Listeners
hear no good of themselves: and I suppose that's true of the other
senses too. At any rate, I'm going to do my best to mind nothing
except my own business."
"Isn't that rather unenterprising?"
"Certainly it is; that's why I like it.... Oh! Mabel, I do want to be
so absolutely ordinary all the rest of my life. It's so extremely rare
and original, you know. Didn't somebody say that there was nothing so
uncommon as common sense? Well, that's what I'm going to be. A genius!
Don't you understand?--the kind that is an infinite capacity for
taking pains, not the other sort."
"What is the other sort?"
"Why, an infinite capacity for doing without them. Like Wagner, you
know. Well, I wish to be the Bach sort--the kind of thing that anyone
ought to be able to do--only they can't."
Mabel smiled doubtfully.
"Lady Laura was saying--" she began presently.
Maggie's face turned suddenly severe.
"I don't wish to hear one word."
"But she's given it up," cried the girl. "She's given it up."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Maggie judicially. "And I hope now that
she'll spend the rest of her days in sackcloth--with a scourge," she
added. "Oh, did I tell you about Mrs.
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