How many among us, alas! find it difficult to see our children for even a few minutes during the course of the day. We have not the time to attend to them, we say. We have not the _time_! To whom does our time belong, if not to these little ones who call upon us by the sweet name of mother? Let us not plead our position. I know women who mingle a great deal in society, who have a great number of servants to be looked after, who yet manage their time so well that they are enabled to spend the greater part of the day with their children. They have hours set apart for conversing with them, for informing themselves of their progress--in a word, for attending to their education. These mothers are happy. The gratitude of their young families, the affection which surrounds them, the sense of duty performed--shall we dare compare these true and noble enjoyments with the empty pleasures which the exhibition of a new dress or even an eulogium passed on our beauty procures us? And, candidly, is it not more worthy, more sensible, to say, "I have not time to go to the park," than to allege that we have not time to love and to care for our children? And our husbands--do we devote our time to them any more than to our children? Ah! you will perhaps reply, my husband has very little need of my society; he lives for himself; I live for myself. If I have my toilettes, my drives, and my friends, he has his horses, his friends, and his club. There is the misfortune; and the question is, are we not, to a considerable extent, responsible for this deplorable habit of, so to speak, separate existences? Do you not think, then, that the majority of husbands would prefer a different kind of life? That it would be more agreeable to them to enjoy oftener the pleasures of home, in your company, surrounded by their children? You do not believe it? Be it so; but have you ever tried the experiment? Have you not yourselves created a necessity for this life of continual agitation and excitement? Have you ever reserved time to be devoted to your husband? And is it not your desire that things should remain just as they are--you with your liberty and your husband with his? Do you not prefer to squander (for that is the word) your hours and your days, rather than face the _ennui_ that your own worldly tastes would cause you to experience in the retirement of a serious, and, in comparison, solitary home? But it is not our time alone that we thus waste. We waste likewise a fortune which in reality is not ours. We are born rich, while all around us the poor--children of the same God--are without bread to eat, and ready to die of hunger, perhaps under the same roof. We forget that, according to the designs of Providence, we have a duty to discharge toward the suffering and the needy! It is not for ourselves alone that God has given us riches. He wishes us to be his almoners, and the practice of charity is a strict duty.