Kathleen opened the letter and read the first lines. “Oh, Feena,” she said, looking up with shining eyes, “he did go to the wishing arch, and he wished for Mary Ellen’s sight, just as I asked him to.”
Then she read the rest of the letter while everyone waited. “Oh, Aunt Hannah!” she cried with delight, “Father says he is going on to the Giant’s Causeway, and I’m to come up there to meet him, and then we’ll go over to Tonroe to see Mary Ellen.”
Never did so short a letter cause so much excitement. All the Malones began talking at once and no one stopped to listen to what any one was saying. Feena jumped up to put her arms around her cousin, crying, “Kathleen, darling, you’ll never go away and leave me, will you?” Columba begged his father to let him go along with Kathleen to see that no harm came to her, and Danny repeated over and over that the child should go nowhere without himself to look after her.
When the chatter ceased for a moment, Aunt Hannah found a chance to say, “There were two letters, Kathleen. What’s become of the other?”
Sure enough, the second letter had been forgotten, and all was still for a moment while Kathleen found it and looked at the postmark.
“It is from Cousin Bee,” she said, and opened it quietly enough; but in a second she dropped it and ran to throw herself into her Aunt Hannah’s arms. “Mary Ellen can see!” she cried; “Mary Ellen can see!”
Then, indeed, there was an uproar. Columba pounded on the table with his knife and fork, shouting, “Hurrah, I told you so! It was the wishing spring that did it!” Feena danced around the room, clapping her hands and stopping at every turn to kiss Kathleen; Hannah and Anna hugged each other with delight; and little Victoria was so frightened that she clambered out of her high-chair and ran to Captain Conn to be comforted.
“Hush, children, hush!” commanded Captain Conn. “See what you’ve done now. You’ve made Victoria cry with all your noise. Be quiet while Danny reads the letter.”
“Sure, it’s not a long letter,” said Danny; “but there’s good news in every line of it,” and he read it aloud while the Malones listened breathlessly.
“Kathleen dear:—” wrote Cousin Bee, “I’ve wonderful news for you,—so good that I don’t know how to begin it. Mary Ellen can see. It’s the truth that I’m writing. She can see as well as you can this minute.