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Downstairs   Listen
adjective
downstairs, downstair  adj.  On or of the lower floors of a building, especially the ground floor; as, the downstairs (or downstair phone; the house has no downstairs bathroom. Opposite of upstairs.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Downstairs" Quotes from Famous Books



... uneasy at my long absence, was, delighted to see me; but I kept silence about my adventure, and as soon as possible retired to my room to lament in secret over my folly. While I was thus indulging my grief my host entered, and said, "There is an old man downstairs who has brought your hatchet and slippers, which he picked up on the road, and now restores to you, as he found out from one of your comrades where you lived. You had better come down and speak to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... came out and went downstairs, a fine straight figure in her black evening gown, the Sieur de Marsac—that hard-bitten Huguenot, whose middle-aged shabbiness was but the outward and deceptive seeming of the longest head and the best sword in France—emerged cautiously from the passageway and stood listening ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... see her again in a very few weeks: meanwhile he communicated his reasons for departing, in which she readily acquiesced; and having mutually consoled each other, their transports of grief subsided: and before Mrs. Gauntlet came downstairs, they were in a condition to behave with great ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... that, and after assuring him that I had the message by heart I left his chamber and went downstairs. After all, it was no great task that he had put on me. I had often stayed until very late at the office, where I had the privilege of reading law-books at nights, and it was an easy business to mention to my mother that I wouldn't be in that night so very early. That ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... one nail had been driven home, and he was on the point of leaving the attic, for he knew he had not much time and hoped that downstairs he would be able to make some discoveries of importance, when it occurred to him that it might be wise to see what was in this case, the nailing down the lid of ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... want to go, but anything was better than sitting in the room moping. I put on my jacket and Miss Patty's chinchillas, which cheered me a little, but as we went downstairs the quiet of the place sat on my chest like ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... stretching her neck over the handrail, she descried, to her great amazement, Mr Tappertit completely dressed, stealing downstairs, one step at a time, with his shoes in one hand and a lamp in the other. Following him with her eyes, and going down a little way herself to get the better of an intervening angle, she beheld him thrust his head in at the parlour-door, draw it back again with great ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... shook dubiously the footrail of the iron double bedstead to test the joints; and the mouth refused to speak when Ranny was heard complaining that the bedstead was about three sizes too large for the room. Eyes and mouth recovered only downstairs among the carpets, where they again asserted themselves by insisting on a Kidderminster with a slender pattern of blue on a drab ground; though Ranny's mother had advised the black and crimson. Ranny's mother contended almost with passion that drab showed ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... they look back? This is my unfortunate case. Night after night, I have gone to bed without so much as opening my Journal. There was nothing worth writing about, nothing that I could recollect, until the postman came to-day. I ran downstairs, when I heard his ring at the bell, and stopped Maria on her way to the study. There, among papa's usual handful of letters, was a letter ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... I met Diana in the hall of a house in Eaton Square. She was going downstairs as I was making my way to the ball-room, and greeted me with a ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... if he could discover a book with the poet's autograph; but I never heard of his success. On the wall of the room containing the library is a tablet, recording the names of several masters. There also, in an old oak chest, is kept the original charter of the school. The oak benches downstairs are covered with the names or initials of the boys, deeply cut; and, amongst them, the name of William Wordsworth—but not those of his brothers Richard, John, or Christopher—may be seen. For further ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... was old Tom, but it was such an old quiz—with such a nose—O heavens! I thought I should have died with laughing as soon as he went downstairs. Do you know, Jacob, that I made love to him, just to see how he'd take it. You know who it ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... go from the house," cried the young stranger. "Yet when I had let him up, he set his men upon me, and we all came downstairs together." ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... arranged beforehand with the door-girl, he got her downstairs. There was only a trace of reserve in her manner when she told him that she had all her packing yet to do, and that she couldn't walk about the Quad even once; there was more than a trace of embarrassment about him when ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... see the little Spanish girl, come quick!" cried Tom, throwing open the schoolroom door; and in a moment the others had flung down their books and work and had followed him downstairs and ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle

