"It was all through reading this blue letter," said Jessie; and when the woman had moved Mrs. Brown to the armchair, she picked up the letter to see what could have caused the fainting-fit.
"Mrs. Poole, Fanny Brown is dead!" exclaimed Jessie.
At the same moment, Selina ran in from school, and was in time to hear Jessie's exclamation.
"I don't believe you, Jessie Collins. What have you done to my mother? Oh, mother, mother, speak to me!" implored the little girl, bursting into tears. "Don't you believe what Jessie Collins says," she went on, as her mother slowly opened her eyes. Selina's cry had done more to restore her than all the water and burnt feathers Mrs. Poole had used. For a minute she looked round the room in a dazed fashion, as though waking from a terrible dream. Then all at once she looked at Jessie, and said—
"The letter! the letter! I thought I had a terrible letter!"
Selina was holding the letter now, and gave it to her. She shuddered as her fingers touched it.
"Yes, yes, it is true then," she said; "and my Fanny is dead."
She did not faint again, but sat and stared at the letter for a minute, and then said—
"I must go to him. I must tell my husband."
Selina had run out and spread the news, and in a few minutes other neighbours had come in. They soon persuaded Mrs. Brown that the best thing she could do was to send a telegram to her husband, bidding him and Jack come home at once, as Fanny was worse.