Adams and Van Buren

Usage examples of abigails.

Unknown ladies and gentlemen travelling without their personal servants found it hard to obtain accommodation at any of the best inns in Harrowgate, valets and abigails apparently being regarded by the landlords as insurances against the possibility of being choused out of their due reckonings.

Her Mama, quite as sensible as herself of the ridiculous nature of her indisposition, had announced her to be quite worn down by the exigencies of fashionable life, and had whisked her off to Kent in a post-chaise-and-four, where, in a comfortable mansion suitably retired from the haunts of men, she was able not only to recover her health and looks in seclusion, but also to communicate her complaint to two abigails and a youthful pageboy.

Sherry did indeed bethink himself of the staff that would be necessary for the comfortable maintenance of the house, but beyond saying that he didn’t want a butler like old Romsey, who would water the wine, and had no notion how many abigails were usually employed in an establishment of this size, he had no views to advance.

Here he found Miss Milborne directing a couple of abigails where to take various packages that strewed the room.

She was enlisted in one of Winifred’s causes, a volunteer organization called The Abigails, which had to do with hospital visiting.

The Abigails were a perky group: girls of good family, training to be future Winifreds.

She did not like the other Abigails, that goes without saying, but she took to the pinafore.

Predictably, she gravitated to the poverty wards, which the other Abigails tended to avoid because of their stench and outrageousness.

She was not seen to leave the inn, unless by one of the abigails, who, curse the wench, is gone off to visit her mother.

It was therefore concluded that the Abigails should, by turns, relieve each other on one of his lordship's horses, which was presently equipped with a side-saddle for that purpose.

He had just told one of the abigails to be sure not to forget to take a warming-pan up presently, when his wife called to him from the doorway: ‘Cattermole, here’s my lord driven up!

She pushed her way through the pack of growling guards until she reached the abigails and other witches of the coven whose concerned twittering was drowned by screams increasing in pitch and volume.