it! After three tryings I finished it, then read it out loud:

DEAR LADIES,--If any one applies for Pinkie Moore, I hope you will
let her go. Pinkie is the best and most useful girl in the Asylum.
More than two years ago I said differently. It was wrong in me, and
Pinkie isn't untruthful. She hasn't a bad temper, and never in her
life took anything that didn't belong to her. I am sorry I said
what I did. She don't know it and never will, and I hope you will
forgive me for saying it.

Respectfully,

MOLLIE E. BRAY.

When I was through she cried still harder, and said she'd lose her
place. She knew she would. I told her she wouldn't. I knew she wouldn't.
And after a while she sat up in bed and copied it. Some of her tears
blotted it, but I told her that didn't matter, and when I got up to go
she looked better already.

I knew how she felt. Like I did when my tooth that had to come out was
out. And a thing on your mind is worse than the toothache. One you can
tell, the other you can't. A thing you can't tell is like a spook that's
always behind you, and right in the bed with you when you wake up
sudden, and lies down with you every time you go to sleep. I know, for
that letter is on my mind.

When I got out of Miss Bray's room I ran in mine, Miss Katherine being
out, and locked the door, and I said: