever seen. It had been he,she realized all at once, whom she'd been thinking of when she'd thrown the clay into that clean-lined bowl. Shelby let the first flow of arousal rush through her because it was as sweet as it was sharp. Then she tensed against it, rendering it a distant throb she could control. "You're in excellent shape," she commented lightly. "You should be able to make it to P street in under three minutes at a steady jog." "Shelby, that's downright unfriendly." "I thought it was more rude," she corrected as she struggled against a grin. "I suppose I could be a nice guy and throw it in the dryer for you." "It was your clay." "It was your move," she reminded him, but snatched up the damp shirt. "Okay, come on upstairs." With one hand, she tugged off her work apron, tossing it aside as she breezed through the doorway. "I suppose you're entitled to one drink on the house." "You're all heart," Alan murmured as he followed her up the stairs. "My reputation for generosity precedes me.

A movement caught his attention. A flash of white, a dash of color, dusty red against the gray-green of the leaves. Dragon lizards skittered into hiding behind the rocks as he stepped out of the trees into the clearing. A girl, hair dangling down her back in disarray, homespun skirt hitched up underneath a heavy leather apron, her brown feet bare, crouched beside a pool, hand outstretched to a pure white animal with large powerful hind legs and a long muscular tail. He'd read about these strange quadrupeds in the baron's notes. Kangaroos, the New Hollanders called them, and they were plentiful, reds and browns and grays, but white? And the girl like some Valkyrie. Hair the color of warm chestnut settling around her sculptured face.

He smiled and pulled the ugly white fichu from her neck. She blinked and looked down at the simple, square neckline of her bodice as if she'd never seen it. Perhaps she hadn't. Perhaps she dressed in the dark like a nun. "What are you doing?" He sighed. "I confess, I find your naïveté perplexing. How have you arrived at the advanced age of six and twenty without having anyone attempt seduction upon yourself? I'm of two minds on the matter: One, utter astonishment at my sex and their deaf disregard for your siren call. Two, glee at the thought that your innocence might signal that you are indeed innocent. Why this should excite me so, I don't know- virginity has never before been a particular whim of mine. I think perhaps it's the setting. Who knows how many virgins were deflowered here by my lusty ancestors? Or," he said as he deftly unpinned and tossed aside her apron, "maybe it's simply you." "I don't..." Her words trailed off and then, interestingly, she blushed a deep rose. Well. That question settled, then. His little maiden was really a maiden. "What?" "I think it's you," he confided, pulling the strings tying her hideous mobcap beneath her chin. She made a wild grab for it, but he was faster, snatching the bloody thing off- finally, and with a great deal of satisfaction. She might've deprived him of a wife that it'd taken him half a year and a rather large sum of money to entangle, but by God, he'd taken off her awful cap. And underneath... "Oh, Séraphine," he breathed, enchanted, for her hair was as black as coal, as black as night, as black as his own soul, save for one white streak just over her left eye. But she'd twisted and braided and tortured the strands, binding them tight to her head, and his fingers itched to let them free. "Don't!" she said, as if she knew what he wanted, her hands flying up to cover her hair. He batted them aside, laughing, pulling a pin here, a pin there, dropping them carelessly to the carpet as she squealed like a little girl and backed away from him, trying frantically to ward off his fingers. He might've taken pity on her had he not just spent an hour on a freezing moor, wondering if he was going to find her dead, neck broken, at the bottom of a hill. Her hair came down all at once, a tumbling mass, tousled and heavy and nearly down to her waist. "Wonderful," he murmured, taking it in both hands and lifting it.

Recipe for a Funeral From the Kitchen of Lila Reyes Ingredients: One grieving family. One coffin (it must be white like flour and sugar). One cathedral. One white apron. One abuela, gone, dressed in her favorite blue vestido. Preparation: Sit between your boyfriend and best friend as they try to hold you upright in the pew. Clutch a white apron tightly on your lap. Watch your parents weeping one row ahead, and your sister leaning on your mother’s shoulder. Look back once over the massive cathedral, marveling at the crowd that came for her. *Leave out actually seeing your abuela laid out so lovingly in the white coffin. She is not there. Instead, cry, kneeling during the private viewing with your eyes secretly pressed closed. Cooking temp: 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest your oven goes.

With great reluctance— sitting in the chair with Kate and doing nothing but hold her was surprisingly satisfying— he stood, lifting her in his arms as he did so, and then set her back in the chair. “This has been a delightful interlude,” he murmured, leaning down to drop a kiss on her forehead. “But I fear your mother’s early return. I shall see you Saturday morning?” She blinked. “Saturday?” “A superstition of my mother’s,” he said with a sheepish smile. “She thinks it’s bad luck for the bride and groom to see one another the day before the wedding.” “Oh.” She rose to her feet, self-consciously smoothing her dress and hair. “And do you believe it as well?” “Not at all,” he said with a snort. She nodded. “It’s very sweet of you to indulge your mother, then.” Anthony paused for a moment, well aware that most men of his reputation did not want to appear tied to apron strings. But this was Kate, and he knew that she valued devotion to family as much as he did, so he finally said, “There is little I would not do to keep my mother content.” She smiled shyly. “It is one of the things I like best about you.” He made some sort of gesture designed to change the subject, but she interrupted with, “No, it’s true. You’re far more caring a person than you’d like people to believe.” Since he wasn’t going to be able to win the argument with her— and there was little point in contradicting a woman when she was being complimentary— he put a finger to his lips and said, “Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.” And then, with one last kiss to her hand and a murmured, “Adieu,” he made his way out the door and outside. -Anthony & Kate

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops. I fade, she was beginning, I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.

The reaction of the people below to this fantastic sight and sound was one of wild excitement. Details could be seen vividly from aloft. An elderly man and woman fell to their knees and prayed. People in the villages stood still and gaped upward. Most of them still had their Sunday finery on. "You could see people going to church...man, wife, and child walking along the country roads." Bombardier Herbert Light, through his binoculars, saw an open-air festival in progress, with the women dressed in colorful skirts and blouses. One of them threw her apron over her head in panic. As they roared over the wheat fields, the first unfriendly acts occurred: farmers threw stones and pitchforks at them. One farmer leading two horses was startled by the advancing planes and leaped into a nearby stream. A girl swimming in another river was reported by ten separate crews.

