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Stepmother   /stˈɛpmˌəðər/   Listen
Stepmother

noun
1.
The wife of your father by a subsequent marriage.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Stepmother" Quotes from Famous Books



... married about seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr. Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother. As the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with her ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... a fatal influence on the home-life of Wenceslas and Lisbeth. The benefactress flavored the exile's bread with the wormwood of reproof, now that she saw her money in danger, and often believed it to be lost. From a kind mother she became a stepmother; she took the poor boy to task, she nagged him, scolded him for working too slowly, and blamed him for having chosen so difficult a profession. She could not believe that those models in red wax—little figures and sketches for ornamental work—could be of any value. Before ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... treaty of Paris, and the partition of the inheritance of Alfonse of Poitiers. Edward's position against France was further strengthened in 1279 by the death of his wife's mother, Joan of Castile, the widow of Ferdinand the Saint and the stepmother of Alfonso the Wise, whereupon he took possession of Ponthieu in Eleanor's name. Scarcely had he established himself at Abbeville, the capital of the Picard county, than the negotiations at Paris were so far ripened that Philip ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... from twenty-five to thirty-two, been spared from home by her father to take care of his stepmother in London, where she had beguiled her time with a certain amount of authorship under a NOM DE PLUME, and had been introduced to some choice society both through her literary abilities and ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... control, and those allurements usually so potent where youth is endowed with great wealth. The young patriot promptly, cheerfully, sacrificed all, for his country—turned his back upon the unnatural stepmother, and came back, to share the good or evil fortunes of his ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... genial in his private intercourse. He was wealthy, and we lived in a sumptuous house in the upper part of the city. This was when I was about ten years old. My father was twice married; I was the child of the first wife, who died when I was very young; my stepmother came five years later. She was the elder of two sisters, both beautiful women. The sister often came to visit us. I remember I liked her better than I liked my stepmother; in fact, I regarded her with that sort of romantic attachment that often is developed in lads of ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... of which I write Louis XI reigned over France, Edward IV ruled in England, and his sister, the beautiful Margaret of York, was the unhappy wife of this Charles the Rash, and stepmother to his gentle daughter Mary. Charles, though only a duke in name, reigned as a most potent and despotic king over the fair rich land of Burgundy. Frederick of Styria was head of the great house of Hapsburg, and Count Maximilian, my young friend and ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... brought you where none may hear what I wish to say to you. I am Mave, the daughter of the king of Erin. By the magic arts of my cruel stepmother I was changed into a trout, and cast into this lake a year and a day before the evening when you restored me to the waters the second time. If you had not done so the first night the otter brought ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... called Dalb the Rough changed three men and their wives into swine by her spells.[1112] This power of transforming others is often described in the sagas. The children of Lir were changed to swans by their cruel stepmother; Saar, the mother of Oisin, became a fawn through the power of the Druid Fear Doirche when she rejected his love; and similarly Tuirrenn, mother of Oisin's hounds, was transformed into a stag-hound by the fairy mistress of her ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... ours in ten, probably not one in a hundred, has any direct rights or interest in his native soil; and the Motherland has too often (at any rate in the past) turned out a stepmother who disowned him later ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter

