Jessie bowed her thanks, and murmured that she would be very grateful for a cup of tea. It was not long before she heard the breakfast-bell. Hastily quitting the room, she made her way down the corridor. In her confusion, the girl made the mistake of turning to the left, instead of the right, as she had been directed.
"The second door," she muttered to herself.
As she reached it she paused abruptly. It was slightly ajar. Glancing in hesitatingly, she saw that it looked more like a young lady's boudoir than an ordinary breakfast-room. Before a mirror at the further end of the apartment sat a young girl in the sun-light. A maid was brushing out the wavy masses of her warm-tinted auburn hair.
While Jessie was hesitating as to whether she should tap on the door and make her presence known or walk on further through the corridor, a conversation which she could not help overhearing, held her spell-bound, fairly rooted to the spot.
"I assure you it is quite true, Janet," the lovely young girl was saying in a very fretful, angry voice. "The old lady has got a companion in the house at last. But she shall not stay long beneath this roof depend upon that, Janet. She is young and very beautiful.
"I would not care so much, if it were not that the handsome grandson is expected to arrive every day."
"Surely, Miss Rosamond, you, with all your beauty, do not fear a rival in the little humble companion."
"Companions have been known to do a great deal of mischief before now, and, as I have said, the girl is remarkably pretty. I saw her from the library window as she was coming up the front steps, and then, when old Mrs. Bassett came down to the library, I was safely ensconced behind the silken draperies of the bay-window, and I heard all that was said. You may be sure that I was angry enough. She shall not stay here long, if I can help it. I will make it so unpleasant for her that she will be glad to go. I detest the girl already, on general principles."
Jessie Bain cowered back, dazed and bewildered, almost doubting her own senses as to what she had just heard.
Smarting with bitter pain, Jessie turned away and hurried swiftly down the corridor in the opposite direction.