Temperance Dews stood with quiet confidence, a respectable women who lived in the sewer that was St. Giles. Her eyes had widened at the sight of Lazarus, but she made no move to flee. Indeed, finding a strange man in her pathetic sitting room seemed not to frighten her at all. Interesting. “I am Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire,” he said. “I know. What are you doing here?” He tilted his head, studying her. She knew him, yet did not recoil in horror? Yes, she’d do quite well. “I’ve come to make a proposition to you, Mrs. Dews.” Still no sign of fear, though she eyed the doorway. “You’ve chosen the wrong woman, my lord. The night is late. Please leave my house.” No fear and no deference to his rank. An interesting woman indeed. “My proposition is not, er, illicit in nature,” he drawled. “In fact, it’s quite respectable. Or nearly so.” She sighed, looked down at her tray, and then back up at him. “Would you like a cup of tea?” He almost smiled. Tea? When had he last been offered something so very prosaic by a woman? He couldn’t remember. But he replied gravely enough. “Thank you, no.” She nodded. “Then if you don’t mind?” He waved a hand to indicate permission. She set the tea tray on the wretched little table and sat on the padded footstool to pour herself a cup. He watched her. She was a monochromatic study. Her dress, bodice, hose, and shoes were all flat black. A fichu tucked in at her severe neckline, an apron, and cap—no lace or ruffles—were all white. No color marred her aspect, making the lush red of her full lips all the more startling. She wore the clothes of a nun, yet had the mouth of a sybarite. The contrast was fascinating—and arousing. “You’re a Puritan?” he asked. Her beautiful mouth compressed. “No.

You can't keep working here. It's not safe for you anymore." His words were flat, spoken as if they pained him. "Not safe?" Her eyes were glued to him, but there was no alarm for her safety in her voice. "You're seventeen now, Becky." Irritation laced his words. His arms crossed in front of his chest. He leaned back against the table, one booted foot across the other. "You're not a young girl anymore. You can't keep coming here, being alone with me." "You won't--you won't hurt me. You're the sheriff." Distress slid through her. She had to keep coming here. It was the only way she could see him every day. The only way she had of taking care of him, being with him. Her hands rubbed down her apron in turbulence. The sliding movement pulled her apron and dress down. The material of her bodice tightened next to the soft curves of her breasts. Her breathing was palpable. "I didn't say I would hurt you, sweetheart.

Physically, Manya was both appealing and aristocratic in her bearing. It wasn't her copious white hair that attracted men, her flawless white skin, her billowing breasts, but the innate womanliness that emanated from her. Even when she wore her cooking clothes- a mammoth Hoover apron that she slipped on over her head and tied around a baggy dress or her cardigan sweater, a dull brown thing appropriate for shopping- she exuded a sympathetic femininity. Many didn't give much thought to her appearance. More often than not she washed her face and body with the brown kosher soap that contained no fat from forbidden animals, and wrapped her hair in a haphazard bun held together with several large imitation-turquoise hairpins. Her cooking shoes were splattered with chicken and goose fat, bits and oddments of duck, salmon roe, even calves' brains. Because she had been raised on the Black Sea, she loved caviar, so every now and then a glistening bead would fall upon her well-fed shoes. The smell of food on her body made her no less alluring.

Ma Chere Mamma, We are all well I do my lessons always and never corroberate the girls -- Meg says I mean contradick so I put in both words and you can take the properest. Meg is a great comfort to me and lets me have jelly every night at tea its so good for me Jo says because it keeps me sweet tempered. Laurie is not as respeckful as he ought to be now I am almost in my teens, he calls me Chick and hurts my feelings by talking French to me very fast when I say Merci or Bon jour as Hattie King does. The sleeves of my blue dress were all worn out, and Meg put in new ones, but the full front came wrong and they are more blue than the dress. I felt bad but did not fret I bear my troubles well but I do wish Hannah would put more starch in my aprons and have buckwheats every day. Can't she? Didn't I make that interrogation point nice? Meg says my punchtuation and spelling are disgraceful and I am mortyfied but dear me I have so many things to do, I can't stop. Adieu, I send heaps of love to Papa. Your affectionate daughter . .. AMY CURTIS MARCH

There was a clink of glass slippers against the wood floor, and then her mother appeared in the doorway. She had the same strawberry-blond hair and green eyes as Ashlynn. Her mother was already dressed, but Ashlynn didn't notice the clothes she was wearing. As always, her eyes went right to the glass slippers. Oh, how she loved those shoes. "Chores, dear!" her mother said, leaning over to kiss the top of Ashlynn's head. "And then you should pack." "Yes, Mother!" Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep her Happily Ever After.

In Downhill All the Way, Leonard remembers them returning from an evening spent with Vanessa in her studio in Fitzroy Street. (This was in 1930.)A drunk woman was being abused by two passers-by and was then accosted by a policeman who seemed to Leonard to be ‘deliberately trying to goad her into doing something which would justify an arrest’. He lost his temper, challenged the policeman in front of a small crowd, and made him let the woman go. What Leonard omitted to mention in his reminiscence was that he and Virginia had been to a fancy-dress party for Angelica’s eleventh birthday. Virginia was dressed as a (‘mad’) March Hare, with a pair of hare’s ears and paws. Roger Fry, at the party, had been a wonderfully characterful White Knight. And Leonard was ‘wearing a green baize apron and a pair of chisels as the Carpenter’. But as he tackled the policeman (‘Why dont you go for the men who began it? My name’s Woolf, and I can take my oath the woman’s not to blame’), ‘holding his apron and chisel in one hand’,114 he forgot all about his comical fancy-dress in his anger and his determination to see justice done.

