"By the word dust I mean chiefly that which has been, but which now
having become disintegrated, floats about and settles in vacant places."

She remained silent a little while.

"I have read of dust which carries the poison from putrified matter. You
do not mean that, I suppose?"

There was neither irony nor anger in the tone, so I failed to
understand at what she was aiming.

"That depends on where the dust falls, my dear lady; in healthy human
beings it only creates a cloud of mist, prejudices which prevent them
from seeing clearly; if there be stagnation this dust will oftentimes
collect an inch thick, until the machinery is thoroughly clogged."

She turned toward me with more vivacity than she had yet shown, and
leaning on the arm of her chair brought her face nearer to mine.

"How did you happen upon this idea?" asked she. "Is it because you have
seen how much dust there is in this house?"

I admitted that I had seen this.

"And yet the chambermaid and Stina do nothing else but clean away the
dust, and I did nothing else either at first. I cannot understand it. At
home at my mother's, there was nothing I heard so much about as dust.
She was always busied about father with a damp cloth; he was constantly
annoyed because she would disturb his books and papers. But she insisted
that he gathered more dust than any one else. He never left his study
that she was not after him with a clothes-brush. And later it came to be
my turn. I was like my father, she said I accumulated dust, and I never
could dust well enough to satisfy her. I was so weary of dust that when
I married a Paradise seemed in prospect because I thought I should
escape this annoyance and have some one to dust for me. But therein I
was greatly in error. And now I have given it up. It is of no use. I
evidently have no talent for getting rid of dust."

"And so it is very singular," she continued, as she sank back in her
chair, "that you too should come with this talk about dust."

"I hope I have not hurt your feelings?"

"How can you think--?" and then, in the calmest, most innocent voice in
the world, she added: "It would not be easy to hurt the feelings of any
one who had lived nine years with Albert."

I became greatly embarrassed. What possible good could it do for me to
become entangled in the affairs of this household? I did not say another
word. She too sat, or rather reclined in her seat, for a long time in
silence, drumming with her