Stepdaughter

“ That you continue to live there is purely due to the presence of a woman who has had the misfortune to marry you, and a stepdaughter—thank Heaven, she is not your daughter—whom I hope, with all my heart, some day will be rid of you forever. ”

“ In a little time the father of the girl married a widow, who brought with her into the house her own daughter. [26] The stepmother immediately began to hate the stepdaughter, because the girl was incomparably more beautiful than her own daughter. She forbade her to wash herself, to comb her hair, or to change her clothes, and sought by every possible way to torment and scold her. One day she gave her a bag full of hemp, and said, “If you do not spin all this well and wind it, you need not return home, for if you do I shall kill you.” ”

“ Is it my fault that I am plagued with a stepdaughter of so extraordinary a temperament? She will return directly, or we shall find her. I am sure of it. The wedding can be arranged then as speedily as you wish. I give her to you. I consent to your marriage. What could woman do more?"
"That is all very well," the Count said, "all very well indeed, but I do not understand how it is that a young lady could disappear from her home like this, and that her guardian should know nothing about it. ”

“ His new wife had an only daughter, who was both ugly and untidy, whereas her stepdaughter was a beautiful girl, and was known as Maiden Bright-eye. Her stepmother was very cruel to her on this account; she had always to do the hardest work, and got very little to eat, and no attention paid to her ”

“ The stepmother was that surprised when she found the young prince instead of the nasty frog, and she wasn't best pleased, you may be sure, when the prince told her that he was going to marry her stepdaughter because she had unspelled him. So they were married and went away to live in the castle of the king, his father, and all the stepmother had to console her was, that it was all through her that her stepdaughter was married to a prince.
MASTER OF ALL MASTERS
A girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. ”

“ Gertrude Say rather, of women, which is even more terrible! Savages torment the body alone; while we direct our arrows against the heart, the self-love, the pride, the soul of those whom we attack in the very midst of their happiness.
Pauline That is truly said. It is the whole woman-nature that I attack. Therefore, my dear and truly honored stepmother, you must eliminate by to-morrow, and not later, all the obstacles that stand between me and Ferdinand; or you may be sure my father shall learn from me the whole course of your conduct, both before and after your marriage. ”

“ Oh! how do you get on with the step-daughter. She seemed to me to be a young lady with a pretty stubborn will of her own. I put a letter for the post down somewhere, and I cannot think where; do help me to look for it, there's a good woman. ”

“ And suddenly the door creaked and flew open, and a great heavy chest was pushed in, and behind it came the step-daughter, radiant and beautiful, in a dress all glittering with silver and gold. For a moment the step-mother’s eyes were dazzled. Then she called to her husband: ‘Old man, yoke the horses at once into the sledge, and take my daughter to the same field and leave her on the same spot exactly; ‘and so the old man took the girl and left her beneath the same tree where he had parted from his daughter. ”

“ For the stepmother that succeeds, hateth children of a former match, cruel as the viper's are her tender mercies. A son, 'tis true, hath in his sire a tower of strength, [to whom he speaks and has his answer back] ; [12] but thou, my daughter, how shall thy maidenhood be passed in honour? What shall thy experience be of thy father's wife? She may fasten on thee some foul report in thy youthful bloom, and frustrate thy marriage. Never shall thy mother lead thee to the bridal bed, nor by her presence in thy travail hearten thee, my child, when a mother's kindness triumphs over all. ”

“ So when the man’s daughter went home, looking as beautiful and bright as day, the step-mother and her daughter grew much more ill-tempered, and it was worse still when she began to talk, and they saw that golden coins dropped from her mouth. The step-mother fell into such a towering passion that she drove the man’s daughter into the pig-stye—she might stay there with her fine show of gold, the step-mother said, but she should not be permitted to set foot in the house. ”

“ The stepmother was angry as angry, but she said nothing at all.
That very evening they heard something tap-tapping at the door low down, and a voice cried out:
"Open the door, my hinny, my heart,
Open the door, my own darling;
Remember the words that you and I spoke,
At the World's End Well but this morning."
"Whatever can that be?" cried out the stepmother.
Then the girl had to tell her all about it, and what she had promised the frog.
"Girls must keep their promises," said the stepmother, who was glad the girl would have to obey a nasty frog. "Go and open the door this instant." ”

“ In a moment a beautiful lady stood beside her. ‘Do not be afraid,’ said the lady, stroking Dotterine’s head. ‘I am your godmother, and have come to pay you a visit. Your red eyes tell me that you are unhappy. I know that your stepmother is very unkind to you, but be brave and patient, and better days will come. She will have no power over you when you are grown up, and no one else can hurt you either, if only you are careful never to part from your basket, or to lose the eggshells that are in it. ”

“ Is it possible, and would it be safe, that a husband should treat a wife's sisters as his own if he were allowed to marry them? And would not children suffer as well as husbands and wives? What is the real meaning of the argument that wives' sisters would prove the best stepmothers the children could have? It means that the wife's sister is the children's aunt, and is likely to bear them a closer affection than a stranger. Nothing can be more true under a law which does not invite her to become their stepmother. ”

“ That's what I call a discriminating child, mamma. It isn't every boy of five who knows a possible stepmother when he sees her. I am proud of Jay. I wish I were as confident of his father's discretion. Poor man, how he will be cajoled! How he will learn to reverence the opinion of Mrs. Eustace, how he will dote on the airy graces of the daughter. I wish you could see them, mamma. They rather affect the attitude of sisters. ”