... ill-natured, blind man. He has a cruel stepmother and a selfish, petulant younger brother. This boy, the pet of his parents, treated Shun with insolence; and the father and mother joined in persecuting the elder son. Shun, without showing resentment, cried aloud to Heaven and obtained ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... away from her home fer some reason. Said she hadn't got no home. Stepmother, I shouldn't wonder. We'll find out to-morrow, an' ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... blow like a porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The only time he had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made a short visit to Lima, the wonders of which he used to chant unceasingly. But the continual cause of my annoyance—I fear I must write disgust—was the stepmother of mine host, a large fat dirty old woman. She had a pouch under her chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... Ridge's new novel, an animated story of London life, concerns a girl sent out to service by her stepmother. Taking the management of her career into her own hands, and holding the reins, goes first to a house on the north side of Regent's Park, afterwards to the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square; and her adventures in both situations, her acquaintances, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... or we should deserve this unkindness, we neither know nor believe. And though, for this very reason many do say—though we say not so—that this aiding of our enemies against us, seems neither the act of a father nor of a mother towards us, but rather of a stepmother; yet this notwithstanding, we constantly avow that we are" [remember, it is still the King of England speaking], "and shall continue to be, to your Holiness and to your seat, a devout and humble son, and ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies, the devil's cushion, as [1540]Gualter calls it, his pillow and chief reposal. "For the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... over than the stepmother began to display her bad temper. She could not endure the excellent qualities of this young girl, for they made her own daughters appear more hateful than ever. She thrust upon her all the meanest tasks about the house. It was she ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... are branded, As cattle are branded, With these words they've stamped it: 'To take away with you 690 Or drink on the premises.' Was it worth while, pray, To weary the peasant With learning his letters In order to read them? The land that we keep Is our mother no longer, Our stepmother rather. And then to improve things, These pert good-for-nothings, 700 These impudent writers Must needs shout in chorus: 'But whose fault, then, is it, That you thus exhausted And wasted your country?' But I say—you duffers! Who could foresee this? They babble, ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... is very captivating at first sight. But as a stepmother to your child! You seem mighty anxious, Albert, to get rid ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... lacquer, his polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, aroused a contempt in Judith's mind which was only equaled by her astonishment. On that occasion he sat upright in a chair between his stepmother and his tutor, looking intently out of very bright blue eyes at the two gipsy-brown little girls in their single-garment linen play-clothes, swinging their tanned bare legs and feet from the railing of the porch. They returned this inspection in silence—on Sylvia's part with the keen ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... cannot be compared for cruelty with the infamous Pedro. Burke has said that if Pedro was not absolutely the most cruel of men, he was undoubtedly the greatest blackguard who ever sat upon a throne, and King Juan was far from meriting similar condemnation. Sibyl de Foix, his stepmother, had exercised so strange and wonderful a power over his father, that when Juan came to the throne he was more than eager to turn upon this enchantress and make her render up the wide estates which the late king had ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... little home on the cliff, so unreal and shadowy now; she built cloud castles ablaze with happiness; she found falsehood not difficult, for her former absolute truthfulness deadened her stepmother's suspicion. Certain lies told at home enabled her to keep faith with the artist; and the weather also befriending him, three more sittings in speedy succession brought John Barron to the end of his labors. After Joan's exhibition of jealousy he ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... princess's window is not a prince at all,' answered the young man. 'He is the son of the master of the horse to the great king who dwells across the river, and he fled from his own country to escape from the hatred of his stepmother.' ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... daughter, who had not been in time to bid her father farewell, had not been in time to receive his blessing, after many years of anger, which had borne heavily on the head of the blameless young woman, was so evidently sincere, and produced such a deep impression on everyone, that her stepmother also ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... first set him thinking—namely, that Steel's Corner owned a laboratory—two, for the matter of that; that old Dr. Corfield was a clever toxicologist; that Leam had stayed there during her father's honeymoon; and that her stepmother had died on the night of her arrival. "And your average Englishman calls himself a creature with brains and inductive powers!" was his unspoken commentary on the finding of the coroner's jury and the verdict of the coroner. "Bull is a fool," the old heathen used to think, hugging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... shivered miserably because the spring sun was not high enough in the morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished in cotton-wool, and nursed and watched with eager, happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True Sister of Charity! Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... were exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree. Whatever may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern daughter; but it was in vain that, with the most touching patience, I submitted to my stepmother's demands; and from the hour she entered my father's house, I may say that I met with nothing but injustice ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... am told, and certainly appears much interested in and kindly disposed toward you. Dear Peyton liked him exceedingly, and his two letters to me were full of generosity and kind sympathy. As I believe I told you, his stepmother resides with him, and her daughter Miss Neville, though a young lady, will be more of a companion for you than the older members of the household. Mr. Palma is one of the most eminent and popular lawyers in New York, is very ambitious, I have heard, and at his house you will meet the best ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... said Garnache, "for I believe that the knowledge of the Marquis's death was kept from him by his stepmother." ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... He ignored his stepmother completely, but tormented his sister Maud in a thousand impish ways. He disarranged her neatly combed hair. He threw mud on her dress and put carriage grease on her white stockings on picnic day. He called her "chiny-thing," in allusion to her ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... has reached the window of thy daughter." And the prince inquired of the messenger, saying, "The son of which of the princes is it?" And he replied to him, "It is the son of an officer, who has come as a fugitive from the land of Egypt, fleeing from before his stepmother when she had children." Then the chief of Naharaina was exceeding angry; and he said: "Shall I indeed give my daughter to the Egyptian fugitive? Let him go back whence he came." And one came to tell the youth, "Go back to the place thou camest from." But the ...
— Egyptian Literature

... grandmothers; and I am indebted to some old story, read in childhood, for the suggestion of "Dust Under the Rug," which was a successful experiment in a kindergarten to test the possibility of interesting little children in a story after the order of Grimm, with the wicked stepmother and ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay

