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.
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