"I nursed your step-papa as a baby, Miss Halliday," she said very often on these occasions. "You wouldn't think, to look at him now, that he ever was _that_, would you? But he was one of the finest babies you could wish to see--tall, and strong, and with eyes that pierced one through, they were so bright and big and black. He was rather stubborn-spirited with his teething; but what baby isn't trying at such times? I had rare work with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness. I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on the bare whitewashed walls--it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say." "I'm afraid it has, Nancy." "But, O, I was fond of him, Miss Halliday; and what I went through with him about his teeth made me only the fonder of him. He was the first baby I ever nursed, you see, and the last; for before Master George came to town I'd taken to the cooking, and Mrs. Sheldon hired another girl as nurse; a regular softy _she_ was, and it isn't her fault that Master George has got anything christian-like in the way of a back, for the way she carried that blessed child used to make my blood run cold." Thus would Mrs. Woolper discourse whenever she had a fair excuse for detaining Miss Halliday in her comfortable apartment. Charlotte did not perceive much interest in these reminiscences of Mr. Sheldon's infancy, but she was much too kind to bring them abruptly to a close by any show of impatience. When she could get Nancy to talk of Barlingford and Hyley, and the people whom Charlotte herself had known as a child, the conversation was really interesting; and these recollections formed a link between the old woman and the fair young damsel. When the change arose in Charlotte's health and spirits, Mrs. Woolper was one of the first to perceive it. She was skilled in those old woman's remedies which Mr. Sheldon held in such supreme contempt, and she would fain have dosed the invalid with nauseous decoctions of hops, or home-brewed quinine. Charlotte appreciated the kindness of the intent, but she rebelled against the home-brewed medicines, and pinned her faith to the more scientific and less obnoxious preparations procured from the chemist's. For some time Nancy made light of the girl's ailments, though she watched her with unfailing attention. "You ain't a-done growing yet, miss, I'll lay," she said. "But I'm more than twenty-one, Nancy. People don't grow after they're of age, do they?"