Then the sliding window closed, and Mrs. Brown turned homewards by another road to avoid going through the town. She grew more calm and less anxious about Fanny the longer she considered the matter, for she had heard of this fever hospital before, and knew that the patients received every care, and were as well nursed as if they were at home. She felt sure that Fanny would be taken good care of; but she wanted to see her, and know all that had happened, and why she did not write to tell her she was ill, before she was so bad as to be taken away. There were so many things she wanted to ask her, that it was well for Fanny that her mother could not go to see her just now.
Mrs. Brown had asked about Fanny's clothes, and the lady had told her that, after she had been taken away, the parish authorities had sent to fetch them to be disinfected.
"They had better be sent home when they are ready," said Mrs. Brown. And, at her request, Mrs. Lewis wrote a note to this effect, and this Mrs. Brown left at the office as she passed, telling the clerk that she was the girl's mother, and that Fanny would return home as soon as she was well.
Brown wrote to his wife the next day, when he heard the news from her, saying what he could to comfort her, and that if he had been working at the factory close at hand he could have done no more than she had, and that he was glad she made the necessary inquiries about her clothes, for the poor girl thought so much of her clothes, he knew, and she would want them when she came home.
What a bitter commentary on this the next day brought. A large, blue, official-looking letter came in the middle of the afternoon.
Mrs. Brown's fingers shook as she took it out of the postman's hands, and Jessie Collins, who had been helped to limp over to pay her first visit to her friend, said, in a tone of alarm, "Is there anything the matter, Mrs. Brown?" when she went into the kitchen with the letter in her hand.
"I don't know, I don't know," said Mrs. Brown; and then, with a desperate effort, she tore open the envelope, and took out the large sheet of blue paper and read, "I regret to inform you that your daughter, Fanny Brown, died this morning, and I have to request that her body—"
Mrs. Brown did not read any further. The letter slipped from her fingers, her head drooped, and she would have fallen out of the chair on which she was sitting if Jessie had not saved her.
Jessie was frightened, but managed to reach to the wall, and knock for the next-door neighbour, who was a friend of Mrs. Brown's.
"Whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed, as she rushed in at the back door.