... three the little girl had a very hard time. She worked like a slave all day long, and was never allowed to go out of the kitchen. The stepmother and the proud sisters, used to go to balls every night, leaving the little girl alone. Because she was always so dusty and grimy from working over the fire, they called her Cinderella. Now, it happened that the country was ruled by a very handsome ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... human relations, especially with children. In Cinderella the child is held by the unkind treatment inflicted upon Cinderella by her Stepmother and the two haughty Sisters. He notes the solicitude of the Mother of the Seven Kids in guarding them from the Wolf. In the Three Bears he observes a picture of family life. A little child, on listening to The Three Pigs for the first time, was overwhelmed by one thought and cried out, ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... adored their mild, kindly stepmother, who, on her side, was as devotedly attached to them as if they had been her own children. The Count noted this mutual attachment, which time only served to strengthen, and it filled his heart with joy and gratification. The family was, indeed, a happy one, and even ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... they had stood a little awkwardly, before the boy went in to say good-bye to his stepmother and go off with his father to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... front of the Phthians were Medon, and Podarkes resolute in war. Now the one, Medon, was the bastard son of noble Oileus, and brother of Aias, and he dwelt in Phylake, far from his own country, for that he had slain a man, the brother of his stepmother Eriopis, wife of Oileus. But the other, Podarkes, was the son of Iphiklos son of Phylakos, and they in their armour, in the van of the great-hearted Phthians, were defending the ships, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... The manor-house mothered him, and the little Cotswold village cradled him in kindly keeping arms. His own mother had died when he was seven, his father married again a couple of years later; but, as Mr Peel was in the Indian Forest Department, and Reggie's young stepmother a faithful and devoted wife, he saw little of either of them, except on their somewhat infrequent leaves when they paid so many visits and had to see so many people, that he never really got to know either them or ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... tell you what those dry, boulder-strewn watercourses put me in mind of? We read in the English fairy tale of the Babes in the Wood, how the little brother and sister left a trace of their wanderings, through the unknown forest into which their stepmother had turned them out, by dropping pebbles as they went. These streamlets are like lost babes in the great world into which they are sent adrift, and that is why they leave stones, as they go forth, to mark their course, so as not to ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... think of her as the Poor Thing. O, I do so hope the Camp Fire will do a great deal for her—she's had so pitifully little in her life thus far. Her mother died when she was a baby, and she has been just a drudge for her stepmother and the younger children, and she's not strong enough for such hard work. She's never had anything for herself. The camp will seem like paradise to her if she can only get in touch with things—I'm ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... by the two women went to their work, and Jason followed Steve about the little place to look at the cow and a few pigs and at the garden and up over the hill to the tobacco-patch that Steve was tending on shares with Colonel Pendleton. After dinner Mavis disappeared, and the stepmother reckoned she had gone over to see Marjorie Pendleton—"she was al'ays a-goin' over thar"—and in the middle of the afternoon the boy wandered aimlessly forth into the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it ...
— Different Girls • Various

... stepmother looked likely! Lucy in her bedroom upstairs knew nothing, and Dora decided to tell her nothing till she was stronger. But this new development made the child's future more ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... exquisite, and the truth of the natural fact very perfect as observation, and the book is full of such writing. But oh, dear! the confusion of plot is so maddening you have a delirious feeling that everybody is getting engaged to his half-sister or widowed stepmother, and keep turning back to make sure! But the dramatism is very good and leads ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... and one of his servants, Sibich, to escort the bride to his kingdom. Sibich was a traitor, and as part of a plan to compass the death of the royal family that he might claim the kingdom, he accused Randwer of having tried to win his young stepmother's affections. This accusation so roused the anger of Ermenrich that he ordered his son to be hanged, and Swanhild to be trampled to death under the feet of wild horses. The beauty of this daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun was such, however, that even the wild steeds ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... from boarding-school at seventeen, and married the reckless son of a rich man. She had a stepmother of the traditional type, and had never known a happy home life. She was of a loving and trusting and at the same time a coquettish nature, and she attracted young Walton's eye while out for a walk with a "Miss Brown" order of duenna. The duenna saw the little embryo ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... of their stepmother's name was enough for Rosa and Esteban; they scuttled away as fast as they could go, and when Dona Isabel came to their rooms, a few moments later, she found them in their beds, with their eyes deceitfully squeezed shut. Evangelina was cowering in a corner. Isabel had overheard ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... subject of dissension. M. Dudevant was beginning to get into pecuniary difficulties in the management of his wife's estate. Sometimes he contemplated resigning it to her, and retiring to Gascony, to live with his widowed stepmother on the property which at her death would revert to him. But unfortunately he could not make up his mind to this course. No sooner had he drawn up an agreement consenting to a division of property, than ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... Father married Frau R., she would leave home. In the evening when we were at supper, I said: "If only Frau v. R. was not so ugly. Father, don't you think she's perfectly hideous? And Father laughed so lovingly and said: You need not be anxious, little witch, I'm not going to inflict a stepmother on you." I was so glad, and so was Dora and we kissed Father such a lot, and Dora said: "I felt sure that you would never break your oath to Mother," and she burst out crying. And Father said: "No, girls, I did not give any promise to your Mother, she would never have asked ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... I can expect you would have both of us. Love is covetous; I must have all of you; heart for heart is an equal trick. In short, I am younger, I think handsomer, and am sure I love you better. She has been my stepmother these fifteen years: You think that is her face you see, but it is only a daubed vizard; she wears an armour of proof upon it; an inch thick of paint, besides the wash. Her face is so fortified, that you can make no approaches to it without a shovel; but, for her constancy, I can tell ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Traitorous as it seemed, it was a great relief—a joy—to know that her own mother, her real mother, had been "nice." "She must have been nice or Lize would not have said so," she reasoned, recalling that her stepmother had admitted her feeling ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... fairest period in a happy woman's life—was Roddy's mother, the mother of all the little van Cannan children, living and dead. The woman who had ousted her memory from all hearts save loving, loyal Roddy's was the second wife and stepmother. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... upon his knees, brought his mouth close to his companion's ear—"So you see," he said, "when that youngster was born, Lady F. was Mrs. M.—wasn't she? and for the matter of that, Lady F. is Mrs. M. to this very hour. That's the real chat; ain't it, Sir Thomas? My stepmother, you know. The governor could take her away with him to-morrow if he chose, according to the law ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... regret than with fatigue when he must leave the happy paths under the stars outside, and creep into his bed. It is all like some glimpse, some foretaste of the heavenly time when the earth and her sons shall be reconciled in a deathless love, and they shall not be thankless, nor she a stepmother any more. ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... seems to set as severe tasks as the wicked stepmother in the fairy tales," said Mr. Cross. "She decrees that you are each to be given a small box of peas and beans and buttons mixed together, and that you are to sort them before you start to run the race. Will you please all kneel on the grass with your ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... rood of Winchester speaketh, a prettie shift of moonks to defeat the priests of their possessions, the controuersie betwene the moonks and the priests ended by a miracle of archbishop Dunstane, great hope that Edward would tread his fathers steps, the reuerent loue he bare his stepmother queene Alfred and hir sonne Egelred, hir diuelish purpose to murther Edward hir step-sonne accomplished, his obscure funerall in respect of pompe, but famous by meanes of miracles wrought by and about his sepulture, queene Alfred repenting hir of the said prepensed murther, dooth penance, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... cit and polecat stink, and are secure; Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug, The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug; Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts, Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts;— But, oh! thou bitter stepmother and hard, To thy poor fenceless, naked child—the Bard! A thing unteachable in world's skill, And half an idiot too, more helpless still; No heels to bear him from the op'ning dun; No claws to dig, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... a sort of agent at Southampton for business connected with the timber which was yearly cut in the Forest to supply material for the shipping. He had wedded the daughter of a person engaged in law business at Southampton, and had only been an occasional visitor at home, ever after the death of his stepmother. She had left these two boys, unwelcome appendages in his sight. They had obtained a certain amount of education at Beaulieu Abbey, where a school was kept, and where Ambrose daily studied, though for the last few months Stephen had assisted his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... it a few weeks—after his mother's death, the father married again. The stepmother was no improvement on the mother. She had lofty ideas of discipline and being "minded." No doubt that little Stephen, crooked in eyes, crooked in body, short and swart, with brown, bare legs, was stubborn and wilful. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... exceed.