"Mother, mother, what does it mean?" asked Letty when she heard the letter read, while Winny lay with clasped hands and shining eyes, too deeply moved to utter her thoughts to anyone but God, in the swift uprising of thanksgiving for this fresh proof of his love.
"Letty, we must go and find father!" exclaimed Mrs. Chaplin, as soon as she could find her tongue. "Mr. Brown, do you know where he is?" she exclaimed turning to him, for he had brought the letter and still stood looking from one to the other, for he knew that to get work in the country had long been his friend's wish for the sake of poor Winny.
He shook his head to Mrs. Chaplin's question, and turning to the invalid on the couch, he said: "Well, what do you think of it, my dear?"
"Oh, I am so glad!" she replied. "It was kind of Annie to think of father and send to tell him."
"I wouldn't own her for my 'little un' again if she didn't do all she could for you, Winny," he replied. "But we shall miss you, my dear; we shall all miss you. But look here, if you hadn't give my gal the chance you did, why she couldn't have done this for you, so you see after all, it's just your own kindness coming back to you again. The seed you sowed is just bearing the right kind of fruit. That's what it is, my lass, you may depend upon that. We heard something like it down at the mission-hall the other day, when Miss Lavender give us that tea. She stood up afterwards and warned us against losing our patience or our temper, telling us in good plain words that the seed we sowed would bring the same kind of fruit to us."
"I wish I could have heard Miss Lavender speak like that," said Winny with glowing cheeks.
The girl almost worshipped her teacher, and now, as the thought crossed her mind that if her father got this work in the country, it would separate her from this dear friend, the tears rose to her eyes tears of regret this time, not of thankfulness and she wondered how she could have forgotten for a moment what going to live in the country would mean to her.
Meanwhile Letty had gone one way and her mother another in search of Chaplin, to tell him the good news. But they both came back in the course of a quarter of an hour to see if he had returned, as neither of them had been able to find him.
Brown had gone upstairs to perform the laborious task of answering Annie's letter, for she always insisted that he should do this, as she could not read any writing but his; and he said that Chaplin would come and see the master at once, and that Winny was very glad.
There was no more to tell according to the way Brown looked at things, and even this was a difficult task to him, and took him a long time to perform, so that he knew very little of what was going on downstairs.