'
"But boys are so mean!--and I catch stammering from his school
friend--'_Tut-tut-tut-tut-Tom_,' as we call him--but I soon leave it off
when he goes.
"I did not learn stooping and poking out my chin from any one; it came
of itself. It is so hard to sit up; but Mother says that much my worst
trick
"Is biting my finger nails; and I've bitten them nearly all down to the
quick.
"She says if I don't lose these tricks, and leave off learning fresh
ones, I shall never grow up like our pretty great-great-grandmamma.
"Do you know her, dear Toby? I don't think you do. I don't think you
ever look at pictures, intelligent as you are!
"It's the big portrait, by Romney, of a beautiful lady, sitting
beautifully up, with her beautiful hands lying in her lap.
"Looking over her shoulder, out of lovely eyes, with a sweet smile on
her lips, in the old brocade Mother keeps in the chest, and a pretty
lace cap.
"I should very much like to be like her when I grow up to that age;
Mother says she was twenty-six.
"And of course I know she would not have looked so nice in her picture
if she'd squinted, and wrinkled her forehead, and had one shoulder out,
and her tongue in her cheek, and a round back, and her chin poked, and
her fingers all swollen with biting;--but, oh, Toby, you clever Pug! how
am I to get rid of my tricks?
"That is, if I must give them up; but it seems so hard to get into
disgrace
"For doing what comes natural to one, with one's own eyes, and legs, and
fingers, and face.
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