But it does not require time.

It is not a question of time, but of manner.

The farmer's wife, for example, is busy ironing, or sewing, or preparing breakfast for her husband and sons, who are expected every moment to come in hungry from their work.

Her little daughter, ten years old, comes to show her a shawl she has been making from a piece of calico for her doll.

The busy mother thinks she must say, "Yes; but run away now, Mary; I am very busy!"-- because that is the easiest and quickest thing to say; but it is just as easy and just as quick to say, "What a pretty shawl! Play now that you are going to take Minette out for a walk in it!" The one mode sends the child away repulsed and a little disappointed; the other pleases her and makes her happy, and tends, moreover, to form a new bond of union and sympathy between her mother's heart and her own.