Oh, good. I was worried you’d taken ill.” “Why?” Elizabeth asked as she took a sip of the chocolate. It was cold as ice! “Because I couldn’t wake-“ “What time is it?” Elizabeth cried. “Nearly eleven.” “Eleven! But I told you to wake me at eight! How could you let me oversleep this way?” she said, her sleep-drugged mind already groping wildly for a solution. She could dress quickly and catch up with everyone. Or… “I did try,” Berta exclaimed, hurt by the uncharacteristic sharpness in Elizabeth’s tone, “but you didn’t want to wake up.” “I never want to awaken, Berta, you know that!” “But you were worse this morning than normal. You said your head ached.” “I always say things like that. I don’t know what I’m saying when I’m asleep. I’ll say anything to bargain for a few minutes’ more sleep. You’ve known that for years, and you always shake me awake anyway.” “But you said,” Berta persisted, tugging unhappily a her apron, “that since it rained so much last night you were sure the trip to the village wouldn’t take place, so you didn’t have to arise at all.” “Berta, for heaven’s sake!” Elizabeth cried, throwing off the covers and jumping out of bed with more energy than she’d ever shown after such a short period of wakefulness. “I’ve told you I’m dying of diphtheria to make you go away, and that didn’t succeed!” “Well,” Berta shot back, marching over to the bell pull and ringing for a bath to be brought up, “when you told me that, your face wasn’t pale and your head didn’t feel hot to my touch. And you hadn’t dragged yourself into bed as if you could hardly stand when it was half past one in the morning!” Contrite, Elizabeth slumped down in the bed. “It’s not your fault that I sleep like a hibernating bear. And besides, if they didn’t go to the village, it makes no difference at all that I overslept.” She was trying to resign herself to the notion of spending the day in the house with a man who could look at her across a roomful of diners and make her heart leap when Berta said, “They did go to the village. Last night’s storm was more noise and threat than rain.” Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Elizabeth emitted a long sigh. It was already eleven, which meant Ian had already begun his useless vigil at the cottage.

Yes. I'm going to talk to her. Maybe." Kristoff huffed. "You, Bulda, Grand Pabbie... you act like this is so easy! They may be so-called love experts, but they've never left the valley." Sven snorted. "Hi," Anna interrupted, feeling funny. She was suddenly very aware of how she looked, and how he did, too. Kristoff had on a bright blue dress shirt and clean pants. She was wearing a green dress under a flour-and-icing-covered apron. Her braids, which she'd had in for two days, needed refreshing. "Were you looking for me? I mean, not actually looking, but you're here, so maybe... you're hungry?" He immediately blushed. "What? Yes. I mean, no. I..." He pressed a bunch of carrots into her hands. "I just wanted to give you what I owed you." "Oh." Anna looked down. "You didn't have to bring me back- oof!" Sven had bumped into Anna, sending her flying into Kristoff's arms. The two tumbled backward, falling onto several stacks of flour Anna's parents hadn't had a chance to bring into the shop yet. "This is awkward," Anna said, struggling to get up. 'Not because you're awkward. Because we're... I'm... awkward." She stood up. "You're gorgeous. Wait, what?

She went alone to the vast room where the second-hand clothes were kept. Later, she thought it the happiest hour of her life. There were silks and brocades by the yard, and pile upon pile of hats, wigs, cloaks, and masks. After two years in wretched rags, even the linen shifts felt as soft as thistledown. She whirled from one delight to another- clutching lace, burying her nose in furs, holding flashy paste jewels next to her new-bleached skin. Catching her reflected eye in the mirror she laughed out loud, her red mouth wide and knowing. She put aside a few carefully-chosen costumes and elbow-length mittens. Then, finally, she chose a few costumes of a particular nature: shiny satin, ebony black. Lastly, she gathered the garments she would wear for her journey: a grass-green woolen gown and a lace cap and apron. The effect was somewhat grand for a domestic servant. Her auburn locks were pinned tightly, her figure flattered by a frilled muslin kerchief, crisscrossed in an 'X' over her breast. Pulling out a few auburn tendrils from her cap, she adjusted her bodice to show a little more flesh. Then she grew very still, and smiled slowly into the empty space before her. "How do you do, sir," she said with a graceful curtsy. "Now, what pretty dish might you care for tonight?

The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of like mistakes, in the best humor possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

One of the most effective ways to quicken your story’s pace is to move from a static description of an object, place or person to an active scene. The classic method for accomplishing this is to have your character interact with the subject that’s been described. For instance, let’s say you’ve just written three paragraphs describing a wedding dress in a shop window. You’ve detailed the Belgian lace veil, the beaded bodice, the twelve-foot train, even the row of satin buttons down the sleeves. Instinctively you feel it’s time to move into an action scene, but how do you do it without making your transition obvious? A simple, almost seamless way is to initiate an action between your character (let’s call her Miranda) and the dress you’ve just described. Perhaps Miranda could be passing by on the sidewalk when the dress in the window catches her attention. Or she could walk into the shop and ask the shopkeeper how much the dress costs. This method works well to link almost any static description with a scene of action. Describe an elegant table, for instance, complete with crystal goblets, damask tablecloth, monogrammed napkins and sterling silver tableware; then let the maid pull a cloth from her apron and begin to polish one of the forks. Or describe a Superman kite lying beside a tree, then watch as a little girl grabs the string and begins to run. You will still be describing, but the nature of your description will have changed from static to active, thus quickening the story’s pace. Throughout

You're certainly not dressed like you're running a business." Eyes blazing, she glared. "What's wrong with how I'm dressed?" "An apron and a pink tracksuit with Juicy written across the ass are hardly serious business attire and they certainly don't scream swipe right on desi Tinder." Sam didn't know if there was such a thing as Tinder for people of South Asian descent living abroad, but if it did exist, he and Layla would definitely not have been a match. Layla gave a growl of frustration. "You may be surprised to hear that I don't live my life seeking male approval. I'm just getting over a breakup so I'm a little bit fragile. Last night, I went out with Daisy and drank too much, smoked something I thought was a cigarette, danced on a speaker, and fell onto some loser named Jimbo, whose girlfriend just happened to be an MMA fighter and didn't like to see me sprawled on top of her man. We had a minor physical altercation and I was kicked out of the bar. Then I got dumped on the street by my Uber driver because I threw up in his cab. So today, I just couldn't manage office wear. It's called self-care, and we all need it sometimes. Danny certainly wouldn't mind." "Who's Danny?" The question came out before he could stop it. "Someone who appreciates all I've got going here-" she ran a hand around her generous curves- "and isn't hung up on trivial things like clothes." She tugged off the apron and dropped it on the reception desk. "I'm not hung up on clothes, either," Sam teased. "When I'm with a woman I prefer to have no clothes at all." Her nose wrinkled. "You're disgusting." "Go home, sweetheart." Sam waved a dismissive hand. "Put your feet up. Watch some rom-coms. Eat a few tubs of ice cream. Have a good cry. Some of us have real work to do.

