The Complete Fairy Tales & Other Stories
By Hans Christian Andersen - online book

Oxford Complete Illustrated Edition all his stories written between 1835 and 1872.

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	SHE WAS GOOD FOR NOTHING           487 boy ! you look quite pale. You are shivering in your thin clothes—to be sure it is autumn. Ugh ! how cold the water is ! I hope I shall not be ill. But no, I shall not be that I Give me a little more, and you may have a sip too, but only a little sip, for you must not accustom yourself to it, my poor dear child ! ' And she stepped up to the bridge on which the boy stood, and came ashore. The water dripped from the straw matting she had wound round her, and from her gown.
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	' I work and toil as much as ever I can,' she said, ' but I do it willingly, if I can only manage to bring you up honestly and well, my boy.' As she spoke, a somewhat older woman came towards them. She was poor enough to behold, lame of one leg, and with a large false curl hanging down over one of her eyes, which was a blind one. The curl was intended to cover the eye, but it only made the defect more striking. This was a friend of the laundress. She was called among the neighbours, * Lame Martha with the curl.' * Oh, you poor thing ! How you work, standing there