She did not like to embroider, but she did like to be praised.
Diantha took some socks and set to work, red-checked and excited, but silent yet.

Her mother's needle trembled irregularly under and over, and a tear or two slid down her cheeks.
Finally Mr.Bell laid down his finished paper and his emptied pipe and said, "Now then.

Out with it." This was not a felicitious opening.

It is really astonishing how little diplomacy parents exhibit, how difficult they make it for the young to introduce a proposition.

There was nothing for it but a bald statement, so Diantha made it baldly.
"I have decided to leave home and go to work," she said.
"Don't you have work enough to do at home ?" he inquired, with the same air of quizzical superiority which had always annoyed her so intensely, even as a little child.
She would cut short this form of discussion: "I am going away to earn my living.