“ I suppose that it is inevitable that a daughter by a first wife should not agree thoroughly with her father's second choice; but, 'pon my soul, I can see no occasion for you to take up arms against your step-mother; she has been too forbearing with you. She is the kindest, most considerate and conscientious of women. ”

“ The day after her marriage the bride sent a messenger, bearing handsome presents to her father, and telling him of the good fortune which had befallen her. As may be imagined, the stepmother and her daughter were so filled with envy that they grew quite ill, and had to take to their beds, and nobody would have been sorry if they had never got up again; but that did not happen. At length, however, they began to feel better, for the mother invented a plan by which she could be revenged on the girl who had never done her any harm. ”

“ When she looked at the scenery, she kept seeing at first only the family group at the station as she had left it: her father, tall, gray-bearded, with hollow eyes, a continually working mouth, a slouching gait, a worn hat and an old striped coat; her stepmother, short, stout, pretty, and unkempt, in a frayed and faded shirtwaist, and a skirt pinned with a large brass safety-pin dragging away from the belt; three barefooted children in nondescript attire beside her, and a curly-haired, brown-eyed boy of two holding her dress with one hand and throwing kisses with the other. ”

“ A man may also marry his step-sister on the mother’s side, that is the daughter of his own mother by another husband either prior to or subsequent to his father, the step-sister being of a different sept. ”

“ The common hostility between stepmothers and step-daughters does not surprise me in the least: it is natural and even moral. A new member of the household, who usurps their mother’s place, provokes repulsion on the part of the children. ”

“ III. With myself a female the foregoing relationships are the same.
This is purely a question of relationship by marriage. My several brothers being my husbands, their children by other wives would be my step-children, which relationship being unrecognized, they naturally fall into the category of my sons and daughters. Otherwise they would pass without the system. Among ourselves a step-mother is called mother, and a step-son a son.
IV. All the children of my several sisters, own and collateral, myself a male, are my sons and daughters. ”

“ He smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, 'Now come forrard, and shake hands properly with your stepmother.'
Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such a lamentably meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress was beyond their comprehension. ”

“ But it is a woman's danger to be petty and mean, and stepmothers are proverbial all the world over, and this one's heart was not as her first smiles were. As the days and weeks grew into months, the step-mother began to treat the motherless girl unkindly and to try and come between the father and child. ”

“ Your step-mother is not good enough for you. I—your father—am not good enough for you. We are all too strait-laced, too tied hand and foot by the laces of respectability, to serve as guide or check on such a headstrong piece of goods as yourself. ”

“ I have quite lost faith in the unkind stepmother of fairy-tale tradition. It is a step-daughter whom Mrs. Frederick, the Swiss woman, is caring for in the midst of her struggle. Three or four times I found a woman utterly uncomforted after the loss of a stepson. There was Conley, for instance, a car inspector who was killed in a wreck. A stepmother had brought him up since he was ten years old, loving him as few mothers love their own sons. ”

“ It was that of a young woman, perhaps twenty or twenty-two years of age. "You must not feel yourself alone, dear child," she said, smoothing my hair with one hand, from which she had drawn off the glove.
"Oh," said Mrs. Pierce, pushing her daughter behind her, "you will never believe, marm, what she is crying about,—leaving home, you think it is? Oh, no; Miss is just taking on about a snip of a doll which my little girl here smashed a trifle, not meaning any harm, for children will be children, you know." ”

“ The wedding was scarcely over, when the step-mother's bad temper began to show itself. She could not bear the goodness of this young girl, because it made her own daughters appear the more odious. The stepmother gave her the meanest work in the house to do ”

“ We were only rebelling as grown-up daughters sometimes do against the introduction in their midst of a baby, and especially when that baby is the offspring of a stepmother. We had not wanted the stepmother, and we didn’t want the baby ”

“ A beautiful lady, very fair, with bright blue eyes and soft auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, came into the room smiling, eager and happy-looking, and, coming up to our beds, kissed us and told us that she loved little children and that she would be our mother. Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter impression. ”

“ This was by no means relished by the step-mother, who had no fancy for matronizing daughters so nearly her own age, and who wished no less fervently than the young ladies themselves, that something in the shape of a husband would appear to carry each of them off. ”

“ You understand well that you and she as is to be your stepmother can't agree. As soon as you have cleared out, then in comes she; and as I powerfully want her in the house, the sooner you go the better. ”

“ "My son's my son till he gets him a wife,
My daughter's my daughter all her life." ”

“ The mother is beautiful, but the daughter is far more beautiful.” The step-mother had always been jealous of the daughter’s loveliness, but now her jealousy was fanned into a burning flame. The wise image-maker was no longer there to tell her that she was peerless.
The next day the mother and daughter again leaned over the balcony. Two soldiers passed by and one said to the other: “Do you observe those two beautiful women in the balcony? The mother is beautiful, but the daughter is far more beautiful.” The step-mother flew into a terrible rage. ”

“ The cruel stepmother is universally reviled in fable, in fiction, and in real life; but truth to tell, the very fact that she is a bad stepmother shows how deep her mother’s instincts must be. I have known one or two such stepmothers, and have always found them the most excellent mothers. ”

“ I will not give the girls absolute liberty at the expense of deserting their mother. I refuse to do so; I have told them that I will look after my stepmother for half of every day, sometimes in the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon; but I will not do more, so Molly or Ethel or Nesta, who is no baby, must share the looking after her with me. You can take this proposal of mine, girls, or leave it. If you take it, well and good; if you leave it I return to Frankfort to-morrow. ”