r you can't squint properly and keep
your eye on the weathercock at the same time to see how it blows.'

"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."

TOBY.

"Remove your arms from my neck, Little Missis--I feel unusually
apoplectic--and let me take two or three turns on the rug,

"Whilst I turn the matter over in my mind, for never was there so
puzzled a Pug!

"I am, as your respected Father truly observes, a most talented
creature.

"And as to fit subjects for family portraits and personal
appearance--from the top of my massive brow to the tip of my curly
tail, I believe myself to be perfect in every feature.

"And when my ears are just joined over my forehead like a black velvet
cap, I'm reckoned the living likeness of a late eminent divine and once
popular preacher.

[Illustration]

"Did your great-great-grandmamma ever take a prize at a show? But let
that pass--the real question is this:

"How is it that what I am most highly commended for, should in your
cas