When we first started dating, my talent in the kitchen was a turn-on. The prospect of me in the kitchen, wearing a skimpy apron and holding a whisk in my hand- he thought that was sexy. And, as someone with little insight into how to work her own sex appeal, I pounced on the opportunity to make him want and need me. I spent four days preparing my first home-cooked meal for him, a dinner of wilted escarole salad with hot bacon dressing, osso bucco with risotto Milanese and gremolata, and a white-chocolate toasted-almond semifreddo for dessert. At the time, I lived with three other people in a Columbia Heights town house, so I told all of my housemates to make themselves scarce that Saturday night. When Adam showed up at my door, as the rich smell of braised veal shanks wafted through the house, I greeted him holding a platter of prosciutto-wrapped figs, wearing nothing but a slinky red apron. He grabbed me by the waist and pushed me into the kitchen, slowly untying the apron strings resting on my rounded hips, and moments later we were making love on the tiled kitchen floor. Admittedly, I worried the whole time about when I should start the risotto and whether he'd even want osso bucco once we were finished, but it was the first time I'd seduced someone like that, and it was lovely. Adam raved about that meal- the rich osso bucco, the zesty gremolata, the sweet-and-salty semifreddo- and that's when I knew cooking was my love language, my way of expressing passion and desire and overcoming all of my insecurities. I learned that I may not be comfortable strutting through a room in a tight-fitting dress, but I can cook one hell of a brisket, and I can do it in the comfort of my own home, wearing an apron and nothing else. Adam loved my food, and he loved watching me work in the kitchen even more, the way my cheeks would flush from the heat of the stove and my hair would twist into delicate red curls along my hairline. As the weeks went by, I continued to seduce him with pork ragu and roasted chicken, creamed spinach and carrot sformato, cannolis and brownies and chocolate-hazelnut cake.

Gray burst into the galley. “Miss Turner is not eating.” The cramped, boxed-in nature of the space, the oppressive heat-it seemed an appropriate place to take this irrational surge of resentment. If only his emotion could dissipate through the ventilation slats as quickly as steam. “And good morning to you, too.” Gabriel wiped his hands on his apron without glancing up. “She’s not eating,” Gray repeated evenly. “She’s wasting away.” He didn’t even realize his knuckled cracked. He flexed his fingers impatiently. “Wasting away?” Gabriel’s face split in a grin as he picked up a mallet and attacked a hunk of salted pork. “Now what makes you say that?” “Her dress no longer fits properly. The neckline of her bodice is too loose.” Gabriel stopped pounding and looked up, meeting Gray’s eyes for the first time since he’d entered the galley. The mocking arch of the old man’s eyebrows had Gray clenching his teeth. They stared at each other for a second. Then Gray blew out his breath and looked away, and Gabriel broke into peals of laughter. “Never thought I’d live to see the day,” the old cook finally said, “when you would complain that a beautiful lady’s bodice was too loose.” “It’s not that she’s a beautiful lady-“ Gabriel looked up sharply. “It’s not merely that she’s a beautiful lady,” Gray amended. “She’s a passenger, and I have a duty to look out for her welfare.” “Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?” Gray narrowed his eyes. “And I know my duty well enough,” Gabriel continued. “It’s not as though I’m denying her food, now is it? I’m thinking Miss Turner just isn’t accustomed to the rough living aboard a ship. Used to finer fare, that one.” Gray scowled at the hunk of cured pork under Gabriel’s mallet and the shriveled, sprouted potatoes rolling back and forth with each tilt of the ship. “Is this the noon meal?” “This, and biscuit.” “I’ll order the men to trawl for a fish.” “Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?” Gabriel’s tone was sly. Gray wasn’t sure whether the plume of steam swirling through the galley originated for the stove or his ears. He didn’t care for Gabriel’s flippant tone. Neither did he care for the possibility of Miss Turner’s lush curves disappearing when he’d never had any chance to appreciate them. Frustrated beyond all reason, Gray turned to leave, wrenching open the galley door with such force, the hinges creaked in protest. He took a deep breath to compose himself, resolving not to slam the door shut behind him. Gabriel stopped pounding. “Sit down, Gray. Rest your bones.” With another rough sigh, Gray complied. He backed up two paces, slung himself onto a stool, and watched as the cook grabbed a tin cup from a hook on the wall and filled it, drawing a dipper of liquid from a small leather bucket. Then Gabriel set the cup on the table before him. Milk. Gabriel stared it. “For God’s sake, Gabriel. I’m not six years old anymore.” The old man raised his eyebrows. “Well, seeing as how you haven’t outgrown a visit to the kitchen when you’re in a sulk, I thought maybe you’d have a taste for milk yet, too. You did buy the goats.

If you give small, informal dinner parties, have a few long or short colorful skirts and dresses in jersey or flannel with gay party aprons to make your role of hostess festive yet comfortable. If your husband's work means continuous parties, conventions, and entertainment, pep up your collection of after-five clothes with satin pumps in different colors.

a friend back in her hometown of Battle Point had thrown her a well-attended Apron Collection bridal shower, so Dolly owned an impressive variety of aprons, nineteen in all, one to match nearly every one of her dresses—because she had read somewhere that “nothing says ‘happy home’ to a husband like his smiling wife, in an apron and lovely dress, bidding him come to the table, where she has a colorful, balanced, hot meal waiting.

Good evening, all.” The warm room was empty. Only the crackling fire and waiting furniture greeted him. His perfect posture dropped half an inch. So much for a triumphal entry.  He closed the door and removed his hat. “Did you all hear I was coming and decide to hide?” “Good evening, Nathaniel.” Kitty stepped into the parlor from the kitchen, removing her striped apron to reveal a yellow, rose-dotted dress that molded to her curves in a way Nathaniel hadn’t thought possible. Simple ringlets bobbed at her neck and an alluring grin threatened to topple his well-placed line of defense.  “Good evening, lovely lady.” Extinguishing every spark of emotion with the skill of a perfect marksman, Nathaniel draped himself in his cloak of dramatic charm and bowed deeply. He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. “Aw, Kitty, you have done it again. All I must do is savor that aroma to know this evening’s meal will very likely be the best I’ve ever tasted.” If he stayed jocular he wouldn’t be at risk of succumbing to the emotions that toyed with him so carelessly. Kitty rolled her eyes and started toward the fire. “Oh, Nathaniel. You’re always full of exaggerated compliments, though I thank you just the same.” The grin behind her eyes toyed with his humor. “Are you calling me a liar, Miss Campbell?” He stepped forward. Her lips twitched as if she held back a smile that yearned for exposure. “Should I be?” Before

