"Fiddlesticks," said Miss Avies. "Your life's your own, not your aunts'."
She sat down and stayed bolt upright and motionless near the fire; she flung a thin dark shadow like a stain on the wall. There was a long pause between them. After that abrupt opening there seemed to be nothing to say. Maggie's thoughts also were elsewhere. She was wishing now passionately that she had not given that note to Caroline.
Suddenly Miss Avies said, "What do you do with yourself all day?"
Maggie laughed. "Try and make myself less careless, Miss Avies."
Miss Avies replied, "You'll never make yourself less careless. We are as we are."
"But don't you think," said Maggie, "that one can cure one's faults?"
"One gets rid of one only to make room for another ... But that doesn't matter. The point is that one should have an ambition. What's your ambition, child?"
Maggie didn't answer. Her ambition was Martin, but she couldn't tell Miss Avies so.
At last, after a long pause, as Miss Avies still seemed to be waiting, she answered:
"I suppose that I want to earn my living—to be independent."