... looked! Thank the good God she has come in time to save our Noemi from any real harm!" "It will blight the whole of her life," said I; "she is so innocent of evil, and she loves him so much." I took up my hat as I spoke, and followed Madame Jeannel downstairs and into the street. When we reached her house, I left her in her own little parlour upon the entresol, and with a resolute step but a heavy heart I went alone to confront the strange woman in Noemi's room. Alas! the worst that could happen had already befallen. Noemi had returned from her ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... the window-frame and looked out with very serious eyes. 'Betty,' she said softly, 'we must never say a word about—about what happened downstairs this evening to any one, not even to each other, and we mustn't think about it, or we shall fancy things. Cousin Crayshaw is our guardian, and he wants to be our good friend. And he is right in saying that we must be very wise and very careful. And ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... frown and he gave a deprecating laugh. "Didn't I knock? Don't look so savage! They told me downstairs you'd got back, and I ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... downstairs, early, in the study, having her first request to make to him. Might she go in at once after breakfast and tell them all? "I suppose I ought to go to your father," he said. "Let me go first," she pleaded, hanging ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... still. The more quiet you keep the sooner you will be able to get out. Try to go to sleep. I must go downstairs and send a message to Mr. Sparling, for he is very much concerned ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... figures stand out on the following night as brightly as before; while if the day is dull they show up but faintly at night. I see not that any use can come of such a thing, for the light is at all times too faint to be used for reading unless the page is held quite close to it. Come downstairs with me and I will show you the head of one of the old Roman statues that was dug up near Rochester, and which I bought for a ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... very mournful hour. She felt terribly depressed and unhappy, and at last, though there was still a considerable time to dinner, she went downstairs and out into the ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... He seated himself under it, and said: "Now we are in the shade, and the Tree can listen too. But I shall tell only one story. Now which will you have; that about IvedyAvedy, or about Klumpy-Dumpy who tumbled downstairs, and yet after all came to the throne and ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... o'clock that night Puss ushered McCloud in from the river. Dicksie came running downstairs to meet him. "Your cousin insisted I should come up to the house for some supper," said McCloud dryly. "I could have taken camp fare with the men. Gordon ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... see, sir," said the inspector, when he had called Brett's attention to these details, "that mysterious though the murders were, they were as nothing compared with the disappearance of the diamonds. Every person who came downstairs was most carefully and methodically searched each time he passed the constable on duty at the bottom. It may be admitted that a few small stones could be so secreted as to escape observation, but some of these stones were so large that ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... through the town, Upstairs and downstairs in his night gown; Tapping at the window, crying at the lock, "Are the babes in their beds, for it's now ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis

... downstairs to reach my study, which occupies the right wing of the house. In the kitchen we met the servant; she too was bewildered by the state of affairs. She was pursuing the huge butterflies with her apron, having taken ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... heap of clothes to lay them neatly on a chair, a bit of folded paper fell from the bosom of the little dress. She glanced at it, turned it over and over, read it quite through. Then, after retiring behind her apron a moment, she went swiftly downstairs to the dining-room where Miss Avilda and Jabe ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... hear, that there is an enacting clause in either of the Bills to apply any part of the divided or subdivided tithes, towards increasing the stipends of the sectaries. So that these gentlemen seem to be gratified like him, who, after having been kicked downstairs, took comfort when he saw his friend ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... laid it on the pillow, and then partly covered it up with the clothes. Then they slipped on their shirts, breeches, and stockings and, taking their jackets and shoes in their hand, stole out of the door at their end of the room, and closed it behind them. They then crept downstairs to the room where their caps were kept, put on these and their jackets, and each boy got a hockey stick out of the cupboard in the corner in which they were kept. Then they very cautiously unfastened the shutter, raised the window, and slipped out. They pulled the shutter to behind ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... of the Cabinet itself was fraught with evil, it was fair and just to give him time to operate. He said this was very true, but that time was likewise required to execute the measure of a creation of Peers, that people must be invited, the patents made out, &c. We then parted. Downstairs was Rothschild the Jew waiting for him, and the valet de chambre sweeping away a ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... confusion and delay which ensued, Mr. Elliott and Mr. Chittenden took their departure, with the usual expressions of condolence and regret, followed a few moments later by Dr. Hobart, who was accompanied downstairs by ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... woke her early next morning, and she hurried downstairs to be through breakfast before Sure Pop came for ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... out of bed and stepped into some snow that had sifted in through the cracks and formed a little drift over my leather breeches, which were frozen hard as a board. I shook the snow off them, and, grabbing up my clothes, ran downstairs, pulled the ashes off the coals, and fanned them till they were bright, and built a good fire in the fireplace. I warmed my leather breeches over the fire till they were softened so that ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... on one side, cramped down in a chair, was Captain Abner Tilghman, feeble and worn-looking. His buggy horse stood hitched by the curb downstairs. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby had gone to his house for him and on the plea of business of vital moment had made him come with him. Almost directly across the middle aisle on the other side sat Mr. Edward Tilghman. Nobody had to go for him. He always came to a regular meeting of the Camp, even though ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... he walked from the station to the inn, craning extravagantly from the sitting-room window. She came downstairs, and met him at ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... time to get out of bed when she heard a heavy step coming from the next room and going downstairs. A laboring man lived there with his wife and six children. When the door banged she jumped up, dressed quickly, and flew from the room in a panic of haste. Usually then, as there was nothing to do, Mary went back to bed for another ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... to leave instantly without waiting for his papers, pledging his word that he would send a man on horseback after him, who would overtake him two or three leagues beyond the town, and bring him his own safe-conduct and the passports of his aides-de-camp. The marshal came downstairs, and finding the horses ready, got into the carriage, on which loud murmurs arose from the populace, amongst which could be distinguished the terrible word 'zaou!' that excited cry of the Provencal, which according to the tone in which ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... a curious crowd, anxious to see Gottlieb and me on trial and to learn the nature of the evidence against us; and when our client left the stand—a pitiful, wilted human creature—and crawled out of the room, a jeering throng followed him downstairs and ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... that as 'twill, here's my showings for her age. She was about the figure of two or three-and-twenty when a' got off the carriage last night, tired out wi' boaming about the country; and nineteen this morning when she came downstairs after a sleep round the clock and a clane-washed face: so I thought ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... her as if Bertram's kiss had released her by magic, at once and for ever, from the taboos of her nation. She had slipped out from home unperceived, that night, in fear and trembling, with many sinkings of heart and dire misgivings, while Robert and Phil were downstairs in the smoking-room; she had slunk round, crouching low, to Miss Blake's lodgings: and she had terrified her soul on the way with a good woman's doubts and a good woman's fears as to the wrongfulness of her attempt to say good-bye to the friend she might now ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... above was the old nursery, connected with his mother's room, in which he was born, and out of which opened a little room where as a child he slept. His memories of that room were the terrors of a nervous boy, lying alone in the dark, creeping downstairs to sit—a tiny white-robed figure—as near as possible to the drawing-room door, to get comfort from the hum of talk or thunder of the four-handed piano pieces of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... now that all that could be done had been effected, ran to his daughter's room, bade her dress, and keep her door locked until she heard his voice, come what may. Then he ran downstairs to join the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... come in," said the Pilot. "We'll finish the argyment over a glass an' a snack." And then it was that he had roared for his daughter, who, leaving Amiria to finish her toilet, tripped downstairs ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... nothing about the effigy, and as soon as the poor landlord saw the "figure of a man hanging himself behind the door," he gave a series of the most weird and penetrating howls. It was not long before he was downstairs, and asking his wife in an excited voice, "Does ta know whoa wor at t'last lodge meetin' an' didn't cum dahnstairs?" "Noa," said his wife, "What's up?" "Ther's somebody hung thersel a back o' t' door," said the trembling landlord. "Oh! nonsense," said Mrs McShee. Nevertheless, she ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... to the sheriff's house, whom they found at home. On being informed that they had captured the man "who had robbed him, he came downstairs with great alacrity, and in a spirit replete with vengeance against the robber. The sheriff, however, was really a good-natured and conscientious man, and would not lend himself to a dishonorable ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... and blurred meditations it was easy for her to imagine the marriage ceremony which would and should have taken place; and she was zealous that other people should imagine it too. It was so much more regular and natural like that, and "her" baby invested with his proper dignity. She went downstairs to get a "cup o' tea," thinking: 'A picture they make—that they do, bless his little heart; and his pretty little mother—no more than a child, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... too glad," returned Dimple. "Won't we have fun with the dolls? O, Florence, do eat your supper up here with me instead of going downstairs." ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard

... there was nothing to be done. I began walking up and down the room. 'What was the fat pig laughing at?' I wondered. Matrona Semyonovna came into the room with a stocking in her hands and sat down in the window. I began talking to her. Meanwhile tea was brought in. Varia came downstairs, pale and sorrowful. The retired lieutenant made jokes about Kolosov. 'I know,' said he, 'what sort of customer he is; you couldn't tempt him here with lollipops now, I expect!' Varia hurriedly got up and went away. Ivan Semyonitch looked ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... me so happy! won't you come and read it with me?" But I tossed my head, and said I had too much to do to waste my time like that; and I ran downstairs, and tried to forget what I had seen; for I knew that my sister was right and I was wrong. Oh, Rosalie darling, I've often thought if I had listened to my sister Lucy that day, what a different life I might ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... or, to be more exact, at three in the afternoon, Madame von Rosen issued on the world. She swept downstairs and out across the garden, a black mantilla thrown over her head, and the long train of her black velvet dress ruthlessly sweeping in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... see? You'd wake up and find it was ten to eight, say, by your watch, so you'd shove on the pace dressing, and nip downstairs, and then find that you'd really got tons of ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... There, take the inventory and let us go downstairs. You will soon see whether your paltry iron-work contrivances will work like these solid old tools, tried and trusty. You will not have the heart after that to slander honest old presses that go like mail coaches, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... to run round to my place right away. Our cook's fallen downstairs—broke her leg; the housemaid's got chicken-pox, and my two boys have been knocked down by ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... a goodly pile of fresh literature under her arm, walked slowly downstairs. She was not in any hurry to leave the class-room, and lingered as long as the limits of Miss Strong's patience lasted. She knew there was a certain ordeal to be faced with her form-mates, and she was ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... the floor at my feet, chattering as usual, and asking questions." I seem to remember my calling over the banister to an assembled family downstairs, "Muzzer, Muzzer, I dess I dot a fezer," or "Muzzer, come up, I'se dot a headache in my stomach." I certainly can recall my intense admiration for Professor Ira Young, our next door neighbour, and his snowy pow, which ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... side of the steps. Within sat a giant, asleep, with his head on the table and his face hidden; but his neck bulged at the back just like the bandmaster's during a cornet solo. A harp stood on the table. Taffy caught this up, and was stealing downstairs with it, but at the third stair the harp—which had Honoria's head and face—began to cough, and wound up with a whoop! This woke the giant—he turned out to be Honoria's grandfather—who came roaring after him. Glancing down below ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... A further investigation ensued downstairs, but in a little while the searchers went out of the house. Their tone had changed since their disappointment, and loud threats floated up the dark stairway to the prisoners still crouching in ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page

... went up, Barbara slowly leading the way. Miriam remained downstairs to make sure that the blind man did not come in unexpectedly and overhear things which he would be much ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... of what you feel is a really powerful idea, you find suddenly that you have been forestalled by some earlier writer—Sophocles or Shakespeare or George R. Sims. Then you have to think again. This frequently happens to me upstairs; and downstairs poor Johnny will find to his horror one day that his great work has already been given to the world by another—a certain ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... had been fussing distractedly with her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encounter with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long quivering breath, stared at her daughter without seeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true that when she met Mrs. Corey before she had not been awed by her; but since then she had learned at least her own ignorance of the world, and she had talked over the things she had misconceived and the things she had shrewdly guessed so ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... from the flushed face, not intending to waken her, but Georgina's eyes opened and after a bewildered stare around the room she sat up, remembering. She had wakened to a world of trouble. Somehow it did not seem quite so bad with Barbara standing over her, smiling. When she went downstairs a little later, freshly washed and brushed, the Tishbite rolled out of her thoughts as a fog lifts ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... downstairs, Mrs. Mason was in the parlor, and she beckoned to him to come in. He entered and ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... hear more, but slipped downstairs and out of a side door, and the next moment I was running softly through the camp to the outpost on the south road, for one of my own men was stationed there, and I knew that without orders or the countersign no man would pass that way that night. It was well I did, for as I ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... moved towards the door: my brother-in-law put on his trousers and followed it. The ghost went downstairs into the kitchen, glided over and stood in front of the ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome

... is over at last. If you had much more to sew and fit we never would get away!" grumbled Eleanor, watching the man stagger as he carried the heavy trunks downstairs. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... tear from her eyes with an impatient sigh, she directed Malachi to go to Oliver's room and tell him he must get up at once, as she wanted him to carry a message of importance. She had herself rapped at her son's door as she passed on her way downstairs, and Malachi had already paid two visits to the same portal—one with Oliver's shoes and one on his own account. He had seen his mistress's anxiety, and knowing that his young master had come in late the night before, had mistaken the cause, charging ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... its own bath-dressing room which any well-bred person will be intelligent and considerate enough to use and leave without the slightest disarrangement. This, so far as "upstairs" goes, really only leaves bedmaking to be done, and a bed does not take five minutes to make. Downstairs a vast amount of needless labour at present arises out of table wear. "Washing up" consists of a tedious cleansing and wiping of each table utensil in turn, whereas it should be possible to immerse all dirty table wear in a suitable ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... from below; but it was altogether too late for advice. Will gathered himself like a spring, and hurled the Greek downstairs backward. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... I was asleep in my room. I didn't intend to sleep, but—I did. Something awakened me. I thought I had been dreaming. But something kept pulling me, pulling me downstairs. And when I went, I found Kedsty like that. He was dead. I was paralyzed, ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... heavy clapper on his head, which would certainly have killed him. "Wait a while, my little friend," cried Hans; "we haven't bargained for this. You may have seen how I rolled your little comrades downstairs without tiring their own legs! You yourself shall follow them. But because you sit the highest, you shall make the proudest journey. I'll pitch you out of the loophole, so that you'll have no wish ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... or both, awoke me early, but when I got downstairs I found my host had preceded me. His fine face looked fresh and strong, and yet I wondered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... came in and, after a few admonitory pats of stubborn bows and ruffles, the girls started downstairs. They made a pretty picture as they descended the wide staircase together, and as they reached the last step their guardian disengaged herself from a laughing group of young folks and came forward to meet them with an ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... hastened downstairs, and found the landlady in the courtyard with a little group about her, apparently much interested in something that she was ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... reddened. She listened for a moment, intently. The Widow Thatcher slept the sleep of the good housekeeper. No one was stirring. She could have the night, the wind, the sea, to herself. Noiselessly she stole downstairs and ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... Bobbsey had dressed, and had started downstairs. Bert came out of his room, also ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... made no effort to rise, for I was for the moment paralysed. Again the cry sounded, yet still I lay motionless—the stupidity of horror was upon me. A third time, and it was then that, by a violent effort bursting the spell which appeared to bind me, I sprang from the bed and rushed downstairs. My mother was running wildly about the room; she had awoke and found my father senseless in the bed by her side. I essayed to raise him, and after a few efforts supported him in the bed in a sitting posture. My brother now rushed in, and snatching up a light that ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... and pious polish, but though I admire, I do not feel at all drawn towards the phenomena of Mysticism. No, I am interested in seeing them in others, I like to see it all from my window, but will not go downstairs, I have no pretension to become a saint, all that I desire is to attain the intermediate state, between goody-goodiness and sanctity. This is a frightfully low ideal, perhaps, but in practice it is the only one I am ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?' She spoke distinctly: ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... the next morning on coming downstairs, "I am going back to Bellegarde today. I really cannot put up with such a person as Comyn had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... had gone, she went upstairs and looked at her own two sleeping boys, quite large enough to fight the world on their own account, but still little children to the mother's heart, and had another cry over them. She went downstairs later to the Governor's study, and interrupting him in the work to which he had settled down, put her arms about his neck, and kissed him. "You must help him, William," she said. "Do everything you can to have those scoundrels punished, and ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... wild thoughts, Sir John Crawford, downstairs, made a shrewd and careful examination of the different articles of furniture which had been left in the little stone house by his old friend, Miss Frances Vivian. Everything was in perfect order. She was a lady who abhorred disorder, who could not endure it for a single moment. All her letters ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... tired of running about the salon downstairs, I would steal on tiptoe to the schoolroom and find Karl sitting alone in his armchair as, with a grave and quiet expression on his face, he perused one of his favourite books. Yet sometimes, also, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he went quickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval of evident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it was reluctantly unlocked. Meynell pushed it ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... absolutely necessary to have somebody tell her to get up. She reached for her clothes and began to dress. When she had finished she went out into the hall, and with a return of her aggrieved, abandoned feeling (you must remember that her stomach was very empty) she began to try to find her way downstairs. She soon found the steps, went down them one at a time, and pushed open the door at the foot. Cousin Ann, the brown-haired one, was ironing near the stove. She nodded and smiled as the child came into the room, and said, "Well, ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... the mighty boat officers were rushing about without much noise or confusion, but giving orders sharply. Captain Smith told the third officer to rush downstairs and see whether the water was coming in very fast. "And," he added, "take some armed guards along to see that the stokers and ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... of marriage," said Moya. "Something weighs on him all the time. I cannot ask him questions. If he wanted to tell me he would. That is why I come downstairs and leave him. But he won't come down! Is it not strange? If we could believe such things I would say a Presence came with, him out of that place. It is with him when I find him alone. It is in his eyes when he looks at me. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... queer child, is Pearlie," said Mrs. Watson, as she beat up the bread-batter downstairs, "she's that light-hearted and free from care, and her eighteen years old. She's like somethin' that don't belong on earth, with her two big eyes shinin' like lamps, and the way she sings through the house, ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... his request, followed the Commissioner downstairs into one of the small private rooms on the ground floor. The latter was very polite ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... hands in the lavatory downstairs, he went to the dining-room to wait for dinner, the only room he used when June was out—it was less lonely so. The evening paper had not yet come; he had finished the Times, there ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... an hour afterward, Helena caught me. I was writing in my room, when the maidservant came in with a message: "Miss Helena's compliments, sir, and would you please spare her half an hour, downstairs?" ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... own coat, didn't bother with a reply. He managed somehow to get Boyd downstairs and bundled into a cab. They headed for ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... minutes later Mme. Camusot, in her dressing-gown, sprang downstairs and brought the handsome stranger into her room. She had pushed Camusot out of bed and into his study with all his clothes, bidding him dress himself at once and wait there. The transformation scene had been ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... furnace," she cried, irritably throwing the sheet which covered her down on to the floor. "Why should I be poked up here and Robbie sleep downstairs with ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... roused by the landlord, who brought him a candle; he lost no time in dressing, buckled on his sword, looked to the priming of the double-barreled pistols Mr. Penfold had given him, and placed them in his belt. Then he went downstairs and put the handcuffs into the pocket of his great coat. He then went to the bar, where the landlord ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... I went downstairs and joined the rest of my fellow-boarders in the brown and gold dining-room. There was a general stir and bustle and the usual empty interest before a meal. A number of people seated themselves with the good manners of polite society. Smiles, the sound of ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... and up he went. On the stairs he met puss, and stopped to play with her, during which he forgot what had been told him. Having gotten a bottle, downstairs he came, and, pouring out a couple of glasses, he returned with it. But, when on the landing-place, he naughtily drew out the cork to have a taste himself. It was not only very vulgar to drink out of the neck of a bottle, but wrong to make free slily with that which he was ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... Downstairs Ronald had already put on the coffee. He was wearing his robe and the pinched greyness of his face told Corinne he had been up half the night. He poured coffee for her, smiling wanly. "If I have any commitments ...
— Weak on Square Roots • Russell Burton

... wife, come in then, and call me Gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... for something to eat," said Mrs. Feversham, to Rachel's great astonishment. "Do take her downstairs, Mr. Rendel." The young ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... "When I got downstairs, who should be there but a fat porter, with a knot, on which he carried"—(Poulterer) "a ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger

... visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely change: they brightened and softened with a tender triumph; and, even as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as chance-medley—a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... he anxiously opened his pocket-book to see if the tickets were safe. He looked at them. It was now ten o'clock. Two hours—and then the long train would pull out, and he would be gone.... To-morrow morning they'd come downstairs. His sister probably would sit at the foot of the table, instead of himself. The table would seem small with himself gone. Perhaps the house would seem a little empty. Automatically they would wait for the click of his key in the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... a further restriction of his visit: she wouldn't readmit him to the drawing-room or to her boudoir; she would receive him in the impersonal apartment downstairs where she saw people on business. What did she want to do to him? He was prepared by this time for a scene of jealousy, since he was sure he had learned to read her character justly in feeling that if she had the appearance of a cold woman a forked flame in her was liable on occasion to break ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... to $1.05. I'm doing piece-work," she explains. "I get seven-eighths of a cent for every dozen bottles I fill. I have to fill eight dozen to make seven cents. Downstairs in the corking-room you can make as high as $1.15 to $1.20. They won't let you make any more than that. Me and them two girls over there are the only ones in this room doing piece-work. I was here three weeks as ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... Margaret and Sally, and your father, Jack and Tom and Helen, and your father, Isabel, and your mother, Ned and Frank, were my little boys and girls, you know; and on Christmas Eve I used to sit with them in the nursery, just as I am sitting with you now. That is why I told them to go downstairs and leave me alone with you for a little while tonight—for the sake of old times. Yes, they used to sit around me just like this, and then I used to ...
