"I've known them as have, miss; I don't say it's common, but it has been done. And then there's the weakness that comes after you've done growing. Girls of your age are apt to be faint and lollopy-like, as you may say; especially when they're stived up in a smoky place like London. You ought to go to Hyley, miss, where you was born; that's the place to set you up." The time had come when the change was no longer matter for doubt. Day by day Charlotte grew weaker and paler; day by day that bright and joyous creature, whose presence had made an atmosphere of youth and gladness even in that prim dwelling-place, receded farther into the dimness of the past; until to think of what she had been seemed like recalling the image of the dead. Nancy marked the alteration with a strange pain, so sharp, so bitter, that its sharpness and bitterness were a perpetual perplexity to her. "If the poor dear young thing is meant to go, there's no need for me to fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven't known her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it's not my place to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She's not my own flesh and blood; and I've sat by to watch them go, times and often, without feeling as I do when I see the change in her day after day. Why should it seem so dreadful to me?" Why indeed? This was a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel. A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been liable to the suspicion of nocturnal careerings on broomsticks. "I'm sorry Mr. Philip's house should be unlucky to that sweet young creature," she said to herself. "It was unlucky to the father; and now it seems as if it was going to be unlucky to the daughter. And Mr. Philip won't be any richer for her death. Mrs. Sheldon has told me times and often that all Tom Halliday's money went to my master when she married him, and he has doubled and trebled it by his cleverness. Miss Charlotte's death wouldn't bring him a sixpence."