'Not very different from bearing and forbearing, as Helen said,' answered Anne.
'Politeness is not great enough,' said Elizabeth, 'to belong to charity.'
'You are not the person to say so,' said Anne.
'Because I dislike it so much,' said Elizabeth, 'but that is because I despise it. It is such folly to sit a whole evening with your hands before you doing nothing.'
'But do you not think,' said Anne, 'that enduring restraint, and listening to what is not amusing, for the sake of pleasing others, is doing something?'
'Passively, not actively,' said Elizabeth; 'but it is not to please others, it is only that they may think you well bred, or rather that they may not think about you at all.'
'It is to please our father and mother,' said Anne.
'Yes, and that is the reason it must be done,' said Elizabeth; 'it is the way of the world, and cannot be helped.'
'Rather say it is the trial which has been ordained for us,' said Anne.
'Well,' said Elizabeth, smiling, 'I know all the time that you have the best of the argument. It would not be so if it was not good for us.'