Uncle Jarrod groaned. “What are you doing here?” “I came to have a word. Good thing I did, too, I see you’re up to your usual tyranny. Do me a favor and get that blade away from her throat.” “Gerda!” the duke barked. “Go home at once! This is not your concern!” “Not my concern, eh?” Miss Gerda approached Uncle Jarrod, her arms folded. “I assure you, what I have to say concerns every one of us. Jarrod, do you not recognize this child?” “Nothing you say is going to spare her. She is arrested for treason.” Miss Gerda watched him. Being much shorter, she had to look up to meet his eyes. Her plain dress and apron looked very drab beside the king, but she regarded him without embarrassment. “You’ve been friendly with the duke a long time, Jarrod. Came an awful lot in your younger days. And you liked me then, remember? Especially that summer when you came for a long stay. You like me… quite often. And I was stupid enough to think it would last.” “Silence, woman, your words are meaningless. Nobody wants to hear this.” A trace of dread lurked behind Uncle Jarrod’s eyes. “That fall, I left the duke’s manor and returned to my home kingdom of Clerlione. I had told the duke my mother was ill, but that wasn’t it. You see, Jarrod, something came of the time you and I spent together.” She raised a hand to the duke and his prisoner. “Briette.” Briette, still pinned against the duke, suffered a jolt so hard it nearly stopped her heart. She could not have moved even if the duke had let her. Uncle Jarrod’s face was pinched with contempt. “Don’t be a fool.” “Think about it, Jarrod. That summer. It was eighteen years ago. Briette is seventeen. Look at her face, you’ll see.” Uncle Jarrod cleared his throat and stared at the floor. He raised a hand and stroked his beard. It seemed a long time before he spoke. “Let the child come here.” The duke lowered his hands. Briette started walking, though she felt separated from herself, as if watching this happen to somebody else. She made the mistake of letting her eyes drift to her sisters. They stared at her with a mixture of wide-eyed horror and pale disbelief. Arialain had covered her face and was shaking. It seemed a very long walk though in truth it was only six or seven paces. Uncle Jarrod gripped her chin and lifted her face. Briette stared into his clear blue eyes and tried not to think. He looked deeply troubled. Shaken. He released her chin. “It is hard to say. There are little things…. But I’m not sure.” “Then you must take my word,” said Miss Gerda. “If she is what you say, then why didn’t you raise her? She came here as an orphan.” Miss Gerda grew somber. “I wasn’t ready to have a child. Without a husband to support me, how could I care for it? I had to work. I left the baby with my sister in Clerlione. She was married but had no children, and was happy to take Briette. I returned to work for the duke and for two years, all was well. And then came the Red Fever plague.” Briette hugged her sides, her eyes shut. This was too much to bear. She wanted Miss Gerda to stop talking. “By the time I reached Clerlione, my sister and her husband were dead. I was frantic, thinking Briette had died too. But I found a neighbor who told me that my sister had given the baby to the king of Runa Realm. I was shocked. And for a while, quite miserable. But in time, I came to be glad of it. As a princess, she would never know poverty or hardship. So I stayed at the duke’s and kept my silence. But occasionally, at a festival or in the market square, I’d see her. And I was proud.” She smiled at Briette. A short silence followed. Then Heidel spoke up. “Let me be quite clear on this. Briette is Uncle Jarrod’s daughter?” “And

people had true knowledge of the world perhaps they would not take up arms and so perhaps he could be an aggregator of information from distant places and then the world would be a more peaceful place. He had been perfectly serious. That illusion had lasted from age forty-nine to age sixty-five. And then he had come to think that what people needed, at bottom, was not only information but tales of the remote, the mysterious, dressed up as hard information. And he, like a runner, immobile in his smeared printing apron bringing it to them. Then the listeners would for a small space of time drift away into a healing place like curative waters.

His azure eyes suddenly dropped to pin her, hard and merciless, and she lost her breath as she fell into his predator's stare. It was like looking into the eyes of something inhuman, almost otherworldly. Her chest ached as she stared at him, the air still locked within her, but at the same time the place between her legs ached as well. She was suddenly made very aware that beneath the starch of her apron, the wool of her dress, and the bone of her stays, she had soft nipples that had tightened into points. Then she inhaled, filling her lungs with sweet air, as he watched her still, his eyes half-lidded, and she felt an odd exhilaration, as if a gauntlet had been thrown down. As if they were adversaries, equal on the field.

Harriet Nelson was my idol when I was growing up. She was everything I wanted to become-- a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. I watched The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet every week on television, reverently noting Harriet's clever way with her husband and sons, her calm demeanor, how she dressed up each day to stay at home taking care of her family. I loved how they worshipped her. And I coveted her apron. My own mother was an amazing woman; long before it was the norm, she had a college degree, worked full time, and raised six children. She enjoyed her career and was successful at it, but as far as I was concerned, the job I wanted was Harriet's.

Am I single? I don’t feel like it when I’m with you.” He smiled sweetly. “What’s your favourite colour?” he asked suddenly. “Blue. Yours?” “I can’t decide. It changes every time I see you,” his voice was quiet as he kept his eyes focused on the leaves. “When we first met, you were wearing the white apron from Arlene’s. Afterwards, I thought white was angelic. Then I saw you in a golden dress, and suddenly white seemed so dull compared to gold. Gold became common compared to the blue you wore to the play. Blue rusted when you wore white again. The last time we spoke, you wore a green shirt and I thought it was the most beautiful colour, so lively and vivid, but tonight…you’re wearing maroon. So tonight, that’s my favourite colour.

People crowd the streets. White men wearing floppy hats coax horses down rutted roads turned to shell-lined avenues. White women with their heads covered usher children below awnings and through tall, ornate doorways. And everywhere, us stolen. Some in rope and chains. Some walking in clusters together, sacks on their backs or on their heads. Some stand in lines at the edge of the road, all dressed in the same rough clothing: long, dark dresses and white aprons, and dark suits and hats for the men, but I know they are bound by the white men, accented with gold and guns, who watch them. I know they are bound by the way they stand all in a row, not talking to one another, fresh cuts marking their hands and necks. I know they are bound by the way they wear their sorrow, by the way they look over an invisible horizon into their ruin.

