It was not until this had been read a second time that Mrs. Brown and Minnie could understand all it meant, and when at last she did comprehend it, Mrs. Brown was all impatience to send the answer required.
"Get me a pen and ink, Minnie. You shall take the letter to the central post-office so that it may go quicker. My poor Fanny! If I had only known this she should not have waited to hear from us."
But Mrs. Brown did not find it so easy to answer the official letter she had received, and she wondered where the parents of the girl they had buried could be found. These people were living in the belief that their daughter was getting better; and what a cruel awakening it would be when they heard she had been buried by strangers in a strange place.
She could not help thinking of these unknown parents as she rejoiced over the news this letter had brought to her.
"It was a good thing we did not tear up the ugly blue letter," said Minnie, as her mother wrote the few lines required as the official reply.
To Fanny she wrote more freely, assuring her of love and forgiveness, and promising to come and see her as soon as visitors were allowed, and that Minnie and Eliza should write to her the next day.
Having sent Minnie with this letter to the central post-office that it might reach its destination the more quickly, she next wrote to her husband, enclosing the letters she had received from the hospital, and telling him what she had done. When this letter was finished, she put on her bonnet and went herself to post it, and send a telegram to him at once, for she could not keep the wonderful news to herself. She wanted to tell everybody she met that it was all a mistake that her Fanny was dead. She did tell several of the neighbours whom she knew, and they, remembering how ill she was when the news of Fanny's death first came, looked at her in wondering surprise, and though they said a few words of congratulation at the time, they shook their heads in a pitying fashion afterwards, and whispered to each other that they feared poor Mrs. Brown had gone out of her mind. This report reached Jessie Collins before Mrs. Brown returned after sending her telegram.
Jessie's foot was better now, and she was waiting at the corner of the street when Mrs. Brown got back from the post-office.
"I have come to see if I can help you do anything this morning," said the girl, looking keenly at her friend.
"Thank you, dear; but Minnie will be back very soon now. She has not gone to school this morning. Have you heard the good news? I told Mrs. Tate when I met her going to the post-office. It is all a mistake about our Fanny being dead. She is getting better. I had a letter from the hospital telling me this morning, and have just sent to let her father know."