waste-paper basket

“As soon as the door was closed behind him, Arthur went to the waste-paper basket and took out the little pink silk handkerchief.”

Adam Bede

“Later on, in the days of her descendants, it was kept filled with growing flowers and was a beautiful object, but my aunt merely used it as a sort of waste-paper basket for any scraps she picked up in the park.”

A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago

“And now, when he opened the door, there was the candle burnt out in the socket; there was the chair in the same place where Adam remembered sitting; there was the waste-paper basket full of scraps, and deep down in it, Arthur felt in an instant, there was the little pink silk handkerchief.”

Adam Bede