Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/274

 various heads, or it may be a circle of married women with cerise silk drop-skirts and white kid gloves, drinking chocolate in the afternoon and talking about something "shocking!"

And often, as I say, I am the least of them.

Genius is an odd thing.

When certain of my skirts need sewing, they don't get sewed. I simply pin the rents in them together and it lasts as long or longer than if I had seated myself in my stiff-backed chair with a needle and thread and mended them—like a sensible girl. (I hate a sensible girl.)

Though I have never yet hurriedly pinned up a torn flounce or several inches of skirt-binding without saying softly to myself, using a trite, expressive phrase, "Certainly, it's a hell of a way to do." Still I never take a needle and mend my garments. I couldn't, anyway. I never learned to sew, and I don't intend ever to learn. It reminds