When I was seventeen years old, my mother had been dead eight years. I had a stepmother.
That was horrible, you think? Wait till you hear.
When my father—a graver, silenter, but not less kind and gentle man—brought home at last this lady, as truly, I think, for our sakes as his own,—he called us to them both as they sat together on the long velvet sofa in the library. I remember the moment, and the look of everything as if it were just now. It was a September midday; they had been married in church, and we had all come straight home; there was no company,—“this day was for themselves and the children,”—and dinner was going on, almost just as usual, in the dining room beyond.
The lady, whom we had seen but few times,—her home had been at a distance in the country,—was dressed in a plain violet silk; and now her bonnet was off, her dark hair looked homelike and simple, just parted away over her low, pleasant forehead and twisted richly behind; and her face,—I never forget that about it,—was watching the door when we came in.
My father said to me, being the girl and the oldest,—“Emmeline, I hope you will be the happier for this day, and I believe you will, from this day forward as long as you and my wife shall live.” He fell, unpremeditatedly, into the words of the Solemn Service that had been spoken over them; it was as if he had married us two, in our new relation, to each other.
He said to Andrew—“My boy knows what men owe to women; he and I must do our best and manliest for these two. We four are a family now.”
The new wife stretched out a hand to each of us. She slipped her arm round me, and drew me to her side, while she held Andrew’s hand upon her knee. The face that looked into mine was very wistful and kind; it almost seemed to beseech something of me. It asked leave to be loving.
We children did not know what to say. I felt uneasy not to speak at all. I believe I smiled a little, shyly. Then I asked—
“What shall I call you, please?”