CHAPTER XVIII.
A TIMID WORD FOR THE STEP-MOTHER.
At a luncheon party of a dozen women which I attended last winter, this very topic was introduced.

Strangely enough, there were present three women whose mothers had died while the children were still infants, and whose fathers had married again, and two women who were themselves step-mothers.

Each of the three who could not remember her own mother agreed that she who took her place had filled it so conscientiously that the child hardly felt the lack.

The two step-mothers confessed that they loved their husbands' children as dearly as their own.

Said one woman: "When people speak to me of my step-daughter I have to stop and think which one of the children I did not bring into the world.