— Down the Chimney • Shepherd Knapp

... that at about a quarter to ten Mr. Bristow called the downstairs operator and asked her to send a bellboy to his room, number seven-seventeen. When the boy came in here, Mr. Bristow was lying across the foot of his bed, pressing to his mouth a towel that ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... fool, and had better return to Dearborn county and plough corn. He laid the coppers one side, being about two hundred, then carefully headed the keg up. We went to bed. During the night he arose. I heard him going downstairs. The next morning I discovered that both him and the keg were missing. I never heard from him afterwards, but hope, if he is at home, that you will hereafter keep ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... "how well she looks there. She gives to the old place just the one thing it lacks—has always lacked ever since I have known it—the presence of a beautiful woman. Yes, Mrs. Eccles, I am coming." This last aloud, and he hastens downstairs. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go—go and think. I dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... francs, screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be an attorney's clerk, a contractor's son, or a banker's bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest duchess, appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says to his friend—dressed by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in patent-leather like any duke himself—'There, my boy, that is ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. You'll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head up, and go home. You're as safe as though you'd never seen Ely Crouch. There's no ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... spend three hours on dishes and tables, and seven on cleaning. The bedrooms take 280 minutes; that's nearly five hours. The other two are for the bath rooms, halls, stairs, downstairs windows, and so on. That's all right. Then I'm keeping the menus—just what I furnish and what it costs. Anybody could order and manage when it was all set down for her. And you see—as you have figured it—they'd have over $500 leeway to buy the furniture ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... log houses scattered here and dar. Some of 'em had two rooms on de fust flo' and a loft up 'bove whar de boys most genially slep' and de gals slep' downstairs. I don't 'member nothin' t'all 'bout what us done 'cept scrap lak chilluns ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... only a moment from your whisker-parterres, Cov! When you go back into that downstairs garden please give some of those beards a good hard ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... Malone went down the stairs to the kitchen. It wasn't that his parents were different. All the kids were fed and sent to school by robots. It was just that—well today seemed sort of special. Downstairs Amelia, the roboservant, placed hot cereal on the table before him. After he had forced a few bites past the tightness in his throat, Amelia checked the temperature and his clothing and let him out the door. The newest ...
— There Will Be School Tomorrow • V. E. Thiessen

... was waiting in the hallway downstairs again. Heads met in a huddle; words and phrases slipped out from time to time as the discussion ...
— An Ounce of Cure • Alan Edward Nourse

... set to work to put the room in order and get out Vane's clothes and clean linen for the day. Then he went downstairs and brewed Sir Arthur's morning coffee as usual. This was always the first of his daily tasks. When he took it up he found Sir Arthur still fully dressed, lying on the bed, moving ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... look upon but the four walls of the room, which, in spite of its cosiness, he only associates with dreams, nightmares, and dull memories of sleepless nights, and chilly mornings. Nothing to listen to but the twittering of the canary downstairs, and the distant wrangling of children in the nursery: no one to speak to but the harassed housewife, wanted in a dozen places at once, and the pert housemaid, whose noisiness is distracting. The man lay there, cursing his helplessness. In spite of his iron will, the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... a handsome young Turk whom he had in his service, and tried to win him over by flatteries and a bribe. He further said, "I will look out for some good berth for you. But you must do something for me. Take this silk handkerchief, and go downstairs with this officer. He will conduct you into a room where you will find a young woman who does much harm to believers, turning their feet from the way of Muḥammad. Strangle her with this handkerchief. By so doing you will ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... two Netta was much better and able to be brought downstairs. Matters gradually settled into their regular course at the farm, and all went on as usual. Mr Prothero spent every spare moment with Netta and his grandchild, who soon forgot that 'grandfather,' as he insisted on her calling him, 'talked ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... found out that all that time a girl of seventeen was kept alone in an upper room. "Let her weep," they said, quoting a proverb; "'though she weeps, will a widow's sorrow pass?'" Once a day, after dark, she was brought downstairs for a few minutes, and once a day, at noon, some coarse food was taken up to her. She is allowed downstairs now, but only in the back part of the house; she never thinks of resisting this decree—it, and all it stands for, is her fate. Sometimes the glad girl-life reasserts itself, ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... Mary, and having seen her in her room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... of the fatal instant, which every minute accelerated." The favourite valet, Noverraz, who had been for some time very ill, when he heard of the state in which Napoleon was, caused himself to be carried downstairs, and entered the apartment in tears. He was with great difficulty prevailed upon to leave the room: he was in a delirious state, and he fancied his master was threatened with danger, and was calling upon him for assistance: he said he would not leave him but would fight and die for him. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... and for whom the county had been named, who with his brave wife had made every possible arrangement for the meeting. The large parlors were packed with women, and every other foot of space downstairs and even up, were filled with men, while around the house was a crowd. It was a wonder where all the people could have come from. A rostrum had been erected at the end of the parlor next the hall, but I had no sooner taken ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... impression of his nearness to her. It was not a long letter, yet somehow she had managed exactly to convey the meaning she had intended. As she was finishing it, she heard the distant chime of the grandfather's clock downstairs, striking the half hour, and she smiled tenderly as the words of Nora's song returned to her. "I wonder: 'Is it I who write to thee, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... Downstairs, Uncle Jepson, who from a window of the bunkhouse had seen her come in, had followed her into the house, to ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... when he had left the room downstairs. And now he listened for sounds that would tell him that Okar's citizens were still busy with ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... from troubling. There are quite a number of them on board, for this is an Australian ship; if she were going to India there would be no small children. Here I counted fifteen at the table downstairs where they have their meals. You, of course, are treated as a grown-up person, and quite right too, as you are on the eve of a public school. I wonder how you will settle down at Harrow next winter after all this change! There is only one other boy ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... for supper they trooped across the road. The kitchen in reality consisted of a mess-room downstairs with a dormitory overhead; the actual kitchen was in a lean-to behind. When the six men had seated themselves at the long trestle covered with oilcloth, the cook entered with ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... pulpit on the minister's right, and one day it contained a bonnet, which Mr. Dishart's predecessor preached at for one hour and ten minutes. From the pulpit, which was swaddled in black, the minister had a fine sweep of all the congregation except those in the back pews downstairs, who were lost in the shadow of the laft. Here sat Whinny Webster, so called because, having an inexplicable passion against them, he devoted his life to the extermination of whins. Whinny for years ate peppermint lozenges ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... his toilet in the room appropriated to gentlemen. Three or four other boys were present, but he knew no one. With one of these, an attractive boy of his own age, Fred stumbled into acquaintance, and they went downstairs together. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... went downstairs and switched on the phone, George Harding's round face splashed on ...
— Waste Not, Want • Dave Dryfoos

... waited for two hours downstairs to ask you to give me a part. You didn't see me and ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... too, like a certain defiant person—oh, of an incredible beauty, such as women had not any longer!—who had hastily put aside her bonnet and had looked at a young Roger Stapylton in much this fashion very long ago, because the minister was coming downstairs, and they would presently be man and wife,—provided always her pursuing brothers did not arrive ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... the bottle on her desk and studied its label, frowning. "Run along downstairs, Julia. I'll see if they won't send ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... person equal to the occasion—an old maid as bitter against men as ever grapes were sour. She would follow us upstairs, downstairs, and into my lady's chamber. She would have an eye at the key-hole by day, and an ear by night, when we went up to bed and talked over the events of our frivolous day.' In short, he enumerated our duenna's perfections till our blood ran ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... and her uncle stepped out. He wore an untidy dressing-gown. His hair was disordered. His face appeared grayer and more haggard than it had downstairs. A lighted candle shook in his ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp

... congratulations Twyning accompanied him downstairs to the street and warmly shook his hand. "Thanks, old man; thanks most awfully. Yes, he's everything to me, my Harold. And of course it's a strain never knowing.... Well, well, he's in God's hands; and he's such a ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... the occasion of their arrival at his mother's home—"No, Geo'ge. I won't do it. Das flat! I's not bin used to it. My proper speer is de kitchen. Besides, do you t'ink I'd forsake my Angelica an' leabe her to feed alone downstairs, w'ile her husband was a-gorgin' of his-self above? Neber! It's no use for you, Geo'ge, to say you'd be happy to see her too, for she wouldn't do it, an' she's as obsnit as me—an' more! Now you make your mind easy, I'll be your mudder's ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Downstairs" :   down the stairs, upstairs, ground-floor, downstair, kick downstairs, on a lower floor



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