but before he can elaborate, that door which separates Emile’s kitchen from the rest of the world swings open. It is Andrey, as prompt as ever, with his Book in hand and a pair of spectacles resting on the top of his head. Like a brigand after a skirmish, Emile slips his chopper under the tie of his apron and then looks expectantly at the door, which a moment later swings again. With the slightest turn of the wrist the shards of glass tumble into a new arrangement. The blue cap of the bellhop is handed from one boy to the next, a dress as yellow as a canary is stowed in a trunk, a little red guidebook is updated with the new names of streets, and through Emile’s swinging door walks Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov—with the white dinner jacket of the Boyarsky draped across his arm. One minute later, sitting at the table in the little office overlooking the kitchen were Emile, Andrey, and the Count—that Triumvirate which met each day at 2:15 to decide the fate of the restaurant’s staff, its customers, its chickens and tomatoes. As was customary, Andrey convened the meeting by resting his reading glasses on the tip of his nose and opening the Book. “There are no parties in the private rooms tonight,” he began, “but every table in the dining room is reserved for two seatings.” “Ah,” said Emile with the grim smile of the commander who prefers to be outnumbered. “But you’re not going to rush them, eh?” “Absolutely not,” assured the Count. “We’ll simply see to it that their menus are delivered promptly and their orders taken directly.” Emile nodded in acknowledgment. “Are there any complications?” asked the Count of the maître d’. “Nothing out of the ordinary.” Andrey spun the Book so that his headwaiter could see for himself.

I’ve noticed I seem to make you nervous,” he said, staring straight ahead. “Do you think you have cause to be afraid of me?” He glanced over at Emma, but she kept busy smoothing her dress, messing with her bonnet ribbon, and folding the napkin. At least she wasn’t picking at that apron. “No, not at all. Why would you think something like that?” She stood and began to brush her dress but a red blush crept up her neck and made a good effort to reach her hairline. “Okay, if you say so.” Davis

He leaned in the doorway and treated himself to the sight of her elbow-deep in flour, her hair in its tidy bun, a plain blue day dress under her floury apron. He wrestled with the impulse to sneak up behind her, wrap his arms around her waist, and kiss the nape of her neck. At

Her uniform was a short-sleeve black dress with white trim, worn with a white apron and a lace ruffled headpiece. “How

As she said this, she tossed him one of her blue-and-gray-checked tea towels to use as an apron. She was wearing a blue summer dress and tucked her towel-apron into her red belt. Today he could see that her blond hair was tinged with silver at the temples and that the former confusion and terror had left her eyes. Soon the windowpanes had misted up; the gas flames were hissing under pots and pans; the white wine, shallots and cream sauce was simmering; and in a heavy pan the olive oil was browning potatoes sprinkled with rosemary and salt. They were chatting away as if they'd known each other for years and had simply lost touch for a while. About Carla Bruni, and about how male sea horses carried their young around in a pouch on their stomachs. They talked about fashion and about the trend for salt with added flavorings, and of course they gossiped about their neighbors.

Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, learning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and per-plexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, when my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life—my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing.

Rebekah.” Sheriff Jeffries broke the spell. He crossed the room and took my hands in his. “I’m so sorry about Will.” A quick glance to Frank. “Why don’t you come for a drive? It’ll do you good.” Frank wouldn’t meet my eyes now. He simply took my place by the stove. “Go on.” I pulled the apron from over my dress, smoothed back my hair. But something in me didn’t want to leave Frank behind. Not now. Yet Henry Jeffries’s eyes implored me. And it didn’t feel right to decline. I bit my lip, looking back at Frank one last time, wanting him to read the “I’m sorry” in my eyes. But he didn’t turn from his task. He’d thought my being here would help him, but maybe I just brought more pain into his life.

Though her head was aching too much for her to reason with herself, she could think of nice things - the Cumberland hills, her lambs, her Nannie, who had taught her this trick of detachment. "When you're sick or sorry, child" she had said, "think of other things as much as you are able. It's just practice, Start young and you'll get the trick of it." And most astonishingly, after a little while of going back to childhood and remembering Nannie in her blue print dress, with her white apron on and her sleeves rolled up, turning on the bath-water and humming a little song as she did it, she fell asleep.

Summer?” She jumped, splattering the front of her dress and apron with suds. Turning, she spotted Peter standing just behind her left shoulder. “You did it again. One would think feet as large as yours incapable of moving soundlessly.” He gave the expected chuckle. Then, without warning, he took the corner of the apron and brushed it across her chin. She felt her face go hot at the butterfly touch. “Mark of your surprise was sitting on your chin,” he said as he dropped the apron. “W-what?” “Soap sud.” He chuckled again. “The dishwater must be too hot. Red your face is.” She spun back to face the dishpan. “Would you like help?” She glanced at him. The eagerness in his eyes reminded her of his son. Without speaking, she nodded.

I need to speak with the lord of the village. It’s … it’s urgent.” The man scoffed. “I can tell. You seem to have rolled out of a muddy pond and caught your dress on a hundred branches. Perhaps you also bumped into a fair maiden, making off with her apron.” I forced myself to smile. “Not far off. But the mud is just the color of the dress.” “Of course. It suits you.” “Thanks.

you the best I know how. I’m going to make you little dresses and gowns with flowers stitched on them, and when your hair gets long enough, if it doesn’t curl on its own, I’m going to wind it up in curls every night.” I patted my tummy and the precious life inside it and smiled to myself. I was so happy. The morning sickness passed in a few weeks. I was grateful I didn’t suffer with it the way Helen had, almost until the end of her time. After a while, my clothes began to tug across my middle. I had taken to lifting the waistline a little to ease the pull. James’s mother brought me some big aprons and some new fabric. “If you wear an apron you don’t have to button your dress in the middle, and that will get you through

We sometimes went on long hikes, to the woods around Czernovitz, a day's outing. Everyone carried a knapsack on the back, wore shoes with heavy soles and white, knee-high cotton socks. The girls wore a "dirndl" which consisted of a white blouse, a flowered skirt and a little apron, adorned with lace. It was the way the Tyrolians dressed, an old Austrian custom. Sometimes, we would sit in a meadow and one or another would read aloud. Paul Antschel, who later changed his name to Celan, loved to read to the group poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, in German, of course. Sometimes we'd read aloud H. Heine poems and sometimes we'd sing.

Momma bought two bolts of cloth each year for winter and summer clothes. She made my school dresses, underslips, bloomers, handkerchiefs, Bailey’s shirts, shorts, her aprons, house dresses and waists shipped to Stamps from the nearest Sears & Roebuck. Uncle Willie was the only person in the family who wore ready-to-wear clothes all the time.

