abigails

Blessings upon a fashion which has rescued from the claws of abigails, and the melting-pot of the silversmith, those neglected cimelia, for the benefit of antiquaries and the decoration of side-tables!

Saint Ronan's Well 2008

In popular novels, at any rate, abigails and scullions reigned supreme.

The Life and Romances of Mrs Eliza Haywood Whicher, George Frisbie 1915

On the descent of the hill were placed the French horns; the abigails, servants, and neighbours wandering below by the river; in short, it was Parnassus, as Watteau would have painted it.

Letters of Horace Walpole 01 Walpole, Horace 1890

In the servants 'hall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere.

Jane Eyre: an autobiography, Vol. I. 1848

The ladies declared that they never saw so old-fashioned a gawkey, and civilly recommended me to their abigails; the abigails turned me round with a stare, and then pushed me down to the kitchen and the fat scullion-maids, who assured me that, 'in the respectable families they had the honour to live in, they had never even heard of my name.'

The Pilgrims of the Rhine Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

My lord's intrigues may be ever so stealthily conducted, but his valet knows them; and my lady's woman carries her mistress's private history to the servants 'scandal market, and exchanges it against the secrets of other abigails.

The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne William Makepeace Thackeray 1837

Charley is the most affectionate of costers, and is a general favourite with the abigails of the terrace.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 Various 1836

Duchess of Sutherland, who had to sail down at least a hundred couple of tenants, shopkeepers, valets, and abigails.

The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 (Volume 1 of 3) Charles Greville 1829

Lady Jacintha embraced the countess, promised to consign her error to oblivion, and bade her resume her gaiety, for the abigails knew their own interest better than to prate.

Lovers and Friends; or, Modern Attachments 1821

'Mrs. Petito!' repeated Lord Colambre, as the name caught his ear; and, approaching the barouche in which the five abigails were now seated, he saw the identical Mrs. Petito, who, when he left London, had been in his mother's service.

The Absentee Maria Edgeworth 1808