painting idea

their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the
fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither
quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had
dispensed from joining the group; saying, 'She regretted to be under
the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard
from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was
endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and
childlike disposition,
a more attractive and sprightly manner-
something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were- she really
must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy,
little children.'