"Are you never going to get down?" she asked, looking up at him fondly.
He closed the book with a snap and a sigh and descended. Her anxious look recalled his attention,
"Did I not hear Harriet harrowing you up again with her troubles?" he asked. "You poor, kind soul that try to bear everybody's!"
"Never mind about what I bear! What can you bear for dinner?"
"It is an outrage, Anna! What right has she to make herself happier by making you miserable, lengthening her life by shortening yours? For these worries always clip the thread of life at the end: that is where all the small debts are collected as one."
"Now you must not be down on Harriet! It makes her happier; and as to the end of my life, I shall be there to attend to that."
"Suppose I moved away with you to some other college entirely out of her reach?"
"I shall not suppose it because you will never do it. If you did, Harriet would simply find somebody else to confide in; she must tell everything to somebody. But if she told any one else, a good many of these stories would be all over town. She tells me and they get no further."
"What right have you to listen to scandal in order to suppress it?"
"I don't even listen always: I merely stop the stream at its source."