"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."