Fred Orchard returned after three hours, during which he left his beloved Audrey with his three daughters so they could meet and get to know the woman he planned to marry and make their stepmother. Ten-year-old Teri and 8-year-old Patty greeted him at the door.
"What do you think of Audrey? Don't you think she'll make a great stepmother?" Fred asked the girls. "We didn't hit it off at first," Teri explained. "She told us she wasn't comfortable with little girls. Once married to you, she would pack us off to a boarding school in Pennsylvania most of the year."
"But then she softened her opinion about us," Patty added. "We fixed her some tea. And the more she sipped, the more she began to relate to us. Soon she was playing games with us. We even played dress-up with her. We now consider her more of a sister than a stepmother."
"That's great! But where is Audrey?" Fred asked. "She's still in the bedroom with Gwendolyn," Teri said. She called, and 4-year-old Gwendolyn emerged from the bedroom holding the hand of an 18-month-old baby girl in diapers. "Say hi to daddy, stepmommy," Gwendolyn ordered the baby, which just grinned and looked up at Fred, giggling madly.
"How did you do this?" Fred said, with a streak of
fear beginning to rocket through his body. "Oh, we've been
able to do this for a long time. We just haven't had an excuse
until now," Teri replied. "Do you think this is a bad
time to ask dad to raise our allowances to $50 a week?" Gwendolyn
whispered to Patty.