"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. Nugent?"