.. AND, what a devoted
stepmother!"
"She is one of the local secretaries of the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children," I said, drily.
"And charity begins at home," Hilda Wade added, in a significant aside.
We walked home together as far as Stanhope Gate. Our sense of doom
oppressed us. "And yet," I said, turning to her, as we left the
doorstep, "I don't doubt Mrs. Le Geyt really believes she IS a model
stepmother!"
"Of course she believes it," my witch answered. "She has no more doubt
about that than about anything else. Doubts are not in her line. She
does everything exactly as it ought to be done--who should know, if not
she?--and therefore she is never afraid of criticism. Hardening, indeed!
that poor slender, tender, shrinking little Ettie! A frail exotic. She
would harden her into a skeleton if she had her way. Nothing's much
harder than a skeleton, I suppose, except Mrs. Le Geyt's manner of
training one."
"I should be sorry to think," I broke in, "that that sweet little
floating thistle-down of a child I once knew was to be done to death by
her."
"Oh, as for that, she will NOT be done to death," Hilda answered, in her
confident way.
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