'
'And would not Helen go?' said Anne; 'she does not catch cold as
easily as you do.'
'Helen has contrived, somehow or other,' said Elizabeth, 'to know no
more about the school-children than if they were so many Esquimaux;
besides, anyone with any experience of Helen's ways, had rather walk
ninety miles in the rain, than be at the pains of routing her out of
the corner of the sofa to do anything useful.'
'Indeed,' said Anne, 'I think Helen does wish to make herself
useful.'
'I dare say she sits still and wishes it in the abstract, for I think
it must be a very disagreeable thing to reflect that she might as
well be that plaster statue for any good that she does,' said
Elizabeth; 'but she grumbles at every individual thing you propose
for her to do, just as she says she wishes to be a companion to Dora
and Winifred, yet whenever they wish her to play with them or tell
them a story, which is all the companionship children of their age
understand, she is always too much at her ease to be disturbed. And
now, as she is the only person in the house with whom poor Lucy is
tolerably at her ease, it would be cruel to take her away.
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