The lift door was opened for him on the first floor by Rosetta, who was wearing a white apron over a black dress. Wound around her head like a mouse’s tail was a blonde plait. Her hands and feet were too large and her legs massive, the calf muscles showing through artificial silk stockings that shone as if a snail had left a layer of slime across them. She gave the new arrival the once-over and held out her hand to take his hat. Clara, the senior employee, appeared at the door; she always assisted Marta during the first few days of a show, and she came in, cards and pencils in hand. She too was dressed in black silk and walked in wearing shiny silver leather sandals with cork soles and heels over ten centimetres high. She said nothing, but her look, lips pursed, rendered her face a picture of perplexity.

Mother's Apron There's a great old skit called "Mother's Apron" that touts the many household uses of the apron. This basic skit, with its infinite individual variations, has been performed by women's church and community clubs for generations. Below is a version remembered by Bernice Esau that was presented by her mother, probably originally in Low German, the common language of the rural Minnesota community where it was performed, hence the slightly lilting, old-fashioned sound to it: Do you remember Mother's aprons? Always big they were, and their uses were many. Besides the foremost purpose, the protection of the dress beneath, it was a holder for removal of hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears and, yes, even for wiping small noses. From the henhouse it carried eggs, fuzzy chicks, ducklings, or goslings, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. Its folds provided an ideal hiding place for shy children, and when guests lingered on chilly days, the apron was wrapped about Mother's arms. Innumerable times it wiped a perspiring brow bent over a hot wood-burning stove. Corncobs and wood kindlings came to the kitchen stove in that ample garment, as did fresh peas and string beans from the garden. Often they were podded and stemmed in the lap the apron covered. Windfall apples were gathered in it, and wildflowers. Chairs were hastily dusted with its corners when unexpected company was sighted. Waving it aloft was as good as a dinner bell to call the men from the field. Big they were, and useful. Now I wonder, will any modern-day apron provoke such sweet and homesick memories?

The state of the medical art in the early 19th century was extremely primitive. Medical practice was still largely based on the classical works of Galen and Hippocrates, and harmful practices such as bloodletting were widespread. Nothing was understood about sterility. A surgeon might not trouble to remove his street clothes, or perhaps dress like a butcher, wearing overalls and a leather apron. The patient would require to be restrained by muscular assistants. The best surgeons were the quickest, and could often perform an amputation in less than a minute. Robert Liston of Edinburgh would perform amputations in front of rows of medical students, and begin with the command ‘Gentlemen, time me!’ and would clasp the bloody knife between his teeth when he needed to use both hands.

Aunt Jane was in perfect correspondence with her environment. She wore a purple calico dress, rather short and scant; a gingham apron, with a capacious pocket, in which she always carried knitting: or some other "handy work"; a white handkerchief was laid primly around the wrinkled throat and fastened with a pin containing a lock of gray hair; her cap was of black lace and lutestring ribbon, not one of the butterfly affairs that perch on the top of the puffs and frizzes of the modern old lady, but a substantial structure that covered her whole head and was tied securely under her chin. She talked in a sweet old treble with a little lisp, caused by the absence of teeth, and her laugh was as clear and joyous as a young girl's. "Yes, I'm a-piecin' quilts again," she said, snipping away at the bits of calico in her lap. "I did say I was done with that sort o' work; but this mornin' I was rummagin' around up in the garret, and I come across this bundle of pieces, and thinks I, 'I reckon it's intended for me to piece one more quilt before I die;' I must 'a' put 'em there thirty years ago and clean forgot 'em, and I've been settin' here all the evenin' cuttin' 'em and thinkin' about old times. "Jest feel o' that," she continued, tossing some scraps into my lap. "There ain't any such caliker nowadays. This ain't your five-cent stuff that fades in the first washin' and wears out in the second. A caliker dress was somethin' worth buyin' and worth makin' up in them days. That blue-flowered piece was a dress I got the spring before Abram died. When I put on mournin' it was as good as new, and I give it to sister Mary. That one with the green ground and white figger was my niece Rebecca's. She wore it for the first time to the County Fair the year I took the premium on my salt-risin' bread and sponge cake. This black-an' white piece Sally Ann Flint give me. I ricollect 'twas in blackberry time, and I'd been out in the big pasture pickin' some for supper, and I stopped in at Sally Ann's for a drink o' water on my way back. She was cuttin' out this dress.

I haven’t even seen her in it yet, and I want to rip that fucking dress to shreds and use the pieces to smother her screams from her tenth orgasm. I want to repurpose the tiny apron to tie her hands together so she can’t try and stop me from giving her a dozen more.  I want to show her how everything up until now was to pass the time until I finally got my hands on her.  Until she was mine.

Anyway, when I went outside, my dad was all dressed up in his matching chef hat and apron that we got him for Father’s Day. It

(...) even as a little girl I'd never never remarked how beautiful the tress were, how fine the leaves and bushes were, how beautiful flowerbeds were, truly, I'd never noticed, till then, how beautiful vegetables were, vegetables watered by fat ladies dressed in just their enormous aprons, aprons nobody put on anymore. Actually, a whole transformation was brought about by the person striding next to me like my nanny, my tutor, no need for the person to explain, or lecture, in fact it suited me fine and dandy, I was stubborn, took after my mother, let him try preaching to me, I wouldn't have looked at a thing on purpose, or noticed, I would have sulked, teared up, stared at the ground... But he just walked beside me, gazing around, and I looked where he looked, saw almost what he did, didn't check my watvh, I almost wished time would quit, so I might have walked in that space we had entered together, forever.

It was blue like the gown she had discarded, but the fabric was cheap muslin that she covered with a thick white apron tied around her waist. In Paris she knew the style of dress was actually popular. It was called chemise à la reine, named after Queen Antoinette's fondness for all things pastoral. Only, Belle truly had fed chickens and washed laundry in hers. She thumbed the stubborn stain that had never come out, the one that Gaston had given her when he splashed her skirts with mud after his ill-fated proposal.

This particular day in May, Fiona has slipped Thatch a note in the hallway between history and music class, a scrap of paper that says, simply, "cheesecake." Last week, she passed him notes that said "quiche" and "meatballs," and the week before it was "bread pudding" and "veal parmigiana." Most of the time the word is enticing enough to get him over right after school- for example, the veal parmigiana. Thatcher and Jimmy and Phil sat at Fiona's kitchen table throwing apples from the fruit bowl at one another and teasing the Kemps' Yorkshire terrier, Sharky, while Fiona, in her mother's frilly, flowered, and very queer-looking apron, dredged the veal cutlets in flour, dipped them in egg, dressed them with breadcrumbs, and then sautéed them in hot oil in her mother's electric frying pan. The boys really liked the frying part- there was something cool about meat in hot, splattering oil. But they lost interest during the sauce and cheese steps, and by the time Fiona slid the baking pan into the oven, Jimmy and Phil were ready to go home. Not Thatcher- he stayed until Fiona pulled the cheesy, bubbling dish from the oven and ate with Fiona and Dr. and Mrs. Kemp. His father worked late and his brothers were scattered throughout the neighborhood (his two older brothers could drive and many times they ate at the Burger King on Grape Road). Thatcher liked it when Fiona cooked; he liked it more than he would ever admit.