[12] Often, too, they seem to renounce all authority and make final appeal to the inward witness of the Holy Spirit;[13] and yet Protestantism would be mistaken in seeking its ancestors among them. No, they desired to die as they had lived, in the communion of that Church which was as a stepmother to them and which they yet loved with that heroic passion which some of the ci-devant nobles brought in '93 to the love of France, governed though she was by Jacobins, and poured out ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... heartless and an utter snob. I suppose men are often blind to these hateful qualities before marriage; doubtless a clever, unscrupulous woman is able to hide her faults when she has the main chance in view. My stepmother was a good deal younger than my father, and I dare say on the whole made him, socially at any rate, a fairly good wife. Her one idea was social aggrandizement at any cost, and I unhappily was to ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... mother died. I had my own mother to care for, and I was school-teaching. Now mother has gone, and my uncle died six months ago and left me quite a little property, and I've given up my school, and I've come for Agnes. I guess she'll be glad to go with me, though I suppose her stepmother is a good woman, and has always done ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... that case it does not appear in the exposition, but is revealed at a critical moment towards the close. In Little Eyolf, Asta and Allmers are introduced to us at first as half-sister and half-brother; and only at the end of the second act does it appear that Asta's mother (Allmers' stepmother) was unfaithful to her husband, and that, Asta being the fruit of this infidelity, there is no blood kinship between her and Allmers. The danger of relying upon such complexities is shown by the fact that so acute a critic as M. Jules Lemaitre, in writing ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... Heads. "This year 1740," says he, "though the weather throughout Europe had been extraordinarily fine," or fine for a cold year, "had already witnessed several Deaths of Sovereigns: Pope Clement XII., Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, the Queen Dowager of Spain [Termagant's old stepmother, not Termagant's self by a great way]. But that was not enough: unfathomable Destiny ventured now on Imperial Heads (WAGTE SICH AUCH AN KAISER-KRONEN): Karl VI., namely, and Russia's great, Monarchess;"—an audacity to be remarked. Of Russia's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... was at the fire to take her execution, young Tristram kneeled afore King Meliodas, and besought him to give him a boon. I will well, said the king again. Then said young Tristram, Give me the life of thy queen, my stepmother. That is unrightfully asked, said King Meliodas, for thou ought of right to hate her, for she would have slain thee with that poison an she might have had her will; and for thy sake most is my cause ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... describes her own condition at the beginning of the story. The theme of the long and complicated tale that follows is her fidelity under this affliction. Neither her father's anger, nor the stealthy deception of the false stepmother, nor the base lust of her brutish half-brother Cloten, nor the seductive tongue of the villainous Italian Iachimo, her husband's friend; nor even the knowledge of her own husband's sudden suspicion of her, and his instructions to have her slain, shake ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... in distrust and excitement. A few low murmurs from Hepworth, bursts of grief from Lady Clara, and dead silence on the part of Rachael Closs, attended the first disagreement that had ever set the stepmother and daughter ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... His stepmother said of him: "He read everything he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it before him until he could get paper. ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... think, and—the truth is, the stepmother doesn't much like me. She's rather difficult to get on ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... Oklahoma. She was sick a good while and they took her to wait on her. Then come and took her after she died. There show is a fambly. My father had twenty-two in his fambly. My mother had five boys and three girls and me. My stepmother had fourteen more children. That's some fambly aint it? All my brothers and sisters died when I was little and they was little. My father's other children jess somewhar down round Pine Bluff. I guess I'd know em but I aint seed none of them in ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... saw Tom Braddock. Her father lived in New York City and he was a very wealthy guy. She was 'is only child and 'er mother was dead. The old man, whose name was Portman,—Albert Portman, the banker,—was considering a second venture into matrimony at the time. Mary was eighteen and she didn't want a stepmother. She raised such a row that he sent 'er off to school so as he could do 'is courting in peace and plenty. She was a wayward gal,—leastwise she says so 'erself—and very impetuous-like. One day a ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... Cadmus founded Thebes. One of his daughters was named Ino. She married a son of King AEolus, who had been married before, and had two children, Phryxus and Helle. Ino was a cruel stepmother, and deceived her husband into thinking that the oracle at Delphi required him to sacrifice his son to Jupiter; but as the poor boy stood before the altar, down from the skies came a ram with a golden fleece, which took both the children on his back, and flew away with them over ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... who was looking after the children till the stepmother could be found, came and expostulated with Patience, telling her she was foolish to miss such a chance, and that she would find out her mistake when Stead married and that little flighty, light-headed wench made ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... where they were kindly received by the king of the country. They found that Prauncar Langara, king of Camboja, and his elder son and daughter had died, and that only his son Prauncar survived, and the latter's stepmother, grandmother, and aunts. They related the condition of affairs in Camboja, the arrival of the Spaniards, and the death of the usurper Anacaparan. The same news was brought by a Cambodian from Chordemuco, who also added that ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... The stepmother's affectionate assent, and even emotion, were a great surprise to Isabel; and James began to imagine that nothing was ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "I have certainly no wish that you should humble yourself. At the same time I am not selfish enough to want to stand in the way of your future. Your father and stepmother hate me, I know that. I am the cause of your separation from your folks. No doubt your father would be very willing to help you if you would consent to ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... Hippolytus being beloved by his Stepmother Phaedra, and refusing to gratify her Desires, was by her falsely accused to his Father Theseus; upon which account he was obliged to fly, and the Chariot Horses being frighted by Sea-Calves, dashed the Chariot to-pieces, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding

... for my stepmother, too. She'd crown me with a chair if she thought I held out on her. Beans me about every day just for ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... mercifully inclined, and by siding with Dorothy she would be supporting her husband. Therefore she could not agree with the angry declamations of her stepmother. ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... who gave the following brilliant answer to the question, "What was the character of Queen Mary?'' must have suffered herself from the troubles supposed to be connected with the possession of a stepmother: "She was wilful as a girl and cruel as a woman, but'' (adds the pupil) "what can you expect from any one who had had ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley

... himself," the courtiers of Sophia affected to observe; but these amusements disquieted her. Each day added to the years of Peter seemed to bring her nearer to the cloister. In vain she proudly called herself "autocrat"; she saw her stepmother, her rival, lifting up her head. Galitsyne confined himself to regretting that they had not known better how to profit by the revolution of 1682, but Chaklovity, who knew he must fall with his mistress, said aloud, "It would ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... two men as they walked off toward the apiary, and when she turned to her stepmother her eyes were wet with sudden tears. "Fidus was almost impertinent to father, wasn't he? And father was so perfect to him! That is what I tell Fidus, when he talks like grandfather and says we are all going to the dogs—I tell him that at least we are ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... returned home with joy, and she asked her consort, "Wherefore hast thou concealed thy children from me?" The king said, "I will do so no longer." And he sent messengers for his son, and he was brought to the Court. His stepmother said unto him, "It were well for thee to have a wife, and I have a daughter who is sought of every man of renown in the world." "I am not yet of an age to wed," answered the youth. Then said she unto him, "I declare to thee, that it is thy destiny not ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... I suppose?" Ray remarked, feeling that he must make some courteous inquiry regarding his stepmother-elect. ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... adored brother, Kenneth. He carried a letter which he contrived to pass into Ursula's hand in the crowd as the people came out. This letter asked Ursula to meet Kenneth in the beechwood the next afternoon, and so she stole away there when suspicious father and watchful stepmother thought she was spinning ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... engaged, I suppose; and it's rather like him to have said nothing about it. How would you like a stepmother, Milly?' ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon

... it, you angel stepmother, and so, I'm going to decide, right now,—with much quickness. Heigho! Which shall it be? Patty Van Reypen,—or stay an ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... authority on Japan, quotes some of these instances, and they seem to us rather absurd. He says: "One of the paragons had a cruel stepmother who was very fond of fish. Never grumbling at her harsh treatment of him, he lay down naked on the frozen surface of the lake. The warmth of his body melted a hole in the ice, at which two carp came ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore

... father, with his long, thick, hairy middle finger, gave her a fierce fillip on the nose, and she had to swallow her tears and play on. Barty was almost wild with angry pity, but dissembled, for fear of making her worse enemies in her father and stepmother. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... treated the children of his first wife, but conceived a criminal passion for the youngest of them, a beautiful girl named BEATRICE, whom he outraged, upon which, being unable to bring him to justice, she, along with her stepmother and a brother, hired two assassins to murder him; the crime was found out, and all three were beheaded (1599); this is the story on which Shelley founded his tragedy, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... belief and non-belief are dangerous. Hippolitus died because his stepmother was believed. Troy fell because Cassandra was not believed. Therefore the truth should be investigated long before foolish opinion can properly ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... say that you are forty years old, that you have practically built up a business which will be ruined if you leave it, that you are the sole support of a stepmother and a family of young half-brothers and sisters, but that you have felt it your duty to attest without appealing for exemption, we applaud your patriotism. But, when you go on to complain that your neighbour, aged twenty-two, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various

