The pew-opener and her children failed not to keep their appointment, and Cecilia presently contrived to settle them in her neighbourhood: where the poor woman, as she recovered her strength, soon got a little work, and all deficiencies in her power of maintaining herself were supplied by her generous patroness. ❋ Unknown (2008)
Yet, such was her dread of his austerity and the arrogance of his reproaches, that, by choice, she would have preferred an habitation with her own pensioner, the pew-opener, to the grandest apartment in Delvile Castle while he continued its lord. ❋ Unknown (2008)
She could recollect, however, one only thing that had escaped her vigilance, which was acquainting the pew-opener, and two or three other poor women who had weekly pensions from her, that they must, at least for the present, depend no longer upon her assistance. ❋ Unknown (2008)
The clergyman now began to enquire of the pew-opener, what she knew of the woman, who she was, and how she had got into the church? ❋ Unknown (2008)
When my friend, the fashionable John Pimlico, married the lovely Lady Belgravia Green Parker, the excitement was so general that even the little snuffy old pew-opener who let me into the seat was in tears. ❋ Unknown (2006)
Mrs. Creed, the pew-opener, confirmed these statements to Doctor ❋ Unknown (2006)
His widow was a pew-opener in the cathedral hard by; his eldest son was a little scamp of a choir-boy, who played toss-halfpenny, led his little brothers into mischief, and had a voice as sweet as an angel. ❋ Unknown (2006)
She walked up the middle aisle with as much self-possession as though the chancel had belonged to her family for years; and the respectable pew-opener absolutely deserted two or three old ladies whom she was attending, to show Mrs Greenow into her seat. ❋ Unknown (1993)
Lubin shall come and be an acolyte, and we'll get Mr Buskin to be stage-manager, and you shall be the pew-opener. ❋ Frederic H. Balfour (N/A)
There is no inscription; but visitors are usually told about Mrs. Charlotte Hart, the apparently impecunious pew-opener at the church, who surprised her friends by dying worth close upon £3,000, and by leaving ❋ George Worley (N/A)
I saw him once enter St. James's Church, having at the door taken a ponderous red-morocco prayer-book from his servant; but, although prominently placed in the centre aisle, the pew-opener never offered him ❋ Various (N/A)
The pew-opener is a very prominent and principal figure; two old women adjoining Miss West's seat are so much in shadow, that we are apt to overlook them: they are, however, all three making the dome ring with their exertions. ❋ John Trusler (N/A)
The opposition made by an old pew-opener, with her bunch of keys, gave the artist a good opportunity for indulging his taste in the burlesque, and he has not neglected it. ❋ John Trusler (N/A)
Protest might with just as good a reason be presented to the church-warden for the time being, to the parish-clerk, or the pew-opener. ❋ Various (N/A)
She subscribed £20 towards a new instrument for the parish church, and was so overcome when she first heard it that she had to be carried out by the pew-opener. ❋ James T. Lightwood (N/A)
When my friend, the fashionable John Pimlico, married the lovely Lady Belgravia Green Parker, the excitement was so general, that even the little snuffy old pew-opener who let me into the seat was in tears. ❋ Unknown (1917)
A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging us, like a drill-sergeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to Heaven. ❋ Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 (1917)
Then came the inevitable orgy of osculation in the vestry, from which I escaped with nothing worse, so to speak, than a few scratches, despite an unprovoked and unexpected flank attack (when I was signing the register) from an elderly female in bugles, whom I at first took to be a rather giddy pew-opener, but who ultimately proved to be a maiden aunt of the bridegroom's. ❋ Ian Hay (1914)
She subscribed L20 towards a new instrument for the parish church, and was so overcome when she first heard it that she had to be carried out by the pew-opener. ❋ Lightwood, James T (1912)
As a help to identification she added that the church was built of stone, and that the pew-opener had ❋ Unknown (1903)