It‘s easy to feel benevolent when you‘re wearing an apron and gloves over a Chanel suit and dishing out turkey and dressing to a long line of the “least of these.

As Ross entered the kitchen, he saw Ernest sitting at the scrubbed wooden table. The boy wolfed down a plate of breakfast as if it were the first decent meal he'd had in months. Sophia stood at the range with the scrawny cook-maid, apparently showing her how to prepare the morning's fare. "Turn them like this," Sophia was saying, expertly flipping a row of little cakes on a griddle pan. The kitchen atmosphere was especially fragrant today, spiced with frying bacon, coffee, and sizzling batter. Sophia looked fresh and wholesome, the trim curves of her figure outlined by a white apron that covered her charcoal-gray dress. Her gleaming hair was pinned in a coil at the top of her head and tied with a blue ribbon. As she saw him standing in the doorway, a smile lit her sapphire eyes, and she was so dazzlingly pretty that Ross felt a painful jab low in his stomach. "Good morning, Sir Ross," she said. "Will you have some breakfast?" "No, thank you," he replied automatically. "Only a jug of coffee. I never..." He paused as the cook set a platter on the table. It was piled with steaming batter cakes sitting in a pool of blackberry sauce. He had a special fondness for blackberries. "Just one or two?" Sophia coaxed. Abruptly it became less important that he adhere to his usual habits. Perhaps he could make time for a little breakfast, Ross reasoned. A five-minute delay would make no difference in his schedule. He found himself seated at the table facing a plate heaped with cakes, crisp bacon, and coddled eggs. Sophia filled a mug with steaming black coffee, and smiled at him once more before resuming her place at the range with Eliza. Ross picked up his fork and stared at it as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. "They're good, sir," Ernest ventured, stuffing his mouth so greedily that it seemed likely he would choke. Ross took a bite of the fruit-soaked cake and washed it down with a swallow of hot coffee. As he continued to eat, he felt an unfamiliar sense of well-being. Good God, it had been a long time since he'd had anything other than Eliza's wretched concoctions. For the next few minutes Ross ate until the platter of cakes was demolished. Sophia came now and then to refill his cup or offer more bacon. The cozy warmth of the kitchen and the sight of Sophia as she moved about the room caused a tide of unwilling pleasure inside him.

took my parents for granted, and my nurse was simply warmth, sugar biscuits, hot milk and safety to me. Connie was the first human being outside myself to whom my heart flew out. She was about my own size and wore a blue cashmere frock which, as was usual for baby girls in those days, came down to her feet. Her hair, which was yellow and like the down on a chicken, was cut short like a boy’s, and she had white button boots on her tiny feet. We were both supplied by nurse’s sister with a tin mug and a spoon, and I, copying Connie, walked round and round and round under the big kitchen table, rattling the spoon in the mug. It is difficult to describe the joy of that occasion. From where we stumped round under the table I could see the feet of Rose Francis and her sister pushed into cosy bedroom slippers and stretched out in front of a glowing fire in the kitchen range: I could see the bottom of their big white aprons, and their balls of wool (for they were evidently knitting) rolling down onto the floor from their laps from time to time, to be chased by a kitten who was playing in the hearth. But the superb thing was Connie herself, her fluff of canary hair, her sky-blue dress, her white boots, her odd staggering yet rhythmic gait, and the sound of the spoon rattling in her tin cup. I think that was the one and only time that I ever saw Connie, but I have never forgotten her, and the odd piercing joy of my first conscious awareness of what was, to me at all events, the sheer loveliness of another human being.

We just drank it in, grinning at her and letting her fuss and fucking loving it even while we pretended to groan and downplay her compliments.  She looked good. Damn good. Her complexion was richer, her eyes bright and full of life and her long, dark hair spilled down her back in waves. I'd never seen her looking like anything aside from the plastic perfection Father expected and it only made me realise how little we'd gotten the chance to know the woman she truly was. She was at home here, wearing a green apron over a sweater dress with a pair of fluffy socks on her feet and a smile bigger than I'd ever seen on her.

There was a firm hand at my elbow, and I flinched. A rotund brown-haired woman in a simple brass bird mask tugged on my arm and inclined her head toward the open door behind us. Her white apron was crisp above her homespun brown dress—a servant. The masks had to be some sort of trend, then. If they cared so much about their clothes, about what even their servants wore, maybe they were shallow and vain enough for me to deceive, despite their master’s warrior clothes.

She was clad in a tea-colored dress and white apron, and on her head was an enormous buttercup worn like a kerchief, two of the petals pinned together beneath her hair. Her face was very red, very shiny and very plump. She looked, I thought, a little like a lost doll, though not one mortal children would enjoy playing with; her eyes were the usual all black, and she appeared to be a type of faun, with large and intimidatingly sharp black horns that curved backwards out of her head, and legs that ended in hairy hooves. "A butter faerie," Niamh said. "The queen had several in her service--- this one, I am told, had the queen's particular affections due to the quality of her product." "Fascinating," I said, wishing I had time to make a sketch. My encyclopaedia's entry on butter faeries had been sorely lacking in detail. "I have never encountered one before." "They're quite rare," Niamh said. "A good thing, I've always thought. They are peevish, half-mad little things, particularly if you remove them from their creameries." "I did not know they were found in Ireland," I said. "Most of the tales of butter faeries are from Somerset, are they not?" "Ah!" Niamh said, her face alight with scholarly enthusiasm. "Indeed they are. But once upon a time, as you know, Where the Trees Have Eyes had several doors leading to British faerie realms. One of these, I'm told, led to a pretty corner of Somerset. I theorize that the creatures used to go to and fro before the door collapsed, trapping several of them in this realm.

Will you let me come dear Susie - looking just as I do, my dress soiled and worn, my grand old apron, and my hair - Oh Susie, time would fail me to enumerate my appearance, yet I love you just as dearly as if I was e'er so fine, so you wont care, will you?