... her to him, or from him to her, there had then been no reason for him to doubt. In spite of that, she might have married now, or been promised in marriage. He knew that she must have been poor and left in want when her stepmother had died. She had told him of the intentions for her life, and he had answered that perhaps in the course of events something better might come up for her. Then he had been called a pauper, and had gone away to remedy that evil if it might be possible. He had heard while working ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... the hand and said: 'Look here; we haven't had one single happy hour since our mother died. That stepmother of ours beats us regularly every day, and if we dare go near her she kicks us away. We never get anything but hard dry crusts to eat—why, the dog under the table is better off than we are. She does throw him a good morsel or two now and then. Oh dear! if our own dear mother only knew all about ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... above the law, More grave and noble than it ever saw. Fraud in this age of ours unpunished can Tread down the equity so dear to man. Can you for spirits just and generous find A fairer cause to plead before mankind? Mother or stepmother let Fortune be, The theatre and not the bar for me; For client virtue, truth for counsel's wage; For judge the present ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams

... women are made that way. My stepmother, the only mother I've known, was like that," Lavendar went on, dropping suddenly again into personal talk, as they had done before. He and she, it seemed, could not keep barriers between them very long; every hour ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... such a mother!" cried my lord. "But I have only the advantage of a stepmother, and she draws me. There is the dinner-bell. Shall we go into the eating-room?" And taking his young friend's arm, my lord led him to the apartment where ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Washington Square College for about a year and a half. He lived in a dormitory uptown, but I used to see him in the restaurant, and then fairly often we had dates after I got off work. He has people out in the Midwest somewhere—a father and a stepmother. He was always sour and close-mouthed about them, even before he got thrown out of NYU. Now he won't even ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville

... he did, therefore, was to fly into a rage, refuse the Kid's offer in language which would have precipitated a brawl had the young man been less earnest in his wooing, and consign Minnie to the watchful vigilance of her stepmother. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... to beard Cheiron in his den, and find out how—should it be necessary—she could communicate with Halcyone. And then she was informed by Mrs. Porrit that her master would be away for a fortnight, and that Miss Halcyone La Sarthe had been taken off by her stepmother—she did not know where—and that the two old ladies had actually gone that day, with Hester and old William, to some place on the Welsh coast they had known when they were children, for a change to the sea! ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... and sorrow that once had served to stir a national hatred of France for England. Beaumarchais, in a later day, had given it back its true poetry by adapting it for the French theatre and putting it into the mouth of a page, who pours out his heart to his stepmother. Just now it was simply the air that rose and fell. There were no words; the plaintive voice of the singer touched ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... of both races, though secretly he thought his father a fool to have offered her marriage when something less permanent would have served the purpose. Still, for all his private convictions, he behaved to his stepmother with perfect courtesy, determined to make the best ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... part of Somersham palace, and was a considerable benefactor to the Collegiate Church of Manchester, where he was ultimately buried, although he left directions in his will to be buried at Ely. His numerous promotions are possibly due to the influence of his stepmother, the famous Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, the mother of King Henry VII. He was very little at Ely, and bore an indifferent moral character. The quaint set of verses[3] drawing his character says there was "little Priest's metal in him," that he ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... district; and as the confused picture unfolded itself, I began to form a definite and by no means pleasing picture of Sir Joseph. He was spoken of in a strange way, frigid and yet familiar, as a child might speak of a stepmother or an unavoidable nurse; something intimate, but by no means tender; something that was waiting for you by your own bed and board; that told you to do this and forbade you to do that, with a caprice that was cold and yet somehow ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... of an essayist, be it never so stricken, roves and ranges!—I remember pausing before a wide doorstep and wondering if perchance it was on this very one that the young De Quincey lay ill and faint while poor Ann flew as fast as her feet would carry her to Oxford Street, the 'stony-hearted stepmother' of them both, and came back bearing that 'glass of port wine and spices' but for which he might, so he thought, actually have died. Was this the very doorstep that the old De Quincey used to revisit in homage? I pondered Ann's fate, the cause of her sudden vanishing from the ken ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... than either of the poets with whom we have leashed him, and his birth year used to be put at 1616, though Dr. Grosart has made it probable that it was three years earlier. His father was a stern Anglican clergyman of extremely Protestant leanings, his mother died when Crashaw was young, but his stepmother appears to have been most unnovercal. Crashaw was educated at Charterhouse, and then went to Cambridge, where in 1637 he became a fellow of Peterhouse, and came in for the full tide of high church feeling, to which (under ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of behaviour; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle neither helped nor hindered the love affair, though it was going on under his own eyes. Frank's stepmother had such a variable temper, that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes of crossness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush blindly at the chance of escape from domestic ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... for in that quiet life the advance of one's years was not likely to be noticed. I am sure Miss Edgeworth looked no older to me when I left her than when I first saw her. But she was obliged to go into England to nurse her sick stepmother, and after her departure the place had no attractions for me, and ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... her," said Joan, "from the Lady Julian my grandmother. She was a Leybourne born, and she wedded my grandfather, Sir John de Hastings, whose stepmother was the Lady Isabel La Despenser, your father's sister. I think, from what she told me, your mother was ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... "My stepmother wanted I should give you this. She said to thank you for the grape-juice." As he spoke he looked at me gravely out of deep-set blue eyes, and when he had delivered his message ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... Lightfoot well enough. This astounding stepmother had been her humble but faithful friend. Lightfoot was a ruling woman spirit wherever she was, and she knew it, though she bowed at all times to the rule of strength as the only law. Nevertheless she knew how to get her own way. With ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... how things would be. I think more of this opening for commerce, and of the lordship over such extensive mines, than of all that has been done in the Indies.[415-1] This is not a child to be left to the care of a stepmother. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... life tolerate the yielding to the wantonness of the flesh and at the same time boast the Gospel of Christ, as did the Corinthians, who stirred up among themselves divisions and disorder, even to the extent of one marrying his stepmother. In such matters as these, Paul says, a little leaven leavens and ruins the whole ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... what to call it," replied Geraldine, with another apprehensive look toward the door. "General utility, I hope." She looked back at her companion. "When my father died, it left me alone in the world; for my stepmother is the sort that lives in the fairy tales; not the loving kind who are in real life. I know a girl who has the dearest stepmother. I was fourteen years old when my father married again. My mother had been dead for three years. I was an only child and had always lived at home, but my stepmother ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... architecture, with all the rooms opening one into the other and dispensing with passages altogether. The dining-room, a big sparsely furnished room, had doors both front and back, and looked on the yard behind as well as on the garden. The table was laid for a substantial tea. Mrs. Warner, Bessie's stepmother, a good-looking woman of thirty, was at the head of the table with the tea-pot in her hand, but the children had left their places and clustered round her; two other girls of sixteen and eighteen were clinging to one ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... to disagreeable impressions was however very ample, and life was fenced about with protections for her "feelings." It filled young Benham with inexpressible indignations that his sweet own mother, so gay, so brightly cheerful that even her tears were stars, was never to be mentioned in his stepmother's presence, and it was not until he had fully come to years of reflection that he began to realize with what honesty, kindness and patience this naturally not very happy lady had nursed, protected, mended ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... Hampton Court where Katharine was imprisoned, was so strictly guarded that none but certain officers could enter or leave it. The Princess Mary, who had spent the last few months with her stepmother, presenting a strange contrast to her surroundings, was now sent to join Prince Edward, and her father announced that he was heartbroken at the queen's immorality and perfidy. Anne was thought by Chapuys ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... Poor child, her love for me and all her affectionate treatment of me, must have made it seem likely enough to them that she was Esme, safely disguised as an important young personage, to travel with her stepmother. Bedr must have assured his employers that he was certain the pale girl was really Miss Gilder; so they thought the other one with me must be Esme. You can't laugh at my fears any more! And I ask ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... parted, and Willis Ford was left to many uncomfortable reflections. He knew of no way to raise the money; yet, if he did not do it, he was menaced with exposure and ruin. Would his stepmother come to his assistance? He knew that Mrs. Estabrook had a thousand dollars in government bonds. If he could only induce her to give him the custody of them on any pretext, he could meet the demand upon him, and he would never again ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger

... sufficiently indicated that the attempt would be not a little perilous. The result was that she was obliged to abandon her design. In killing the cock I can scarcely think that the dog understood the precise import of my stepmother's wish, as his immediate execution of it would seem to imply. The cock was a more recent favourite, and had received some attentions which had previously been bestowed upon himself. This, I think, had led him to entertain a feeling of hostility to the bird, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... I am perishing!" she said in French, dropping down before Orlov, and laying her head on his knees. "I am miserable, I am exhausted. I can't bear it, I can't bear it. . . . In my childhood my hateful, depraved stepmother, then my husband, now you . . . you! . . . You meet my mad love with coldness and irony. . . . And that horrible, insolent servant," she went on, sobbing. "Yes, yes, I see: I am not your wife nor your friend, but a woman ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... The stepmother was envious of the stepson and daughter and began to use them hardly. She scolded them without any reason, sent them away from home as often as she wished, and gave them scarcely enough to eat. Finally ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various

... a man and his wife who had two children, a boy and a girl. The wife died, and the man married again. 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; but to her own daughter she was all that was good. She was spared from ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various



Words linked to "Stepmother" :   stepparent



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