She prayed to the good Father, who had been revealed to her by the dying girl; and from her prayers came a strength which was a new life to her soul. From her strong desire to be good—to be what Jenny had been—had grown up a new faith.
In the forenoon came the wife and daughter of the good physician again upon the mission of mercy. They had requested the attendance of an undertaker, and assumed the whole charge of the funeral of Jenny, which was to take place on the third day after her death.
Fanny had hardly thought of herself since the angel of death entered the house, though she had been weighed down by a burden of guilt that did not embody itself in particular thoughts. In her sincere penitence, and in her firm and sacred resolve to be good and true, she had found only a partial peace of mind. She had not a doubt in regard to her future course: she must return to Woodville, and submit to any punishment which her kind friends might impose upon her. She was willing to suffer for what she had done; she was even willing to be sent to her uncle's in Minnesota; and this feeling of submission was the best evidence to herself of the reality of her repentance.
She was not willing to return to Woodville till she had seen the mortal part of Jenny laid away in its final resting-place. But Mr. Grant, who was at Hudson with his daughters, might already have been informed of her wicked conduct; and Mr. Long was probably still engaged in the search for her. There was a duty she owed to her friends which her awakened conscience would not permit her to neglect. The family would be very anxious about her, for wayward and wilful as she had been, she felt that they still loved her. Procuring pen and paper, she wrote a letter to Mrs. Green, informing her that she should return home on Friday; that she would submit to any punishment, and endeavor to be good in the future. She sealed the note, and put it in the post-office, with a feeling that it was all she could do at present as an atonement for her faults. If it was not all she could do, it was an error of judgment, not of the heart.
On Thursday the form of Jenny was placed in the coffin. It was not a pauper's coffin; it was a black-walnut casket—plain, but rich—selected by Mrs. Porter, the physician's lady, who could not permit the form of one so beautiful to be enclosed in a less appropriate receptacle. The choicest flowers lay upon her breast, and a beautiful wreath and cross were placed upon the casket before the funeral services commenced.
The clergyman was a friend of Dr. Porter, and he was worthy to be the friend of so true a man. The service was solemn and touching; no word of hope and consolation was omitted because they stood in the humble abode of poverty and want. He spoke of the beautiful life and the happy death of Jenny, and prayed that her parents might be comforted; that the little brother might be blessed by her short life, and that "the devoted young friend, who had so tenderly watched over the last hours of the departed," might be sanctified by her holy ministrations. The father, living or dead, wherever suffering, or wherever battling against the foes of his country, was remembered.
Fanny wept, as all in the house wept, when the good man feelingly delineated the lovely character of her who was still so beautiful in her marble silence; when he recalled those tender scenes on the evening of her death, which had been faithfully described to him by Fanny. The casket was placed in the funeral car, and followed by two carriages,—one of which contained Mrs. Kent, Eddy, and Fanny, and the other the family of Dr. Porter,—to Greenwood Cemetery. Sadly the poor mother turned away from the resting-place of her earthly treasure, and the little cortège returned to the house from which the light had gone out. The last solemn, sacred duty had been performed; Jenny had gone, but her pure influence was still to live on, and bless those who had never even known her.
When the little party reached the house, Dr. Porter, after some remarks about the solemn scenes through which they had just passed, inquired more particularly than he had been permitted to do before into the circumstances of the family. He promised to procure for her the money due to her as a soldier's wife, and to obtain some light employment for her. Mrs. Kent was very grateful to him for his kind interest in herself, and in her lost one, assuring him that she did not ask for charity, and was willing to work hard for a support.
"You have been a blessing to me, Fanny," said Mrs. Kent, when the physician and his family had departed. "I am sure that God sent you here to save me from misery and despair. What should I have done if you had not come?"
"I think I was sent for my own sake, rather than for yours, for I know that it has been a greater blessing to me than to you," replied Fanny.